Usenet newsgroups have been around since the early 1980's. They started out as moderated groups. All the groups that don't start with alt. are in that category. Groups like soc.genealogy started out with moderators and rules about what could and could not be posted. You had to float an RFC (request for comments) if you wanted to start a new newsgroup back in those days. Well, they became popular and people didn't want all the restrictions so they started up a whole new higher level newsgroup structure under the heading of alt. for alternate newsgroups. Newsgroups like alt.religion.w-w-church-god fall into the latter category. It's been around for many years - perhaps not as long as wcgnet but dating back into the late 1990's I suppose. The problem was when the internet explosion of the 1990's happened not too many had the know how to get at them. Newsgroups are an artifact of the early internet users attempting to create an easier way to keep in touch other than having mailing lists. People who post to newsgroups kind of follow netiquette rules. If you don't you get flamed in internet jargon. Getting flamed means you can expect to get all kinds of replies telling you you're not following the rules. That's about it. This is entirely my historical perspective on the subject. Others probably have a different story to tell.

No moderator on the alt. groups means that the alt. groups are a resource of the internet and as such anyone that has news reader software can read / post to them. I presume the majority of the ISP's across the country / world all carry some / all of the newsgroups. You can say pretty much anything you want except things that will bring the BATF or FBI to your door and no one will stop you. Of course there is always the CDA to think about. CDA, the communications deceny act, put into law the same rules that apply to broadcast radio / TV to communications over the internet. So the 7 words that radio / TV personalities can't say on the air could get you into trouble with the CDA. In theory it could bring the FBI or more likely the FCC to your door.

People that participate in the newsgroup alt.religion.w-w-church-god talk a lot about the same things that are discussed on wcgnet, rcg-forum, ekklesia, likeminds, etc. etc. If you want to see how a moderated (hierarchically governed) mailing list works sign up for likeminds. You will see some old familiar names on alt.religion.w-w-church-god and some new ones.