Usenet groups

Usenet was the online birth place of the Doom community in 1993, as news about the game's ongoing development created an unprecedented level of hype and enthusiasm in the then-nascent online gaming scene. Several members of id Software, John Romero in particular, often personally posted information and responses to the newsgroups. The Official Doom FAQ started as a collection of such information and related postings on by avid user Hank Leukart. Another significant record of the groups' culture exists in the form of the FAQ's sister document Doom Insanity, a collection of humorous anecdotes which were also collected by Leukart.

List of groups
Doom discussion had by necessity begun in the more generic newsgroup, and in-depth discussion spread to the newly created  and  groups. In October 1994, the members of these two groups voted for the creation of the hierarchy. From the end of 1994 up until the gradual sunset of Usenet in the early 2000s, these groups served as one of the main forums for online discussion of Doom. Their functions were gradually replaced by websites with forums as the growth of the World Wide Web took stride. After their creation, discussion of Doom became off-topic in the hierarchy and could earn a poster scorn. Discussion of Heretic was additionally considered on-topic for the Doom-related groups.