In Usenet's infancy, administrators worked together to guide the development of Usenet. However, a central governing body for Usenet has never been necessary for its operation.

The term 'Cabal' has a negative connotation, inspiring images of shadowy figures pulling strings from behind the scenes. This sinister imagery was what many Usenet participants used to characterize Usenet administrators during one of the most important early developments to take place on Usenet.

The historical 'Cabal' probably exerted its influence the most with the creation of the Big 8 hierarchies, which are the standard top-level newsgroup hierarchies to this day. This event was known as The Great Renaming. Before the Big 8, there were only three top-level hierarchies, net.*, fa.*, and mod.*, with no real guidelines set to regulate the subject matter posted to each. In time, it became difficult to name and administer new newsgroups, and Usenet server administrators at the time began discussing ways to reorganize Usenet, eventually settling on a new set of hierarchies altogether. The characterization of these administrators as a cabal came from the opinion of many end-users that this major change was willed into reality by a small minority, with no regard for the user's concerns that their particular service would support such groups. Another major concern was that the cabal would determine every single newsgroup allowed in the new hierarchies.

Of course, the Great Renaming was actually one of the better developments to occur on Usenet. With the cost of running a Usenet server constantly falling, few servers had issues supporting all of the new newsgroups, and the creation of the alt.* hierarchy guaranteed that newsgroups could be created for literally any subject.

Usenet has always been an open network, allowing anyone with the resources to create a Usenet server, serve hierarchies, and send and receive posts without the need for approval or intervention by a higher authority. Community decisions such as The Great Renaming may not occur again for quite some time, if at all. These days, the cabal is considered an inside joke on Usenet, and many users will proclaim that "There Is No Cabal". alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal is one newsgroup dedicated to speculating what control the Cabal may still exert on Usenet.