From: catwheezel@operamail.com 
  
 On 2007-11-10, D. Stussy  wrote: 
 > Is there an official position regarding invalidly named groups?  Although I 
 > do note that many seem to have only spam on them, there does seem to be a 
 > handful (e.g. "24hoursupport.helpdesk") that has valid article content (i. 
 e. 
 > not spam). 
 > 
 > Rules:  ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/CONFIG/README  (as revised 2007-07-19) 
 > 
 > "All newsgroup names consist of components, which are the elements of 
 >   the name between the dots.  For example, "news.announce.newgroups" has 
 >   three components, "news", "announce" and "newgroups.  No groups will be 
 >   added that do not conform to the following standard for Usenet groups: 
 > 
 >   - a component must not contain characters other than [a-z0-9+_-] 
 >   - a component must contain at least one non-digit 
 >   - a component must not contain uppercase letters 
 >   - a component must begin with a letter or digit 
 >   - sequences 'all' and 'ctl' must not be used as components 
 >   - the name must have at least two components 
 >   - the first component must begin with a letter 
 >   - the first component must not be "control", "to", or "example"." 
 > 
 > Due to software interoperability constraints and limitations, it's my 
 > understanding that these rules apply to ALL groups, even the alt.* and 
 > free.* hierarchies which may break other rules.  I'm aware that such groups 
 > are not reflected at isc.org's archive.  What is considered the "best 
 > practice" - accept or reject them?  Ignore them? 
  
 24hoursupport.helpdesk seems to have a perfectly valid name apart from the 
 leading numeral - and it seems to pre-date the rules about that so gets 
 through on the 'already here' principle.  It's also quite a useful 
 resource. 
  
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