How to Name a Newsgroup
A brief explanation of what newsgroup names mean
Newsgroup names describe their groups-- they don't define them. The purpose
of a newsgroup name is to group related topics; it should never be interpreted
as meaning that the discussion is restricted to the subject indicated
by the name, but rather only that the discussion is in some way
related to that subject. It is quite common to put a group related
to someone who works both in TV and in radio (or in TV and in movies), for
example, in alt.tv.*. This doesn't mean that discussions of their radio (or
movie) work are off-topic in that newsgroup; it simply communicates to those
who aren't familiar with the person in question that he or she is associated
with television.
Terminology:
Component (or "field"): A component of a newsgroup name is the characters between two dots, or between a dot and the beginning or end of the name; for example, "alt", "games", and "doom" are the components in the name: alt.games.doom (note: "alt.games.doom" has since been superceded by a hierarchy of Doom newsgroups named rec.games.computer.doom.* {* = announce, misc, help, editing, playing})
Hierarchy: A hierarchy is a directory for newsgroups; hierarchies should contain a set of related newsgroups. To use the alt.games.doom example from above, "alt.games" (also abbreviated: "alt.games.*", using "*" as a wildcard character) is a hierarchy, which should contain all games-related newsgroups
in "alt", and should not contain any newsgroups that are not in some way related to games.
Requirements of Newsgroup Naming:
- No component should exceed 14 characters in length (abbreviate if necessary)
- No component should contain characters other than:
- lowercase letters
- digits
- the plus sign ("+")
- the minus sign ("-")
{also called a "dash"; use it instead of a space, to separate words}
- Components should not consist only of digits (e.g: don't use "1999")
Conventions of Newsgroup Naming:
- Components should be increasingly specific, reading from left to right
- The dot (".") should never be used merely to separate words (e.g.: use "marilyn-monroe", instead of using "marilyn.monroe")
- New hierarchies should not be created without compelling reason to do so (creating a new top-level "alt" hierarchy, e.g.: "alt.new-hierarchy", is especially bad-- see "The Top-Level Problem in 'alt'")
- Newsgroups should be placed inside the most appropriate existing hierarchy; if the topic of a newsgroup is related to the subject of the hierarchy, it is preferable to place the group there, even if the topic of the newsgroup also includes things outside that subject area. (Names are descriptive, not defining)
- Newsgroup names should make sense even to people who have never heard of
the topic (avoid obscure acronyms and abbreviations-- use up those 14
characters per component, if you need to)
- Newsgroups for specific topics should follow more general newsgroups
(e.g.: don't start a group about the computer consulting business unless
there's already a group about the consulting business in general). If there
isn't a general newsgroup for your subject area, then start by creating one,
and if the traffic in it becomes difficult to manage, then propose
dividing it into more specific sub-groups.
- Newsgroups are organized by topic-- not by product or
manufacturer. Exceptions to this rule should be made only when an existing
newsgroup or hierarchy for that topic is receiving a high volume of traffic,
and a sub-division by product or manufacturer would logically divide that
existing newsgroup or hierarchy into manageable sub-groupings.
Assistance Naming A Newsgroup
Each week, I update a fairly comprehensive list of newsgroups carried at
certain major sites; I find this extremely useful for checking to see what
newsgroups already exist that might cover a given topic. If you're
considering creating a new newsgroup, and would like to check that a
newsgroup on that topic doesn't already exist (or to find an appropriate
hierarchy), feel free to email me and ask
me to check on it for you. Unfortunately, I do not have time to respond to
every request for information about newsgroups, so please do not take
advantage of this offer unless you actually want to start a newsgroup on that
topic if there is not one already covering it; if you're just interested in
knowing if there's a newsgroup on a given subject, post your question to the
newsgroup intended for those sorts of questions:
news.groups.questions