Version:           0.8 Beta CVS (using KDE KDE 3.1.4)
Installed from:    Mandrake RPMs

The Kopete 0.8 Beta CVS IRC plugin does not allow channel names beginning with other than the # character.

The characters !,+,&, and # are acceptable channel specifiers.

Per IRC RFC 2811 - Quoted

2.1 Namespace

   Channels names are strings (beginning with a '&', '#', '+' or '!'
   character) of length up to fifty (50) characters.  Channel names are
   case insensitive.

   Apart from the the requirement that the first character being either
   '&', '#', '+' or '!' (hereafter called "channel prefix"). The only
   restriction on a channel name is that it SHALL NOT contain any spaces
   (' '), a control G (^G or ASCII 7), a comma (',' which is used as a
   list item separator by the protocol).  Also, a colon (':') is used as
   a delimiter for the channel mask.  The exact syntax of a channel name
   is defined in "IRC Server Protocol" [IRC-SERVER].

   The use of different prefixes effectively creates four (4) distinct
   namespaces for channel names.  This is important because of the
   protocol limitations regarding namespaces (in general).  See section
   6.1 (Labels) for more details on these limitations.