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.museum TLDs are Live

GuNgA-DiN writes: "Several sites in .museum have now gone live: you can check out met.art.museum, stockholm.music.museum, and minnesota.science.museum, for instance. You can navigate the hierarchical structure of this TLD via index.museum, or go directly to an index page for a particular second level domain by going to that domain, e.g., art.museum. Since the .museum TLD is still in its experimental phase, these domains haven't been delegated to their registrants yet, but resolve as CNAME records in the TLD root, pointing at the other domains each site already has. Thus, .museum addresses can currently only be used as additional addresses for sites that already have some other domain. MX records haven't yet been set up, so email to these domains won't yet work."

124 comments

  1. .biz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Offtopic
    What?

    When did this happen? I didn't get thousands of spam mails about it.

    I guess I'll have to get on the ball and register my .biz domains now before it's too late!

  2. Wow by autopr0n · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How completly usless.

    Well, not entirely usless, although the choice of museum's as a class of institutions deserving a tld seems kind of random.

    Otoh, I really like their index system, rather then having 2nd level domains up for grabs, although they seem to be allowing just about every catigory you could think of. I mean 'airguard.museum'? sci.museum and science.museum? and why does the louvre get a 2nd level? (those stuck up french :P)

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, not entirely usless, although the choice of museum's as a class of institutions deserving a tld seems kind of random.

      It's even worse than that, since domain names are supposed to point to machines, not institutions. What if a machine has hosting for a museum and a biz?

    2. Re:Wow by mattdm · · Score: 3, Informative

      No no. Domain names are not supposed to point to ANYTHING. *Host* names are supposed to point to machines, and technically, a given name can't be both a domain name and a hostname. This is why we've got www.[whatever].[tld] everywhere. But somewhere in the mid-90s the web grew to be the Most Important Thing On the Internet, and it became normal practice to basically make one's domain name also a hostname pointed to one's web server.

    3. Re:Wow by 8bit · · Score: 1

      not entirely useless, it'll make finding a museum's website a hell of a lot easier. Think about it, you want to go to such-and-such museum, but you don't know it's hours, and it's in a far away town (you want to visit in the middle of your road trip.) Just try such-and-such.museum or dig it up in the (hopefully to be improved,) index.museum.

      I just hope it doesn't become polluted with not really museums or have the domains sold. *shudder* sweat-stain-lookalike.elvis.museum

      --

      --Roy
    4. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At a guess; they went with 'museum' early because it targets a group of people who are partial to classifying and cataloging things. They probably figured the museum people would be most likely to organise their new domain nicely (which they appear to have done). With luck, some of the other new tld's might follow their example instead of the usual 2nd-level free-for-all.

    5. Re:Wow by psamuels · · Score: 3, Informative
      Domain names are not supposed to point to ANYTHING. *Host* names are supposed to point to machines, and technically, a given name can't be both a domain name and a hostname.

      Since when? Do you have an RFC cite for this? DNS is quite unopinionated on the subject - host names and domain names are treated the same.

      But somewhere in the mid-90s the web grew to be the Most Important Thing On the Internet, and it became normal practice to basically make one's domain name also a hostname pointed to one's web server.

      I remember back in '93 hmc.edu used this technique, but not for a web site. It had an MX record, but some broken mail clients of the day did not consult MX records, so it also had an A record for the appropriate IP address.

      I believe this was a widespread technique to work around these broken mail clients long before the web became popular, although I don't have any evidence to back this up.

      --
      "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
    6. Re:Wow by kimihia · · Score: 2

      Come to New Zealand, where "Crown Research Institutes" have their own second level: .cri.nz

    7. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm. I'm surprised online museums even exist in the era of the U.S.'s DMCA IP-Heist.

  3. damn now we need to spell by havardi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Isn't "museum" a little too hard for the average net user to spell correctly?
    This idea is only going to cause more problems...

    1. Re:damn now we need to spell by trilucid · · Score: 2, Flamebait

      Uh, no. Are these hard to spell?

      • slashdot
      • google
      • amazon
      • troll

      You may hold the belief that the average Net user is a drooling idiot, but I can't share that view. Might such a user be ill-informed on issues related privacy online? Sure. Might s/he be ill-informed on kernel hackery? Sure. Does this make you a better person? No.

      I somehow doubt the idea that Joe User can't spell the word "museum." I'm fairly sure your post was meant to be funny, and I apologize if I seem a bit harsh here. It's just that so many people here have a nasty tendency to look down upon anyone who (a) doesn't use Linux/BSD/OS X/whatever-cool-OS, (b) doesn't code, or (c) isn't a card-carrying GPL advocate. All three points actually apply to me, but I don't go around screaming it from the belfries.

      More than anything, I've gotta wonder what kind of crack a moderator would have to be smoking to give that an "insightful +1" moderation...

      Web hosting for geeks, by geeks. Starting at $4 USD per month.
      If you're gonna email, use the public key!
    2. Re:damn now we need to spell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You really want more short bus riding McTards on the net? Let's round 'em all up, take away their computers and give them etch-a-sketches. They'll never know the difference.

    3. Re:damn now we need to spell by jcoy42 · · Score: 1

      Instead you should be feeling brief twinge of nostalgia for the good old days when you actually had to type anonymous and you got flamed if you couldn't spell on usenet- way back when The Internet was an information highway.

      --
      Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
    4. Re:damn now we need to spell by trilucid · · Score: 1


      Minor clarification: meant to say that the *converse* of all three points applies to me (as in, I use Linux, code frantically, and use the GPL).

      Thanks :).

      Web hosting for geeks, by geeks. Starting at $4 USD per month.
      If you're gonna email, use the public key!

    5. Re:damn now we need to spell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nobody ever went broke underestimating human intelligence. Well, ate least prior to the .bomb mania of late.

      Which, ironically, demonstrates human intelligence is an oxymoron for some people...

    6. Re:damn now we need to spell by D+Anderson+n'Swaart · · Score: 2
      It's not the spelling. Most people can spell museum. But ".museum" is a lot more cumbersome than your average TLD. .com, .net, .org...you see what I'm getting at?

      Why not .mus? I thought the idea was that it was a small suffix...a TLD that takes up more space than the domain is kinda stupid surely?

    7. Re:damn now we need to spell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's just that so many people here have a nasty tendency to look down upon anyone who (a) doesn't use Linux/BSD/OS X/whatever-cool-OS, (b) doesn't code, or (c) isn't a card-carrying GPL advocate. All three points actually apply to me, but I don't go around screaming it from the belfries.

      Reminds me of a quote from Voltaire:

      "The idiot contradicts himself in every sentence."

    8. Re:damn now we need to spell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You may hold the belief that the average Net user is a drooling idiot, but I can't share that view. Might such a user be ill-informed on issues related privacy online? Sure. Might s/he be ill-informed on kernel hackery? Sure. Does this make you a better person? No.
      Actually, the fact that I am aware of online privacy issues does make me a better person. Ignorance of vital issues does not make a person noble.
  4. Alternatively by Ed+Avis · · Score: 3, Informative

    In Britain some museums (eg the Natural History Museum) are counted as academic institutions so they appear in .ac.uk along with the universities. Strangely, the next-door Science Museum seems not to appreciate this and is redirecting from its old nmsi.ac.uk domain to something much less classy. Darn, that Slashdot goatse indicator is spoiling the surprise of clicking on the links to find out what the domains actually are :-(.

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    1. Re:Alternatively by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Darn, that Slashdot goatse indicator is spoiling the surprise of clicking on the links to find out what the domains actually are :-(.



      Well, you can still use a redirection to redirect. My favorite exploit had to be allowing javascript in the href link. Not only could you set the link to appear to point elsewhere in the status bar, you could even insert code into the page with a mouseover. or worse :)

    2. Re:Alternatively by Lars+T. · · Score: 5, Funny

      Classy? Sorry, nhm.ac.uk is close to the sound my cat makes when it throws up.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    3. Re:Alternatively by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      If you don't like small-mammal digestive noises then you are clearly not a Unix user :-).

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    4. Re:Alternatively by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any HTML composer should at least verify URIs are well-formed--ECMAscript, "javascript", "jscript", and "vbscript" are all missing from the list of valid URI schemes, so there's no reason to expect them to work. Of course, anyone who enables most browsers' historically insecure scripting implementations for untrusted documents probably deserves what they get.

  5. .mus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    .mus should have been the extension of choice.

    1. Re:.mus by Ozan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But it can be mistaken for 'music'

    2. Re:.mus by dattaway · · Score: 2

      I disagree: .mp3 and .ogg would be memorable for any music fan.

    3. Re:.mus by toriver · · Score: 1
      .mus should have been the extension of choice.

      This might come as a shock to you, but there really is no point in furthering the "cryptification" of words just because at some point in the distant past, there were systems which apparently had a limitation of three characters at the end of something.

      Ppl prf rdn ful wds not abr chs rnd.

      Do you also have all your HTML pages end in .htm? How MICROS~1.

  6. Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs... by cnvogel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ignoring how stupid those new TLDs .museum
    and .aero really are... technically the MX is
    already there:

    obelix:chris$ host -t mx met.art.museum

    met.art.museum is a nickname for www.metmuseum.org

    www.metmuseum.org is a nickname for metmuseum.org

    metmuseum.org mail is handled (pri=10) by proxy00.metmuseum.org

    But of course no one told the mailserver...

    220 mail00.metmuseum.org InterScan VirusWall NT ESMTP 3.5 (build 1294) ready at Sat, 01 Dec 2001 08:20:17 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

    MAIL FROM:

    250 : Sender Ok

    RCPT TO:

    550 Relaying denied to met.art.museum

  7. When does it end...? by taffyd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How many different extensions are we going to have? How many people are going to actually use them?

    I think that the 'dot com' culture is too firmly entrenched. Businesses are always going to want to try and get a .com name. Forget about .biz, or .info, or .museum, or .rabid_attack_wombles.

    Taffyd.

    1. Re:When does it end...? by Pathetic+Coward · · Score: 1

      We need to lobby ICANN for a "slashdot" extension!

      (example: www.cowboyneal.slashdot)

    2. Re:When does it end...? by drsoran · · Score: 1

      It will end when the top level root opens up to whatever names you want as long as you have enough money. IBM will register ibm., microsoft will have microsoft., etc. No worries about someone else taking your name but the heirarchy will be destroyed. Oh well.

    3. Re:When does it end...? by zeno_2 · · Score: 1

      Would the main slashdot page be just http://slashdot, or http://home.slashdot, or http://main.slashdot, etc..

      I thought these new TLD's are pretty neat, but when you get what the other poster had up there, 4 domains that point to the Carnegie Museum of Art, it seems to me that they didn't organize this well.

      Here is what I mean:

      carnegie.art.museum
      carnegie.museum.of.art.museum
      carnegiemuseum.art.museum
      carnegiemuseum.of.art.museum

      Now, it seems to me that it would have been more logical to say, .museum would have to signify what kind of museum, like art, and whatever else.

      So, now we can have:

      .art.museum
      .maritime.museum
      .ushistory.museum
      .euhistory.museum

      You could then type out: "http://art.museum" and get a listing of all the museums of art online. And similarly, you could type out "http://maritime.museum" and get a listing of all those. It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to find museums that way online. I guess some museums have multiple sections, you could just list them under multiple domains I guess..

      Well anyway, its pretty cool i guess, but I seems its going to end up how our domains are now. Wasn't .com supposed to be commercial buisness's only, I think I had heard that from someplace.

    4. Re:When does it end...? by catfood · · Score: 1

      How many different extensions are we going to have?


      Answer: exactly zero. There's no such thing as an "extension" in DNS. Thinking that domains consist of "domains" and "extensions" is what got us silliness like dot-biz and domain squatters in the first place.

    5. Re:When does it end...? by UberLame · · Score: 1

      Hey, if you get them to create a .rabid_attack_wombles, I would buy several domains under it. Just imagine, and please go to:
      http://www.uberlame.rabid_attack_wombles/ hehe.

      --
      I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
  8. How about by redcliffe · · Score: 0

    i_hate_the.museum
    boring.museum

    or even(shudder)
    goatse.museum

    ewww!!!

  9. Quite nice by Accumulator · · Score: 2

    Nice domain! :) I'd love to have one. What is the criteria of becoming a museum ;)

    Well, back to reality. Every country has a lot of museums. Large cities may have several dousins. But they don't get sorted after country, and that may be troublesome.

    On the other hand, stockholm.music.museum. They categorize the museums in which fields they belong to. And that makes it quite clear. You know you're at the right place when you are at einstein.technical.museum, rather when you're at theeinsteinmuseum.com.

    My humble opinion at least :)

    --
    "The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages." - Tao of Programming
  10. Magic House, but no Bowling by trentfoley · · Score: 1

    I live in St. Louis, Missouri and perused the index looking for local museums that were represented in the new TLD. The only one I found was magichouse.stlouis.museum. The Magic House (www.magichouse.com), to be fair, is a branch of the St. Louis Children's Museum. However, it is not quite what I would call a museum. Granted, it is a great place to take your kids on a rainy afternoon, or for a birthday party. But, there are many, many other museums in St. Louis that are more deserving -- particularly the St. Louis Art Museum in Forest Park, or the new Science Center (with the brand new planetarium), even the Bowling Hall of Fame deserves mentioning! These at least have something to do with the preservation of culture. Maybe I wouldn't be so disappointed if the Magic House didn't charge $5.50 per person (children under 2 free).

  11. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by aozilla · · Score: 3, Informative

    You don't follow a CNAME to a CNAME and then follow the MX. That's not how it works.

    Of course, technically, you're not supposed to have a CNAME to a CNAME in the first place.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  12. Try This by epsalon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, the first test for a new TLD is usually this.
    Was I suprised when I got the reply "There is no sex.museum". Then where are all those banners pointing at?

    1. Re:Try This by epsalon · · Score: 5, Funny

      You could also try this for a joke:

      Where is the museum? (click for reply)

    2. Re:Try This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:Try This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wanted to know where the goddamned museum is and couldn't fucking find it.

    4. Re:Try This by Bender+Unit+22 · · Score: 1

      hmm,
      We have a sex museum downtown Copenhagen and it's not even a joke. :)
      (and yes they have screens showing clips of pornos from the movies was invented to now. At least I think they had that at a time)

    5. Re:Try This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fur

    6. Re:Try This by xantho · · Score: 1

      Just try putting it in shaker.museum. I mean, hancockvillage.shaker.museum is there, so it sems like a fit...

  13. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RFC 1123 explicitly states that SMTP mail should be addressed to canonical name hosts. To be canonical, the DNS entry must be an A record or an MX record. CNAME records are not canonical and should not be mixed with MX records.

  14. What were they thinking? by Jon+Paxton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm still struggling to see why anyone thinks Museums are worthy of their own TLD. It makes sense to have TLDs for areas of the net/web that can be expected to contain massively varying content (commercial, organisations, countries etc) but museums??

    How many times have you actually wanted to find the website for a museum and not been able to do so using any search engine?

    The only people NOT capable of using a search engine to find a website aren't going to think "oh, maybe i should try http://index.museum/". I wonder if there is really an alteria motive by the companies who are bidding to run these new TLDs as some way of getting a foot in the door and controlling a bit of the web... But maybe I'm just cynical :)

    1. Re:What were they thinking? by Lars+T. · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It makes as much sense as the other new TLDs do. Actually it makes more sense. I doubt you will find anything under e.g. ford.biz and ford.info but what you find now at ford.com - ford.museum OTOH will lead you to the old Fords. You are seeking for any science museum? Type in science.museum into the address bar - voila, all (registered) science museums. No chance to find something that is not a science museum, no need to call up a search engine.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    2. Re:What were they thinking? by toriver · · Score: 1
      I'm still struggling to see why anyone thinks Museums are worthy of their own TLD.

      In a world where 99% of .com domains aren't worthy of their domain? Complain about realproblems instead.

  15. Here's an idea... by Knunov · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone should setup the dot.com.museum to display all the defunct dot bombs :)

    Knunov

    --
    Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
    1. Re:Here's an idea... by LinuxHam · · Score: 2

      quick! register it! dotcom.museum and dotbomb.museum are both available..

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
  16. Keep it that way by aozilla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since the .museum TLD is still in its experimental phase, these domains haven't been delegated to their registrants yet, but resolve as CNAME records in the TLD root, pointing at the other domains each site already has.

    Why should a .museum TLD have an A record anyway? I can see a CNAME, pointing to the real machine name, and I can see an MX, also pointing to the real machine name, but the whole concept of .museum is a web thing. What we need is a WWW record, for now CNAME will have to do.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  17. TLD Madness by Alien54 · · Score: 2
    Given that TLDs were chosen for the convenience of identification, or so it seems, I still think that there should be a large number (maybe thousands) of TLDs available, if for no ither reason than to provide labels for languages other than English. (thinking of Chinese characters, etc)

    Other than that, the .museum TLD is a little long for convenience.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  18. All I can say.. by bwulf · · Score: 5, Funny

    .. is this.

    1. Re:All I can say.. by fdragon · · Score: 1

      This is funny... They have a corvet.museum but no jeep.museum or volkswagen.museum or even edsil.museum. Shouldn't we make them for everyone if we are going to make them for corvets?

      Then again, what if corvet isn't that car made by chevy, but corvet class battle ships?

      Eh... i get off my soap box and wonder why we just cannot give these people a .museum.org and be done with it.

      --
      The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead.
    2. Re:All I can say.. by zeno_2 · · Score: 1

      Well its not the car made by chevy because its called a corvette.

  19. Not complete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where are cocacola.museum, nike.museum and disney.museum? It's not complete without them..

    :)

  20. Or even by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    pussy for the swedish crowd.. :) .. slicka.min.mus

    1. Re:Or even by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      This was moderated as Funny... When did goatse-level-humor become funny at Slashdot? Sack the moderator. He wrote

      http://slashdot.org/lick.my.pussy

      Is that worthy a Funny?

      How about a

      http://slashdot.org/suck.my.pole

      Is that Funny too?

      Come on moderators. Fuck lick screw arse cunt prick dick cock tunnel-of-fudge isn't fun in any language. They are bad taste, and suck... ;)

  21. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    220 mail00.metmuseum.org InterScan VirusWall NT ESMTP 3.5 (build 1294)

    BWHAHAHAHAHHAHA The "unstoppable" Windows NT Virus firewall.

    No wonder why my httpd logs keep filling up with .exe entries. Why do they allow this crap on the internet?

  22. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And take note that the system's already sorta being treated like the old one:

    carnegie.art.museum
    carnegie.museum.of.art.museum
    carnegiemuseum.art.museum
    carnegiemuseum.of.art.museum

    They need four different domains why?

  23. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Troll

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  24. Usefulness? by Zach` · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think this TLD is alot more useful than many people say it is. .info, .aero, and .biz all seem useless and trivial, but it appears like .museum can actually provide a good, up-to-date index of museums. I was disappointed my town's museum isn't online yet (http://indianapolis.museum), but it'll be interesting to see it once it goes up.

    index.museum looks like it's been implemented pretty well so far, and it'd be even better with a search feature. I hope they continue to improve on it.

  25. You just gotta love... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 1

    TLD's that are only potentially usable by at most, 10,000 or so different sites. Of course, with their policies, it's probably closer to 500 total.

  26. totally useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    index.museum links to alaska.museum. A click yields a listing (not a link) to pratt.alaska.museum. Typing! this into the browser yields a nonexistent link.

    Thank you Esther Dyson, the one-woman argument against inherited wealth.

  27. That.. by mindstrm · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    is the stupidest new domain yet.

  28. Not even links by dachshund · · Score: 1
    I find it strange that index.museum doesn't even link to the museum sites. It just spits them out as text (sans hyperlink), forcing you to copy and paste them into the browser. Not a very big deal, but I'm wondering if this is a deliberate choice they made given the anti-hyperlinking decision in the 2600 case.

    If so... phooey.

    1. Re:Not even links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It looks hyperlinked to me.

  29. Even better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Look at these racist bastards: African American Art Museum

  30. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by mindstrm · · Score: 2

    Funny, that, considering CNAME means 'Canonical Name'

  31. This makes me angry by crucini · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is another attempt to impose power structures from the "real world" onto the net. When this idea was first discussed, many asked if the led museum would be included. I'm unsurprised to see that it's not. This is an attempt to draw a line in the sand between the 'respectable' who deserve the title of museum (the narrow closed circuit of fundraising dinners and inherited wealth) and the unwashed masses who might try to extend the idea of museum to something internet-centric.

    The fact that this is implemented only as CNAMEs emphasizes that ICANN has polluted the top level namespace with sheer gimmickry. These bastions of privilege have no intention of surrendering their existing domains.

    Instead of an orderly development of tld space based on compact representation for the most common areas, we are getting an expression of privilege and influence extended into the net. The nobles are riding across the peasant's fields, hunting the fox.

    The real tragedy is that we have been unable to shake off ICANN. This utterly corrupt, elitist and short-sighted clique has no feeling for the natural flavor and development of the net. And yet the only thing which empowers ICANN is that we use the root name servers they recommend. Every attempt to build an alternate root seems to have fizzled, because the center of gravity remains with ICANN.

    Until we find a way to migrate from ICANN-dependence, we can expect a continuing series of insults and abuses from them.

    1. Re:This makes me angry by Lurkingrue · · Score: 1

      It is another attempt to impose power structures from the "real world" onto the net... This is an attempt to draw a line in the sand between the 'respectable' who deserve the title of museum (the narrow closed circuit of fundraising dinners and inherited wealth) and the unwashed masses who might try to extend the idea of museum to something internet-centric.

      In a sense, you've summed up both the great strength and weakness of this naming convention in a nutshell. When I first saw this announcement, like many other non-technical "end-users", I thought it was great. It seemed an easy, logical method of finding another category of something I could be interested in -- I particularly liked the "second-level" convention with subdivisions of museum types (e.g.: "art", "science", etc.).

      But, then I started thinking about the odd and unusual -- such as the LED museum, or the (now-defunct) MIT hack museum, which don't have the common-culture credibility or an easy-to-pigeonhole classification -- and realized that this method would also leave many institutions out in the cold.

      A trade-off, certainly, since your average-Joe user won't be thinking about LEDs or MIT pranks when s/he thinks of "Museum" with a capital "M", but a bittersweet one, nonetheless. This will certainly decrease the level of frustration for your average user looking for the typical establishment museums...and, really, that's a large part of what drives the 'net these days. But I can't help but wondering -- was there a better naming convention that would have been logical and easy to use, but more inclusive?

      Perhaps adding a few more second-level domains like "xxxx.odd.museum" and "xxxx.misc.museum" and "xxxx.planetarium.museum"("xxxx.astro.museum")?

      Sorta seems like the ".edu" debate -- sure, its easy to say "assign them to institutions of 'higher learning'" off the top of your head, but...who draws the line on what is and is not qualified?

    2. Re:This makes me angry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      The real tragedy is that we have been unable to shake off ICANN.

      People who actually acare about the problem (and everyone who uses systems set up by such people) have shaken off ICANN. Point yourself at one of the other roots. Just do it. ICANN's existence is 100% defacto. Again: just do it.

    3. Re:This makes me angry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Wow, you have a very blinkered view of museums, with your comment of: This is an attempt to draw a line in the sand between the 'respectable' who deserve the title of museum (the narrow closed circuit of fundraising dinners and inherited wealth) and the unwashed masses who might try to extend the idea of museum to something internet-centric.

      Speaking as someone who actually works in a museum, you are way off base for the vast majority of them. Museums are for all of society. Those which do put off the "unwashed masses" have a lot of work to do to change the way they work and their image and to encourage participation by all.

      I would mostly agree about ICANN being a great disappointment, but accepting the .MUSEUM TLD is probably the best thing they have done. Certainly, it will stop a lot of the current abuses (such as domain squatting) as well as outright scams, which we have had recently in the UK, where a great many of the smaller museums are just getting started with the Internet.

      Michael (I'm only posting this as an AC because I was having trouble creating an account)

  32. sex.museum by Efes · · Score: 1


    What, now sex.museum yet?

    The people in Amsterdam are going to be pissed off...

    --
    Sig this.
  33. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apparently your code is just as short sighted as your commentary. Good luck with those regexps. (but why are you collecting people's email addresses in the first place??)

  34. Blind Web Navigation by serial+frame · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It would be nice if the root DNS servers maintained not only a list of existing entries pointing to sites (like, the regular yahoo.com), but also...Canonical names pointing to a site, generated based on information such as location, etc.

    I think it would be spiffy if I could find the nearest Radio Shack around (if, say, I were new to my area) with a system like this. I could try radioshack.dallas.tx.us.com, and instantly see a site on the locations in Dallas. But--What if there were no Radio Shacks in Dallas? Ya don't suppose I could hit radioshack.index.tx.us.com, and I'd instantly see an index of all Radio Shack locations in Texas?

    Sorry. Just more speculation from yet another convenience nut.

    --

    -
    And the Angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots! The cries of the carrots!"
    1. Re:Blind Web Navigation by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2

      LOC is already available for geographic locating -- what you need is to be able to request a 'closest' match.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    2. Re:Blind Web Navigation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yp.yahoo.com

  35. Purpose of CNAME records by yerricde · · Score: 1

    Funny, that, considering CNAME means 'Canonical Name'

    The difference is that CNAME maps from non-canonical names to canonical names. Correct?

    CNAMEs should not point to other CNAMEs (only to A records) to avoid the possibility of infinite recursion.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  36. You need an address so you can send the user a PW by yerricde · · Score: 1

    (but why are you collecting people's email addresses in the first place??)

    Before you ass-u-me grandparent collects e-mail addresses to build a spam list, realize that many web services (such as Slashcode-based sites) get users' addresses so the service can send the user an initial password. It's faster to check "does this look like a valid hostname?" than to MX lookup the address the user provided.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  37. Who couldn't see this coming ? by billcopc · · Score: 0, Troll

    Pr0n.museum, goatse.cx.museum, etc

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  38. ICANN Would have likely rejected this..... by bnavarro · · Score: 1

    If other international organizations had petitioned for their own TLD.

    The International Council of Museums is the driving force behind the creation of the .museum domain. But what if other organizational bodies had been as clever as ICOM? What if there had been petitions for .aquarium, .zoo, .observatory, etc.?

    If a lot of petitions for TLDs were submitted to partition the Internet into private or semi-private areas for "worthy" institutions and/or causes, I think then that the ICANN would have realized how foolish it would be to create separate and unequal TLDs.

    ICANN only approved this because only a handfull of comunities asked for private space. .aero would also have been rejected if there were applications for .bank, .law, .stock-market, etc., etc.

    1. Re:ICANN Would have likely rejected this..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, ICOM may be the name behind this, but The J. Paul Getty Museum is the obvious force.

      What's interesting to me is not a single member of the MuseDoma committee is an Internet technologist, nor even anyone with any real experience with the development of the Web.

      However, I do like the idea of topical, hierarchical TLDs which can be regulated by a governing body specific to that industry, and this is the sort of naive idea expected from a group of non-citizens of the Web and as such can become a great thing or just fizzle out. The tricky part is guaranteeing equal application of the charter rules and fair distribution of membership.

      Knowing three of the people on the MuseDoma committee personally I can say that in the very least they are committed to the fair recognition of museums which meet the letter, or the spirit, of their definition of museum (which is not actually their definition but rather that of ICOM).

      - Getty employee

  39. Re:huh? by DeadMeat+(TM) · · Score: 3, Funny
    whats next, .personalwebsitewithbaddesignandloudmidimusicinthe background TLDs?
    Or we could just call it .aol for short.
  40. Such memorable domain names! by generic-man · · Score: 2
    Who could forget such domains as
    • national.museum.of.women.in.the.arts.art.museum
    • nationalmuseumofwomeninthearts.art.museum
    • theclevelandmuseumofarts.art.museum (museum o farts?)
    • ici.exhibitions.nyc.contemporary.art.museum
    • (my favorite) fundacio.pilar.i.joan.miro.mallorca.art.museum
    All are registered, but none are used. Thank you, InterNIC.
    --
    For more information, click here.
  41. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And A means address, but that doesn't mean www.yahoo.com is an address. And NS means nameserver, but that doesn't mean yahoo.com is a nameserver. Canonical name refers to the part on the right side of the statement, not on the left. "www.yahoo.com CNAME yahoo.com" would read "yahoo.com is the canonical name of www.yahoo.com".

  42. .reg TLD is more urgently needed by Garry+Anderson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Most of the problems on the Internet are due to trademark and domain name conflicts.

    Not surprising really - as virtually every word is trademarked - Alpha to Zeta or Aardvark to Zulu - MOST many times over.

    I have been communicating with US and UK authorities about this.

    Would it surprise you to learn, that they know the solution to these difficulties - yet hide it from you?

    Like I say, MOST trademarks share the same words or initials with many others in a different business and/or country.

    For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks in the USA alone.

    Despite this, each domain could be made unique and totally distinctive - as trademarks are required to be, by trademark law.

    When authorities could put trademark identity beyond shadow of doubt, they either are devoid of intelligence or corrupt.

    Given their response - I have come to logical conclusion that they are corrupt.

    Perhaps you would be interested to hear, that the solution was ratified by honest lawyers and a panellist judge of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO.org).

    I have WIPO.org.uk to broadcast the facts. As the United Nations WIPO.org take away similar named domains, do you not find that even slightly newsworthy?

    I also have SWIPO.org - redirected to UN WIPO.org, to show disdain.

    Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see the simple solution, to avoid 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and stop people 'passing off'.

    1. Re:.reg TLD is more urgently needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .reg is a great idea.

    2. Re:.reg TLD is more urgently needed by gfoyle · · Score: 1

      Why is this marked off topic? This is very relevant to .museum and the future of TLD's. Letting corporations restrict free speech via trademark rules limits all of us. (E.g. VerizonShouldSpendMoreTimeFixingItsNetworkAndLessM oneyOnLawyers.com, and see Wired article for more info.)

      Moderators mark this insightful (even if it isn't concise).

  43. Links by taion · · Score: 1

    The index.museum page links to each of the subcategories. Some of the links within the subcategories are active, some are not. It seems that the addresses without active links don't work anyway.

    It's likely that more and more of the links will be made to work as the addresses become functional.

    --

    ----------
    Floccinaucinihilipilification - the action or habit of judging something to be worthless
  44. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that's a damn good question!

  45. More practical domains by meman2000 · · Score: 1

    The whole history of computers and technology in general has concentrated around making a more efficient and logical system. Why then .museum? At least IMHO, I think a .ref (for "reference") TLD would have been far more useful. Museum sites, as well as libraries, search engines, research facilities, and all sorts of other topics could be covered under it. As for the rest of them, ICAAN seriously needs to rethink how their decisions are going to affect the future of the Internet.

  46. At least these are being used by wackybrit · · Score: 1

    Unlike .info and .biz. I've tried hundreds of company names with .biz on the end. None work. Where's microsoft.biz? Where's insurance.info?

    No-one's using .biz or .info. Useless. But at least this .museum TLD is being used.

  47. There are already smaller domains than .museum ! by mbauser2 · · Score: 1

    .int (which was created fairly casually, according to this story) is still smaller than .museum, and .int has a 13-year head start.

    .mil seems to be pretty small, too.

    --
    Proud to be / Smiley-free / Since Nineteen / Ninety-Three
  48. New domains, new prices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, on the same day all this .museum stuff got announced, all museums in the UK became free entry. Does this mean the web sites won't get used quite so much - people might even leave their armchairs and visit them properly.

  49. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by mindstrm · · Score: 2

    Yes... I understand this.
    Just pointing out that it's confusing for some.

  50. Be nice if they announced this to the museums! by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 0

    I'm the admin for the franklin institute (www.fi.edu and now franklininstitute.science.museum). The funny part is, I have not recieved any instructions on how to use this new domain name!

    --
    "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
    --Dr.W.Edwards Deming
  51. more TLDs are good! by ZigMonty · · Score: 1
    I like the idea of having more TLDs but they have to be specific. .biz sucks because it is just a try-hard .com. No one is going to risk having only a .biz and not a .com so what's the point?

    .museum OTOH is good, especially the index. These specific TLDs are a great way to keep out the rifraf, by that I mean porn sites etc. Someone was complaining that their favorite museum isn't included. I see this as a misuse of power. If it fits in the category of museum then it should be in there, even if it is under internet.museum or computers.museum (alternative.museum ?).

    These specific TLDs are sort of like a web within a web. They should have a good index.tld to keep things consistent and they should use categories within them as well (science.museum) if useful. They are like an umbrella web site or like Google's directory.

    I have no problems at all with them being CNAMEs to start off with but, as it becomes wider known, the old address should become the CNAME for a while then disappear. A site could belong to more than one specific TLD (one A and the rest CNAME) eg. smithsonian.museum and smithsonian.ref (reference).

    These could make the web much easier to traverse.

    Summary: museum = good, biz = bad

  52. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by driftingwalrus · · Score: 1

    Well, the MX is running NT. I'm not surprised by any ns misconfiguration.

    --
    Paul Anderson
    "I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
  53. One more TLD we need... by Omerna · · Score: 2

    is .movie

    Every new movie has a website, and most have to tack "movie" on the end of the title. (ie: behindenemylinesmovie.com - I think that's an example) We just need .movie to fix all that.

    --


    No sig for you.
    1. Re:One more TLD we need... by Phroggy · · Score: 2

      Somebody mod that up. I couldn't agree more. I thought I was against new weird TLDs, but the movie thing is actually a major problem, and a TLD is the perfect solution.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  54. Fast Forward: Jeopardy in 2003 by Sax+Maniac · · Score: 2

    And the question is...

    "What was the most useless development in computers in the year 2000?"

    Correct!

    I'd like "Stupid Shit" for $500, Alex.

    --
    I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
    1. Re:Fast Forward: Jeopardy in 2003 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know Alex, but this comment is attached to a story about a useless development in computers in the year 2001, so my answer is: you're on crack.

    2. Re:Fast Forward: Jeopardy in 2003 by Sax+Maniac · · Score: 1

      Either on crack, or a typo, or maybe they came up with these stupid TLDs last year.

      --
      I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
  55. Thank you - you are also insightful by Garry+Anderson · · Score: 2

    The cowards in authority have no honour. They have run out of EXCUSES, and will no longer answer me.

    Trademarks are to identify source - not claim world rights to the word.

    That is why they do not want .REG - so they can claim world rights to words.

  56. Thank you also - EOM by Garry+Anderson · · Score: 2

    EOM

  57. Re:You need an address so you can send the user a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Why would you care if it LOOKS like a valid host name, when you can just check it and make sure. Here are your steps to validating an email address:

    - regexp (does it have the correct form)
    - mx look up for the host part (can we send mail there)
    - connect to the returned mail servers (do the mail servers actually exist)
    - try validating the address with the mail server (is not always correct)

    This way you don't have to worry about new TLDs. There are many sources for a decent #1, if you just can't find any that work for you, go by the SMTP RFC. Just face it, your email validation script is the work of an amateur.

  58. .museum !? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are there really that many museums around, that they deserve their own TLD? What's next, .church, .train and .pub? I don't mean to troll about it, but if it weren't for the domain-name hypes, we'd manage with

    .NET(works)
    .ORG(anisations)
    .COM(mercial)
    .EDU(cational)

  59. Define "live"? by innit · · Score: 1

    Since the .museum TLD is still in its experimental phase, these domains haven't been delegated to their registrants yet, but resolve as CNAME records in the TLD root, pointing at the other domains each site already has.

    Thus, .museum addresses can currently only be used as additional addresses for sites that already have some other domain. MX records haven't yet been set up, so email to these domains won't yet work

    So when you say ".museum TLDs are live", what exactly does that mean? "Live, unless you want to do anything other than point a CNAME at your website"? That doesn't seem very "live" to me. Another half-arsed botched TLD job. *sigh*.

    I bet the .museum payment system is "live".

    Stuii!

    1. Re:Define "live"? by dtobias · · Score: 1

      No, they're actually not taking payments for .museum domains yet until the experimental phase is over, and at that point, the domains will be delegated just like in any other TLD, allowing any sort of DNS records to be used.

      --
      --Dan
      Web Tips
  60. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by aozilla · · Score: 2

    The MX is not what's misconfigured, the CNAME is (with the technicality that CNAMEs shouldn't point to CNAMEs, one that is very commonly ignored). As for the MX, I bet mail to that stupid .museum address is supposed to bounce.

    Why do you think running NT makes it more likely to misconfigure? I would bet it makes it less likely, since Microsoft makes it much simpler to configure.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  61. Rumpelstiltskin by yerricde · · Score: 1

    - connect to the returned mail servers (do the mail servers actually exist)
    - try validating the address with the mail server (is not always correct)

    Two problems:
    • The user often isn't willing to wait several minutes for a page to load, especially when the mail server is foreign (i.e. far away) and has high latency. Even if you tell the user that it'll take a long time, the user's browser may timeout.
    • Many mail servers have disabled validating the address because of Rumpelstiltskin attacks (send to every common personal name and surname).
    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  62. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by driftingwalrus · · Score: 1

    There is a general perception that MS products are easy to configure. They aren't, they require no less expertise to operate properly than UNIX, probably more.

    The issue is that because people THINK it's easy, they put any old dunce on the job and don't care. Well, the guy ends up not knowing anything about stuff like CNAMES and MXs, and software can only be just so intelligent. As a result, you end up with some terribly sloppy administration.

    With UNIX and friends, however, you have the OPPOSITE perception. One that it is hard and takes someone who really knows what he's the doing. The truth, of course, is that system administration is a skilled trade like any other - it requires a great deal of expertise to be performed effectively. This is not burger-flipping, this is telecommunications infrastructure maintenance. As a result of the perception, effort is put towards finding a competent sysadmin because they know that an MCSE just isn't going to cut it.

    And that is why I expect most Windows systems to be poorly adminned.

    --
    Paul Anderson
    "I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
  63. Re:Stupid domains, incorrect statement about MXs.. by aozilla · · Score: 1

    There is a general perception that MS products are easy to configure. They aren't, they require no less expertise to operate properly than UNIX, probably more.

    Having used Microsoft's DNS server, and having had semi-technical friends use Microsoft's DNS server, I whole-heartedly disagree with you. MS products, in general, are easier to configure.

    I'm not saying that Microsoft's DNS server can be used without a basic knowledge of DNS, but once you have that basic knowledge, choosing from "A, CNAME, MX, etc." is much easier (less chance for error) than typing it in. Knowing that MX takes an extra argument because the GUI will not let you not set it (in fact, I believe it defaults to the most common value) is much simpler than having to remember to type it in. I know a hell of a lot about DNS, but I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to enter the MX priority. And Bind will just silently fail, maybe putting something in your syslog, and you'll wonder 2 days later why you haven't been getting any spam.

    Sure, there are alternatives to bind and bind configure files, but they generally involve installation of new software, which in and of itself is more difficult than with Windows.

    With UNIX and friends, however, you have the OPPOSITE perception. One that it is hard and takes someone who really knows what he's the doing. The truth, of course, is that system administration is a skilled trade like any other - it requires a great deal of expertise to be performed effectively. This is not burger-flipping, this is telecommunications infrastructure maintenance. As a result of the perception, effort is put towards finding a competent sysadmin because they know that an MCSE just isn't going to cut it.

    You are certainly right that a Microsoft admin still needs to know what s/he's doing, but I personally have never met a manager that didn't know that. In fact, at my last job the NT admin was probably the smartest and most capable person on the team (in a mixed NT/unix environment). Of course, he wasn't an MCSE, and I'm sure that he is the exception, as opposed to the rule, but I really don't think it's as bad as you're making it out to be.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?