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.museum TLDs are Live

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the icann-working-hard-for-you dept.

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."

3 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. 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. 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.