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Kiwi Geeks Seek Domain
Codeine writes "A group of professional Internet engineers and technicians from New Zealand are following the published procedure to obtain the delegation of GEEK.NZ from the NZ Domain Name Commissioner (DNC). If successful, GEEK.NZ would be New Zealand's twelfth second-level domain."
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Like the world gives a crap about 1/2 of the US centric stories posted here.
Not sure why the "12th second level domain" phrase surprised you. The New Zealand Domain Name Structure describes the current structure and processes surrounding the creation of new second level .nz domains. It mentions that the general form of NZ domain names is name.domain.nz where name is the user chosen name, and domain is one of .ac, .co, .cri, .gen, .govt, .iwi, .mil, .net, .org and .school.
.geek.nz the 11th...
The fact that that document only lists 10 second level domains surprises me as this would make
The unique ones are school.nz (other educational), maori.nz (general maori tribe), iwi.nz (local maori tribe), cri.nz (gov research),
As well as geek.nz there's a proposal for bank.nz.
Certain domains are open for anyone to use (maori.nz) but others (bank.nz, iwi.nz) require procedures to register.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Indeed. I did not know that. That's pretty sick. The stuff you learn by clicking on slashdot links. I thought people who bit heads off chickens were hobo's.
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"One of the press releases on the linked page answers 'why?'."
You know, some people bang their heads on the wall when they see bad code. Others get really frustrated when they see bad design, or bad grammar, or any number of things.
I get frustrated when I see a project whose founders obviously think is "cool," but which completely fails to answer the question "Why should I care?"
Obviously, you found that answer, and you certainly did better than I did.
I read the Slashdot summary, which completely failed to answer the question "Why should I care?" Then I clicked on the link, which also completely failed to answer that question. It's really frustrating to see the pertinent information on the site buried in a freakin' press release that very few people will ever read. (I mean, I'm guessing you clicked on the press release as sort of a last resort, and it's certainly not the place where most people would go to find out why this project is cool.)
The lesson I would like other geeks to learn from this article is damn, people, if you're doing something cool, put it in bold type on your front page! Say "We are here because we want to kick some ass. We're going to kick the ass of the domain name commissioner because we want to try out the latest cool geek technologies and this is the best way for us to do it! Hey, JOIN US! Help us out!"
The first rule of sales is that you have to convince the prospect that your product matters. This holds true whether you're selling encyclopedias door-to-door or whether you're trying to convince your boss to fund the purchase of new server equipment! Unfortunately, geeks have this tendency to throw out facts and just hope that people make the connection between those facts and their product being awesome. It really comes to light in a situation like this, where 95% of the audience doesn't know anything about New Zealand's domain structure or why a new second-level domain is a ground-breaking, earth-shattering, AWESOME achievement! That's why almost all of the posts here have been either "Huh?" or "Why should I care?"
As much as you may hate sales; as much as you want to believe that the facts will speak for themselves... take this article and the responses to it as a reason why they won't. Next time you're trying to convince someone that they absolutely should go with Linux, or that they absolutely, without a doubt, should use this piece of awesome software for their projects, answer the question that they will always think of first: "Why should I care?" If you can answer that, you've won half the battle.
If you can't answer that, and you try to just throw out facts and hope that they speak for themselves, you'll get the same response that these guys got...
"Huh?"
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Recently, the maori.nz domain was created. It was created on the grounds that it was of cultural value for a clearly defined subculture of NZ, AIR.
:-)
However, there was something of a geek feeling that this wasn't very fair - it was a domain created on the basis of race and race alone.
In protest, and in a "if they can get it, why can't we" various people attempted to create the geek.nz domain. There is something of a race issue that we have to work through around here - thoughout the greater culture, stretching as far back as The Treaty of Waitangi
(Yes, there is something of an opening-the-floodgates problem, but there is a moritorim on new applications at the moment.)
(BTW, this isn't exactly news, as the idea was mooted, AIR, many months ago.)
Oh, and New Zealand Herald / NZPA Coverage
It's a cool thing, let us have our fun!
Okay, I'm probably overplaying the race issue - it is something of a bugbear for me, however, that is the rationale behind.
Just where is this New Zealand thats getting the geek domain? Is that up on the east cost with all thouse other New states? My geology wasn't very good in school.
Here are my thoughts on this SLD (Second Level Domain) proposal: It's unnecessary.
.com domain or any other TLD. This idea is very specialized, hence serves no purpose.
.com/.net/.org domains already.
Hear me out. New Zealand has 3,908,037 people, give or take a few. I seriously doubt there are even 5,000 geeks who would get those domains. No one would pass up an opportunity to aquire
Besides, all my friends from NZ have
I do have a proposal on what type of domains New Zealand government should implement, since the topic came up.
*.holycowmyinternetisslow.nz - for people who are still on 28.8k dialup modems inside of New Zealand
*.udpmatch.nz - for packet kiddies who are looking for a mate
*.neal.nz - will be reserved for Cowboy Neal in case he ever moves there
*.sheep.nz - hot sheep erotic fanfiction
*.cliche.nz - will serve as the domain for humor sites incorporating "beowulf cluster" and "In Soviet Russia" jokes all the time!
*.rom.nz - domain for Romainians who are considering moving to New Zealand to trade ROMS and Emulators for Atari 9600
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some NZ official to see these suggestions and put them on a fasttrack.