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Wikipedia Hasn't Forgiven GoDaddy
netbuzz writes "The fact that a month and a half has gone by and Wikipedia still hasn't followed through on Jimmy Wales public threat to remove its domain name registrations from GoDaddy over the latter's early support of SOPA has some concerned that the online encyclopedia may have had a change of heart. After all, GoDaddy did withdraw its backing of the controversial antipiracy legislation, at least publicly. But fear not, SOPA foes, as Wikipedia says its days with GoDaddy are indeed numbered and that number is getting very small."
Let's also not forget all the other ways GoDaddy sucks:
So fuck GoDaddy. There's plenty of registrars with better service that cost less anyway.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I have not forgiven my congress critters either. Looking forward to November.
I expect with a company the size of Wikipedia, particularly one with Wikipedia's web presence, switching your hosting around isn't really something you can do on the turn of a dime.
On the other side of the coin though (er, so to speak) i wonder if this is really the best tactic. I mean, i couldn't wish for the fallout to land on a more deserving company, but will this affect Wikipedia's bargaining position for similar situations in the future? Threatening to punish people for actions you don't like is just fine (well, assuming you stick to legal methods of course) but if they recant and you follow through on your threats regardless, would the next company you deal with have any reason to recant?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
That's being a bit simplistic.
If I walked into a local restaurant and received poor service and bad tasting food, the people there might be a bit dismissive when I complain loudly and tell them that I am going "blog that shit all over the Internet".
Now if President Obama walked in (unlikely I know) and then mentioned how shitty the place was to the White House press core, it might be a little more devastating.
Both of us spent the same amount of money, and represent the same amount of loss in the future on an individual basis, but one certainly stings a bit more.
I called up hover.com. Spoke with someone on the phone, gave her my godaddy login info. She did all of the work for me. I'm done with godaddy, and I can't think that there is any possible way it could have been easier.
San Francisco Photographers
And this costs GoDaddy what, $2.95? It's just domain registration. Wikipedia isn't hosted by GoDaddy.
There's a hierarchy of registrars. At the top is MarkMonitor, which registers domains like "ford.com". If you have to ask how much their registration costs, you can't afford it. This is where you register a "must stay up" domain. If anything goes wrong with a MarkMonitor registration, alarms go off and teams of DNS admins and lawyers swing into action.
Network Solutions is a reasonable registrar for corporate domains. They have "amazon.com", for example. If something goes wrong, you can usually get them ont he phone and get them to do something.
Much further down is GoDaddy. But they're not the bottom. Below GoDaddy are the bulk registrars, like Enom. That's where you register junk domains for link farms, domaining, and other dubious activities. At the bottom are the registrars in the ICANN list that don't even have valid contact information. It's not clear what they're doing, but it's probably not good.
I'm just waiting for the personal appeal to boycott Godaddy.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Have you ever tried to switch from GoDaddy? I'm sure they're just having difficultly figuring out HOW to unregister from GoDaddy. It took me about 5 tries over the course of three months and I only had one domain to deal with.
-- QED
Oddly enough you don't need to be President to destroy a restaurants reputation(or anything's reputation). Hell, you don't even need to be important. You just need to know important people, or be close enough to important people to do it. I know that whole six degrees or four degrees of separation thing is fine and dandy but it does work.
I've seen it in action on more than one occasion where businesses were blackballed by an entire community based on the word of mouth of two people who were effectively nobodies, but had friends of friends who were well known.
Om, nomnomnom...
I though you had staked out the moral high ground very neatly, but in the last paragraph you went all self-indulgence about WP and fell back to the level of choosing sides based on personal prejudice, like the rest of us mere mortals.
The fact is that most people believe they are doing TheRightThing(TM) most of the time. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ivan the terrible, OBL, George Washington, you, me, grandma, and the wiggles, did not get to where they did by believing what they were doing was evil. For example if you could ask OBL what he did with his life he would probably tell you with genuine sincerity that he spent it "fighting evil". So from my POV good intentions are not a valid excuse for supporting racketeering via congressional decree, particularly for a corporation one would expect has the expertise to build decision trees that would likely foresee the potential harm. If it wasn't on their decision tree before all the hoohaa, it is now.
Being generous I'd say GD displayed admirable self-skepticisim on the issue. Being cynical I'd say GD are like any other company, what they fear most is becoming a public pariah.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
People don't seem to get that for a seriously popular site that must not go down, it's just not the same class of phenomenon as picking a registrar more or less at random (the same process by which people ended up on GoDaddy in the first place) to move your blog's DNS to. It's literally taken weeks to make absolutely sure that the transition damn well will go smoothly. This on top of, like, the actual work the WMF is supposed to do. AIUI, there should be an announcement next week or so.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Bob Parsons on Guantamo Bay:
"The interrogation techniques at Gitmo are very mild."
(Note from Wikipedia: By May 2011 there had been at least six suicides and hundreds of suicide attempts in GuantÃnamo that are in public knowledge.)
"Key prisoners at Gitmo still have not talked -- because our interrogation methods are so weak."
(Are we really going to get into a sincere discussion about the efficacy of torture? What about we pause first at the idea of whether it's ethical?)
"Given the type of individuals we have incarcerated at Gitmo (all of them would love to gouge out your eyes-"
(including children and old men?)
Bob Parsons is the ugliest face of America. Hateful and uninformed, but pushing to make things work the way he thinks they should. Don't be like Bob. And don't empower him with your money.