This may also be one reason why he has become so bull-headed about doing it his way. Humans have an odd reaction when another person does the first person's "own" work better. He may feel a little down about himself not having done it as well as Empire and so now knowingly or unknowingly is out trying to prove himself (which happens in this case to probably only be making it worse).
I have posted a detailed comment here providing several points why it works better for visitors, websites, and organizations (businesses, etc.) not to have TLDs anymore.
Let's Get Rid of TLDs; They No Longer Serve Any Useful Purpose.
Let's get rid of TLDs.
1. When the net was small and voluntary, TLDs were fine, but now they just get in the way.
2. I went to check out registering a name a year or two ago and the registrar's website suggested I do multiple registrations for.org,.com., and.net. If this is the case that this is normal now, then why bother having TLDs?
3. For determing the validy of any presentation media (newspaper, advertisements, pamphlets, etc.), the burden is on the customer. Let the burden be on the customer to determine the validity of a website, which it has always been, and which it is in every other presentation media. If a site is found to be fraudulent at some level, there are laws to handle that, as there are for other media. No registrar organization validating ".biz" vs ".org" vs ".net" vs ".com" are going to provide any checks that are in-depth enough to protect a customer before they visit a site. If a site engages in illegal activity, the customer can go through the normal legal channels. If a particular class of activity over time (say, medical advice) is found to be harmful unless certified, than a law will be written creating a certification body and certification, as it has for other types of activities (e.g., doctors, engineers, teaching, etc.).
4. There are currently no registrars that anyone trusts to come up with and enforce consistent standards. Why beat ourselves over our heads trying to get these companies to enact some kind of valid, non-profit-motivated certification system when the law and law making already handle it for critical cases?
5. Having standards on TLDs (and the only way to have useful TLDs now and cut the arguments out is to create enforced standards for them, but then we'll argue about the standards and how they're enforced, especially between 50 different registrars) will create more hassle and cost in registering. I don't have this hassle when I register my phone number or an advertisement in the phone book or a newspaper. Not only that, the standards that these registrar companies enforce on TLDs will probably be profit/self-serving at my cost. If they do manage to do some good for the public, it will be redundant because of the already-in-place law process, and that redundancy in this case means people registering get to experience the bad side of bureaucracy and meaningless cost.
6. If a website wants to state what it is, it can do so in their domain name or on their homepage or buried in their bogus privacy statement.
E.g.,
"columbiauniv" "columbiaclothing" "columbiagov "
(i.e., domain names. Notice that most websites already have this).
or
"You've reached Columbia University!" "You've reached Columbia Clothing Company!" "You've reached the Columbian Government!"
(i.e., on the home page. Notice that most websites already have this).
7. If a website doesn't want to state what it is, who cares? And if you do care (as I do sometimes), do you trust a registrar to do checks to the level of detail needed to verify that the ".com" or ".biz" attached to the domain really means a business? In any case, just because a company has "Inc." (Incorporated) after their name doesn't necessarily mean they do any useful or legal business. What does having a registrar verified ".biz" or ".com" mean to anyone? If I think I want to transact with them or believe something they're telling me, I'm still going to verify to myself, as I do with every business, that I'm getting a good deal.
8. There use to be a useful argument of, "It allows one organization to use "iamhere.com" and a different organization with the same name to use "iamhere.net". How are we supposed to support giving websites to different organizations with the same name?"
This was fine when there weren't that many organizations on the net, and the three organizations with "Columbia" in their name who wanted websites statistically would have had a good chance of being easily differentiated by ".com", ".edu", and ".gov". The idea was that organizations with the same name were probably serving very different needs and that there wouldn't be that many of them so a few TLDs describing very different services could provide a great way for them to use the same name. (Mostly. They still don't have quite the same name because they have a TLD attached).
Since the web explosion, there are many more organizations using the same name that provide overlapping services, or who want a truly unique name that can't be trumped by a TLD (see point 2). To maintain the TLD system working as it was originally designed to handle the problem, we'd have to have a general TLD to describe each of those over lapping services. Adding a couple more TLDs won't satisfy this anymore -- allowing a columia.whatever for each organization. To accomplish that now with a hundred businesses using "columbia", we'd have to have a hundred TLDs. Why bother? This argument is also invalidated by point 2 -- many organizations want a truly unique name and end up registering multiple TLDs over the same domain name. Slashdot does this.
Different companies have had the same names for years and don't have much of a problem differentiating themself when they need to. If two companies wanting a.com address have the same name, they still have to differentiate themselves at the domain level. Why bother adding the.com on?
9. You can just rememeber one set of words, instead of one set of words plus a TLD. It is pretty easy now to remember what "." is attached to something because there are not that many TLDs. As the number of different TLDs increase, it'll get harder to remember. For example, if colleges drop ".edu" (and note how many colleges there are now offereing business services, and how many busniesses are offering teaching services, and how confused they're getting because they have to pick one or the other:.com or.edu), they'll start distringuishing themselves a number of different ways. This may be worse than having a single ".edu"., e.g., they may have NNNuniv, NNNedu, univofNNN", but it is more flexible, and many places already have a variety of identifying tricks in their domains already, so it's not that much different from what we have now. Dropping the.edu or.com from the end when they offer multiple services (and they advertise it on their site) will probably let things be clearer (less confusing) for the visitor also.
10. I don't know what to do about country TLDs yet. Because of world-wide lag, it still seems pretty useful knowing what continent a site is coming from up front when it's taking a while to load. Of course, this may be negated by the fact that companies are registering out-of-country TLDs for their word-play value, so "wayto.go" from the imaginary country of Gomania may actually be a server in Nebraska. In any case, I'd rather just remember "waytogo".
Slashdot Mirror
This may also be one reason why he has become so bull-headed about doing it his way. Humans have an odd reaction when another person does the first person's "own" work better. He may feel a little down about himself not having done it as well as Empire and so now knowingly or unknowingly is out trying to prove himself (which happens in this case to probably only be making it worse).
Pentalon
I agree that TLDs should be gotten rid of.
I have posted a detailed comment here providing several points why it works better for visitors, websites, and organizations (businesses, etc.) not to have TLDs anymore.
Derek
Let's Get Rid of TLDs; They No Longer Serve Any Useful Purpose.
.org, .com., and .net. If this is the case that this is normal now, then why bother having TLDs?
v "
n sultants"
.com address have the same name, they still have to differentiate themselves at the domain level. Why bother adding the .com on?
.com or .edu), they'll start distringuishing themselves a number of different ways. This may be worse than having a single ".edu"., e.g., they may have NNNuniv, NNNedu, univofNNN", but it is more flexible, and many places already have a variety of identifying tricks in their domains already, so it's not that much different from what we have now. Dropping the .edu or .com from the end when they offer multiple services (and they advertise it on their site) will probably let things be clearer (less confusing) for the visitor also.
Let's get rid of TLDs.
1. When the net was small and voluntary, TLDs were fine, but now they just get in the way.
2. I went to check out registering a name a year or two ago and the registrar's website suggested I do multiple registrations for
3. For determing the validy of any presentation media (newspaper, advertisements, pamphlets, etc.), the burden is on the customer. Let the burden be on the customer to determine the validity of a website, which it has always been, and which it is in every other presentation media. If a site is found to be fraudulent at some level, there are laws to handle that, as there are for other media. No registrar organization validating ".biz" vs ".org" vs ".net" vs ".com" are going to provide any checks that are in-depth enough to protect a customer before they visit a site. If a site engages in illegal activity, the customer can go through the normal legal channels. If a particular class of activity over time (say, medical advice) is found to be harmful unless certified, than a law will be written creating a certification body and certification, as it has for other types of activities (e.g., doctors, engineers, teaching, etc.).
4. There are currently no registrars that anyone trusts to come up with and enforce consistent standards. Why beat ourselves over our heads trying to get these companies to enact some kind of valid, non-profit-motivated certification system when the law and law making already handle it for critical cases?
5. Having standards on TLDs (and the only way to have useful TLDs now and cut the arguments out is to create enforced standards for them, but then we'll argue about the standards and how they're enforced, especially between 50 different registrars) will create more hassle and cost in registering. I don't have this hassle when I register my phone number or an advertisement in the phone book or a newspaper. Not only that, the standards that these registrar companies enforce on TLDs will probably be profit/self-serving at my cost. If they do manage to do some good for the public, it will be redundant because of the already-in-place law process, and that redundancy in this case means people registering get to experience the bad side of bureaucracy and meaningless cost.
6. If a website wants to state what it is, it can do so in their domain name or on their homepage or buried in their bogus privacy statement.
E.g.,
"columbiauniv"
"columbiaclothing"
"columbiago
(i.e., domain names. Notice that most websites already have this).
or
"You've reached Columbia University!"
"You've reached Columbia Clothing Company!"
"You've reached the Columbian Government!"
(i.e., on the home page. Notice that most websites already have this).
In the case of multiple companies:
"columbiachem"
"columbiaclothing"
"columbiaco
7. If a website doesn't want to state what it is, who cares? And if you do care (as I do sometimes), do you trust a registrar to do checks to the level of detail needed to verify that the ".com" or ".biz" attached to the domain really means a business? In any case, just because a company has "Inc." (Incorporated) after their name doesn't necessarily mean they do any useful or legal business. What does having a registrar verified ".biz" or ".com" mean to anyone? If I think I want to transact with them or believe something they're telling me, I'm still going to verify to myself, as I do with every business, that I'm getting a good deal.
8. There use to be a useful argument of, "It allows one organization to use "iamhere.com" and a different organization with the same name to use "iamhere.net". How are we supposed to support giving websites to different organizations with the same name?"
This was fine when there weren't that many organizations on the net, and the three organizations with "Columbia" in their name who wanted websites statistically would have had a good chance of being easily differentiated by ".com", ".edu", and ".gov". The idea was that organizations with the same name were probably serving very different needs and that there wouldn't be that many of them so a few TLDs describing very different services could provide a great way for them to use the same name. (Mostly. They still don't have quite the same name because they have a TLD attached).
Since the web explosion, there are many more organizations using the same name that provide overlapping services, or who want a truly unique name that can't be trumped by a TLD (see point 2). To maintain the TLD system working as it was originally designed to handle the problem, we'd have to have a general TLD to describe each of those over lapping services. Adding a couple
more TLDs won't satisfy this anymore -- allowing a columia.whatever for each organization. To accomplish that now with a hundred businesses using "columbia", we'd have to have a hundred TLDs. Why bother? This argument is also invalidated by point 2 -- many organizations want a truly unique name and end up registering multiple TLDs over the same domain name. Slashdot does this.
Different companies have had the same names for years and don't have much of a problem differentiating themself when they need to. If two companies wanting a
9. You can just rememeber one set of words, instead of one set of words plus a TLD. It is pretty easy now to remember what "." is attached to something because there are not that many TLDs. As the number of different TLDs increase, it'll get harder to remember. For example, if colleges drop ".edu" (and note how many colleges there are now offereing business services, and how many busniesses are offering teaching services, and how confused they're getting because they have to pick one or the other:
10. I don't know what to do about country TLDs yet. Because of world-wide lag, it still seems pretty useful knowing what continent a site is coming from up front when it's taking a while to load. Of course, this may be negated by the fact that companies are registering out-of-country TLDs for their word-play value, so "wayto.go" from the imaginary country of Gomania may actually be a server in Nebraska. In any case, I'd rather just remember "waytogo".
I think I should start a site on this somewhere.
Derek
Should we get him an armored escort?
Derek