

Motion to Abolish Domain Base Names - SagelyGuru

The Motion:<p>All base domain names (.com .org .net .info, etc.) to be abandoned and abolished forthwith.<p>The Reasons:<p>1) They are not fulfilling clear enough purpose and not being distinctive enough. Most websites provide some information (.info), allow some communication (.net), are associated with some organisation (.org), and maybe collect money in some way (.com). Thus these base names are mere noise words, creating confusion for users trying to guess the most appropriate one.<p>2) The base names lead to unwanted duplications, overlaps and mis-directions of the real domain names and the unnecessary disputes arising from this. Simply stated, the base names destroy the uniqueness of the real domain names. This is sheer folly.<p>3) Lest someone objects that there will not be enough domain names to go round, most main domain names can be differentiated more effectively and appropriately by addition of three or more letters of the domain buyer's own choice.<p>The Implementation<p>It is suggested that all existing domain names are converted to the new format protocol.uniquename by simple deletion of the dot before the base name. Example: www.somedomain.eu -&#62; www.somedomaineu<p>This means that legacy compatibility of networks and browsers can be ensured with a minor parsing change and those who have grown attached to their base name (perhaps a geographical one which does carry some information) will get to keep it in this form.<p>No re-registration or change of any kind of the existing domains is necessary.<p>Summary of The Benefits:<p>1) Neat resolution of the major non-uniqueness problems plaguing unnecessarily the existing domain name addressing.<p>2) The changeover can be accomplished simply and with a minimal disruption, ensuring legacy compatibility.<p>3) New domain name creators become empowered to create many new unique and relevant names for themselves.
======
mooism2
1\. This would break links all over the web. e.g. all links to
<http://news.ycombinator.com> must be changed to link to
<http://news.ycombinatorcom>. Many of the people who will be responsible for
updating links will not know how to use sed or perl on their html files.

2.a. .om is used by websites in Oman. cccc.om and ccc.com would both become
ccccom --- conflict.

2.b. .et is used by websites in Ethiopia. nnnn.et and nnn.net would both
become nnnnet --- conflict.

3.a. .er is used by websites in Eritrea. Quick, register twitt.er and you can
own Twitter!

3.b. I hope no-one in Peru registered sky.pe, because Skype will take it off
them for trademark infringement.

4\. Users already don't need to remember whether a website is a .com or an
.org or whatever. They need to be able to find it on Google.

~~~
SagelyGuru
Fair point. Conflicts clearly need to be prevented. Perhaps by conversion . ->
'dot' only in those specific cases

~~~
SagelyGuru
Regards breaking the links, again, fair point. This is, in fact, possibly the
only substantial problem. However, as I hinted in the proposal, this could be
dealt with by the browser. Browsers are already full of hacks for legacy
reasons, they could as well have one more which repairs the failed broken
links by removing the superfluous dot.

~~~
mooism2
Windows XP is going to be around for a long time, and Internet Explorer on
Windows XP is a legacy browser only. You can only get this hack into new
browsers.

So you'll need to wait at least a decade to flip the switch even after all the
browser makers have included the hack in the browsers (good luck with that,
btw).

I know someone who still uses Windows ME.

------
mark-r
The current system works well enough and is unlikely to be replaced, ever.

1) Append .com and see where it takes you.

2) Let a search engine figure it out.

And tell me again why this belongs on HackerNews?

~~~
SagelyGuru
1) has on numerous occasions taken me to wrong places 2) has likewise wasted a
lot of my time

Why have to put us with this? Who benefits, apart from Google?

"And tell me again why this belongs on HackerNews?"

Perhaps because one of the most important decisions for anyone initiating a
net presence is to choose the right domain name? Perhaps because many young
enterpreneurs here don't really want to waste their precious time and
resources on lawsuits arising from domain name duplications?

------
pedoh
> No re-registration or change of any kind of the existing domains is
> necessary.

So who gets to own www.foobar, the owner of www.foobar.com, www.foobar.net, or
www.foobar.org?

~~~
SagelyGuru
See the first paragraph of The Implementation section and the example of the
proposed conversion.

foobar.com -> foobarcom

foobar.net -> foobarnet

foobar.org -> foobarorg

foobar goes to whoever registers it first

------
mooism2
Wen yoov pushd this froo, kan yoo improov Inglish speling az wel pleez?

------
ChrisArchitect
but then they become unreadablecom ? uggh

~~~
SagelyGuru
People will naturally want to drop these noise words for new registrations. I
contend, on the contrary, that 'readable' is more readable/typeable than
'readable.com'

