Ask HN: How tarnished is this domain name?

[japhyr]

I have a project I've been pretty excited about, which is basically building a Hacker News for the education profession. I tried to register educatornews.org, only to find it had been registered a few months before. I saw that it wasn't being used, so I wrote to the registrant. He had no real plans for it, so he happily transferred it to me at no cost. He told me, however, that he had used it to run a mailserver and it might be on some blacklists.

I thought little of it until I emailed a friend about the project for the first time. My email was rejected, and when I looked at the rejection message, this is the error I saw:

The error that the other server returned was: 550 An address in this message (at educatornews . org) is listed on sbl-multi.rbl.spamrl.com. Please organise removal and retry.

I found a page that claims to help a domain get removed from the SURBL blacklist, but I have no idea how legitimate this is: http://www.surbl.org/faqs#whitelist

Does anyone have any experience dealing with domains that have been blacklisted because of use by a previous registrant? Should I try to get it de-listed? Should I abandon the domain and find one that has never been used? I don't want new users' registration emails to be blocked because of these issues.

[joelrunyon]

How important is the domain name to you? It doesn't sound terribly catchy.

That said - if you're just worried about the email functionality - educatornews.net is available. You could use that to send the emails.

[japhyr → joelrunyon]

I'm open to other suggestions on the name, but I do like Educator News. It has a more professional ring than something like Teacher News. It's more active than something like Education News.

The last attempt I saw was called Academic Recess, and here is the HN discussion on that effort:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4783912

[brudgers → japhyr]

Which has a more professional ring to it,"Hacker News" or "Programmer News"?

Who are you trying to reach? Thise interested in teaching or those interested in pedantic job descriptions? To put it another way, which is a better submission guideline, "anything educators might be interested in" or" anything teachers might be interested in"?

The tarnished domain name might be evidence that it's not that good for reasons that aren't obvious. "Educator News" sounds like journal articles for academics on campuses not those on campuses.

Replicating Hacker News is hard because YC profits off the thinnest of the exhaust fumes it generates. If it throws off a single startup and that startup has only a mediocre exit, the direct cost of running HN for the next few years are probably covered. That's why it doesn't have ads and affiliate marketing or require an email address or Google ID. It's a capital investment in YC's infrastructure and their unique business model allows it to take its unique character.

[japhyr → brudgers]

Which has a more professional ring to it,"Hacker News" or "Programmer News"?

I would love it if there was an equivalent term for teachers such as "hacker", but I don't think there is. I want to avoid the traditional "teacher's lounge". If you've never been in one, they can be interesting places. It can be really difficult to have a professional conversation about teaching in a teacher's lounge. There tends to be an atmosphere of venting and releasing frustration over sharing professional ideas. I know that doesn't describe every teacher's lounge, but there are many that do fit that description.

I have looked, my entire career, for an online discussion forum for teachers that avoids this mindset. I haven't found one yet. So in trying to build one, I am looking for something that connotes a more professional mindset. I am also well aware that a name is just a name, and what matters is the actual community that I and the moderation team develop.

That's why it doesn't have ads and affiliate marketing or require an email address

This is an interesting issue. I am only thinking of requiring email registration to cut down on duplicate accounts by trolls. I have always assumed this feature of HN creates more spam. I know HN has some strong anti-voting ring, anti spam submission algorithms. Any thoughts about whether requiring email registration would make less work for these spam-fighting algorithms? Is no email required just to make it easier to sign up, or to intentionally allow anonymity?

I have no intention of emailing users other than for registration purposes; that said, it would be easier to skip email registration altogether.

[brudgers → japhyr]

HN works for a lot of reasons, among them is that when in doubt it's about Silicon Valley and when in doubt someone will say quit whining and build your idea of what perfection looks like. The focus on creation and a default set of means for creation and the carrot of vast wealth and a context of cleverness all work to attract people into the pool of potential YC participants. There's a business model at the bottom of it that asks nothing more than reasonable behavior from an individual HNer..

Why isn't HN the HN for education? Those reasons are why an HN for education won't be.

[joelrunyon → japhyr]

Any reason why you wouldn't simply pick up the .net iteration?

[japhyr → joelrunyon]

No particular reason, I've just always associated .org with open projects. I know it's not a legal definition, you can have closed projects on .org sites.

I can't think of a single .net site that I visit on a regular basis.

[dimitar]

I would try delisting it first. Cleaning up can eventually happen and you'll be more prepared to deal with it anyway.

You can also check your MX record IP for blocks, I think DNSBL is still more common, anyway.

[Andrenid]

You could get the .net or a slight variation for outgoing mail, at least until things are cleared up.