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more on Content-specific TLDs, was "ex-ex-ex" domains
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 14:41:55 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org> Date: June 4, 2005 11:29:13 AM EDT To: dave () farber net Cc: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>, ip () v2 listbox com Subject: Re: [IP] Content-specific TLDs, was "ex-ex-ex" domains
From: John R Levine <johnl () iecc com> Date: June 4, 2005 12:26:54 AM EDT Subject: Content-specific TLDs, was "ex-ex-ex" domains
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For better or worse, that train left the station several years ago.Half of the new domains that ICANN has approved have been content- specific.
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Um, didn't that train leave the station long before? EDU, NET, ORG, and COM were content-specific by being organization-specific. And the ballooning of COM to be far bigger than the others may have been an indication that the domain owners and the users didn't want content-specific. Didn't we also see this before on USENET? There were a dozen or so specific newsgroup categories, with approval processes for new newsgroups. Then the alt category started, with much easier approval processes, and proceeded to produce most of the new newsgroups: http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_alt.htm Note that the first really controversial alt newsgroup was alt.sex. The above history article mentions the talk hierarchy. I'd forgotten about talk, but I guess Brad hadn't since his recent posting about .polinc is basically the same thing. The COM TLD was as old as the others I named, but some of the recent posters here will remember the com-priv mailing list that endlessly debated commercialization and privatization of the Internet. And the resistance on USENET to the alt category. Yet the users eventually voted by what they used. Let ten thousand TLDs bloom. Not only are they technically feasible, but if we had them maybe people would realize that in an age of Yahoo! and google and P2P filesharing top level domains don't really matter anymore. -jsq ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Content-specific TLDs, was "ex-ex-ex" domains David Farber (Jun 04)