Re: Sitefinder II, the sequel...

[Larry Smith <lesmith () ecsis net>]

On Thursday 13 July 2006 10:18, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2006, at 10:48 AM, Christopher L. Morrow wrote:
> > On Thu, 13 Jul 2006, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
> > > That said, no one has yet said why it is necessary, or even
> > > desirable, to have a completely homogenous view of the world.
> >
> > I'd use one example reason of why: "Customer Service issues"
>
> Thanx, Chris, I was waiting for someone to give this answer.  (And I
> couldn't figure out why no one had! :)
>
> I don't really have a good answer.  I'm not sure it's a HUUUUUUGE
> problem, but I can see the argument.
>
> Perhaps someone associated with the service can give a better answer?
>
> > In general inconsistency is troubling to folks, I think, and in
> > recursive
> > DNS it's especially difficult to see as 'good' since that 'service'
> > is not
> > universal (not all owned/operated by one entity). In the case of
> > authoritative DNS though, you are (or anyone, not just Patrick)
> > free to
> > goof with responses as you (or anyone) see's fit... you are afterall
> > 'authoritative' for the record. In the recursive land it may be
> > viewed as
> > 'rude' or 'out of spec' (perhaps this is paul's issue?) to fake
> > answers
> > to questions.
>
> Is it?  If you type "fobar" and the domain does not exist, is it rude
> to return foobar?  Or is it helpful?

Hmmm, while a "good" question - how about another example,
someone mistypes whitehouse.gov - do you return the "real" whitehouse.gov or 
the whitehouse.com site ???

> As a purist, I can see saying that's wrong.  As a user, they like
> easy.  Hell, most of them us Windows & Outlook, so they clearly don't
> care about things like "standards".  Since they pay our bills, should
> we listen to them?

Also true, and while I agree in "principle", if you transpose only two numbers 
on your next deposit ticket - is it the banks responsibility to put the money 
in the correct account - or is it simply your mistake??

> Can someone show the Internet is going to collapse, or at least be
> harmed, by being "rude" in this way?

I don't think the "net" is going to collapse, but I do think that many of the 
"things" being done are simply "making" (allowing/enabling/supporting) end 
users to be more and more lazy or what-ever term you want to apply.  In 
school if you spell the word tree as tre - hopefully your teacher corrects 
this.  What we seem to be doing is saying it is ok to not know how to spell 
or even know what or where you want to go on the net - and I am not certain 
that in the long term we are not doing more "harm" than good  - just as your 
teacher would by allowing you to mis-spell words instead of learning the 
correct way....

-- 
Larry Smith
SysAd ECSIS.NET
sysad () ecsis net