back to article Dot-gay told it's NOT gay enough – but web'll be officially .eco-friendly

A slew of decisions over who gets to run new internet extensions have been handed down, meaning that within months domain names ending in "radio", "eco", "hotel" and "Osaka" will start appearing online. Those four were the lucky ones out of a group of 17 applications that asked for a "community evaluation" of their bids to …

  1. Friendly Neighbourhood Coder Dan
    Stop

    Must be more daring

    If geographical domains are no longer necessary, why is the dot?

    What is this, the first decade of the 21st century?

    I'll start a petition to have U+2766gay approved!

    1. AMBxx Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: Must be more daring

      Might cause a little problem with internal addresses? I suppose you could force all internal addresses to use .local or something, but what's the problem you'd be trying to solve?

      1. Friendly Neighbourhood Coder Dan

        @AMBxx - Re: Must be more daring

        I wasn't trying to solve any problem... Just joking really!

    2. Richard Jones 1

      Re: Must be more daring

      I not sure where the idea that geographical domains are no longer necessary came from. I can see the desire for specialist domains in addition to geographical ones.

      Ideas, feelings, activities and many other 'soft' aspects, e.g. the new dot ECO top level domain (Note I am not knocking such needs) are not geographically based. However, if I want a supplier of something, or details of regulations within my territory I do not want to sort through the regulations or suppliers of every place in the world to find what I need.

      On a side note, while I have only the tiniest axe to grind* I wonder why humans are apparently so under represented in the gay stakes? Some other animal populations are said to be on average up to about 10% while many can swing either way. Certainly I suspect the rejection of dot gay was likely based more on poor case presentation than other issues. I hope it was not down to simple prejudice.

      *My interest is only that by seeking to continually marginalise groups of people their need to make a fuss is increased, its the old action and reaction thing. Why can we not live and let live?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Must be more daring

        They did say 1.2% self-identify as gay. Consider all the reasons why someone might not want to identify themselves as gay, especially in places not as welcoming as, say, San Francisco. How many people in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Salt Lake City are openly gay?

        Not to mention the crazy quilt of definitions the LGB community has....er I mean LGBT community er I mean LGBTQ er I mean.... I get that they want to be inclusive to everyone who isn't straight but it sure is confusing for everyone else. Even my 'run of the mill' gay/lesbian/bi friends don't understand it any more than I do. Just look at the ridiculous number of choices for "sex" Facebook has added. Going beyond male/female I can understand, but there are like 60 choices, and I'm sure the Furries are campaigning for more.

        Ask someone who isn't straight about their sexuality, and they might give all sorts of answers beyond a simple "gay" or "lesbian" that counts towards that 1.2%.

        That doesn't even get into the question of how do you figure out that 10% of animals are gay? Because they engage in homosexual activity? There's a lot of that in prison, and likely a lot of the homosexual activity in animals is for the same reasons - done as an act of dominance rather than either party actually being gay.

        1. Someone Else Silver badge
          Coat

          @Dougs -- Re: Must be more daring

          How many people in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Salt Lake City are openly gay?

          I can't speak to (nor would I want to) the first two on your list, but now that gay marriage is legal in Utah, I think we'll get a better answer to your question for the third.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Dougs -- Must be more daring

            There is a small non-Mormon population in SLC, but the Mormon church and most of its membership is extremely hostile to gays. They make evangelicals look warm and welcoming by comparison.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    A joke....

    ...that's what these are. Just a money making scam....nothing more, nothing less.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A joke....

      Don't like it? Use alternative DNS, I2P, Freenet or something

      1. AMBxx Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: A joke....

        Who needs DNS? Just publish your IP - your customer(s) won't have any problem finding your site.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A joke....

        Upvote the whining, downvote the solutions... what are you going to do about ICANN?

        1. AndyS

          Re: A joke....

          Using an alternative network is a stupid solution though. The sensible solution is to ignore the new TLDs and carry on before, largely as has been done with .biz, .info, .me etc.

          In my mind, .biz means "scammy", .info means "probably not relevant" and .me means... well, I'm not sure really.

          Certainly if I was looking for A2B Taxi Co in Cherry Brook, I'll still go the same way - google them, click on result, find number and call. The TLD they use is at best irrelevant, and they will know that, and be very unlikely to buy and redirect A2BTaxis.taxi to their already functioning A2BTaxis.co.uk site.

          1. Nuke
            Holmes

            @AndyS - Re: A joke....

            Wrote :- "and .me means... well, I'm not sure really

            I haven't a clue either. But I have registered two domains with .me because I wanted a particular address and it was already taken under .co .com .org etc.

            These dot extensions are meaningless. except where it includes the country of origin (assuming it is correct). I have been looking for building regulations lately and there is sometimes no other way of knowing I am not looking at the regs of some other English speaking country. Browsing one earlier, it was only when I got to a reference to roofing "shingles" that I realised it was a USA website.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And all the sysadmins worth their salt will white-list the real TLDs (plus any new ones that have an actual purpose if such ever arises) and ignore the rest.

  4. wolfetone Silver badge

    I can't wait for .idiot to become a TLD.

    1. Elmer Phud

      but isn't it 'iDiot'?

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Devil

      Ah well .idiot is slated to come out in the next but one tranche of new gTLDs. After .icannmoneygrab, .loadofoldbollocks and .bonusesandtreblesallround.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I absolutely think that we should have more TLD's but this is not the way to go about it. We need some sort of neutral international body to handle this. Creation of a TLD should be based on rules such as reasonable desire, non-offensive, non-commercial (e.g. not for a particular company but maybe for a particular type of company). What we have here it just a money making scheme.

  6. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    How about...

    .cashingin

    .moneymaking

    .scam

    .treblesallround

  7. thomas k.

    not gay enough?

    And if the application had been adorned with glitter and sequins it would no doubt have been denied for being "too gay".

  8. ukgnome

    Hmm, has El reg bagged .vulture?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm, has El reg bagged .vulture?

      Teabagged, surely?

  9. itzman
    Pirate

    I've already globally blocked all email from .me and .us

    I might as well put in .gay as well.

    1. Yes Me Silver badge

      What's wrong with .us, apart from the fact that the USA has lamentably failed to make good use of it? There are some perfectly valid domains in there with legit mail users (I have friends/colleagues with addresses in ca.us, ma.us, va.us, and chicago.il.us).

      .me is being exploited, but how can you arbitrarily block all email from legitimate users in Montenegro?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LLPs also exist in the UK now; introduced at the behest of the City they are apparently very popular with individuals from overseas who have acquired many pennies to rub together.

  11. Alistair
    Joke

    missed on .taxi.

    I guess thats an "Uber" fail?

    /ducks and runs.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Coat

      Re: missed on .taxi.

      It was only a trifling error, in an otherwise hansom article. And anyway, the gTLD in question was referred to, in a section tuktukked away at the bottom of the page.

      Perhaps the author has just had a taxiing day?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why is using alt dns stupid?

    At least explain your logic.

    In my mind, DNS is kinda broken and it's just another excuse to mint money out of thin-air. The namecoin DNS would imo be the ultimate type of solution because it is ultimately not controlled by any single government or entity. That is what will in the end, guarantee neutrality and freedom on the Internet.

    1. Yes Me Silver badge

      Re: why is using alt dns stupid?

      Because that way lies a fragmented network with some people arbitrarily cut off. Why do you think China runs an alternative root? Because it prevents global connectivity, of course.

      I don't approve of the pointless extension of gTLDs; never have done and never will. But if new TLDs exist, I absolutely need to see them as a seamless part of the *the* Internet. Otherwise, it isn't the Internet at all.

  13. Matt Piechota

    "I don't approve of the pointless extension of gTLDs; never have done and never will. But if new TLDs exist, I absolutely need to see them as a seamless part of the *the* Internet. Otherwise, it isn't the Internet at all."

    My first reaction is to agree with you, but as I thought about it for a bit I'm not so sure. While com, net, edu, org, etc. are ok, I'm not sure they have much relevance (well, maybe .gov and .mil do). For the most part, .com, .net, and sometimes .org are meaningless as the name holders don't pay attention to the "rules" (usps.com, microsoft.org, etc.). Just scrap them all and make the address http://foo/ and be done with it.

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