back to article The story of .Gay: This bid is too gay! This bid is not gay enough! This bid is just right?

Dot Gay LLC has once again appealed the decision that it does not represent the gay community in its bid to run the .gay top-level domain. The company, which has been trying to get hold of the dot-word for nearly four years, appealed a previous decision that its application did not cover a sufficient number of gay people. In …

  1. Camilla Smythe

    At the risk of being....

    Not sure what the word should be,

    Are they having the same problems with, for example, Dot Lesbian or is it the case that Dot Gay is doomed to failure because the Dot Hetero community associate Gay with being a 'bloke' thing whilst all the other flavours of sexuality get left out?

  2. Mage Silver badge

    Gay?

    It used to be feeling light hearted. There is no suitable synonym. Happy isn't quite the same.

    We've been robbed. Why should the TLD belong to a subsection of LGBT at all?

    1. Stevie

      Re: Gay?

      Someone help me. I know there is a word in The Meaning of Liff for the type of person who bemoans the loss of the word "gay" to the English language speaker despite never actually using it in everyday speech, but for the life of me I can't recall the word itself.

  3. OffBeatMammal
    Angel

    there is already a .lgbt TLD so is that also causing some conflict?

    1. John Tserkezis

      "there is already a .lgbt TLD so is that also causing some conflict?"

      The religeous nutcases making the decisions didn't know what it meant. So they let it through.

      1. P. Lee

        >The religeous nutcases making the decisions didn't know what it meant. So they let it through.

        Haha! The thought of ICANN being a hotbed of religious fervency made laugh so hard! Oh wait, were you being serious? Does everyone you don't like get the label "religious nutcase"? If by "religious" you mean "Worshipers of Mammon" then you might be right.

        I'm sure that's entirely different from the prospective owners of the TLD. Purer than the driven snow they are.

    2. Tom 38

      They want to change it to .lgbtqiaap

  4. graeme leggett Silver badge

    icann policy

    ICANN (unwritten but obvious) policy is to accumulate as much filthy lucre as possible.

    Mucking Dot Gay around until they give up so an auction can generate meellions of dollars is entirely consistent with this policy.

    I presume each step of the appeals progress has associated administration fees...

    1. Notas Badoff

      Re: icann policy

      Indeed, the dot community that is well-represented at ICANN is .thieves

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: icann policy

      Their application is clearly not hitting the Goldilocks zone. Or should that be the Judy Garland zone?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: icann policy

      In the case of .gay, there are another three commercial enterprises with much deeper pockets

      say's it all

  5. Lamb0
    Devil

    Perhaps a .gay promoting...

    the 1890s would be a more appropriate lesson for historical purposes.

    A battle for a .gay TLD without the LBT seems rather exclusionarily *cough* sexist, and more about the MONEY - no matter how desirable for political correctness! The .lgbt TLD is too easily blocked to an extremely large portion of the world's population due to undesirable connotations in many countries... especially those predominantly Muslim.

    With .gay visibly promoting the 1890s and light hearted feelings, perhaps the more sexual interpretation can occasionally slide under the censorial radar.

    Yet another similar TLD just isn't needed to add to the confusion. Adding .biz to compete with .com was bad enough, though arguably justifiable; it's all about the money. The .lgbt TLD should be sufficient... for now.

  6. DainB Bronze badge

    .straight ?

    Nah, we'll just continue use .com

    1. Warm Braw

      Re: .straight ?

      I think everyone will. Is it really likely that ".straight" could in any way represent a "community" whose homogeneous interests can uniquely be represented by some self-appointed proponents of heterosexual well-being? And might it be excruciatingly patronising to pretend that it could?

      If so, the same applies (if I may be indelicate) the other way around.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: .straight ?

        Straight is either a reformed criminal ("going straight"), a used car in tidy and original condition or a line without corners or curves. I'm not any those things but I am a heterosexual. I have also had quite a gay weekend.

  7. Your alien overlord - fear me
    Facepalm

    Why is there a TLD for the Greek Austerity Years, a simple .gr would suffice

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The .lgbt TLD is too easily blocked to an extremely large portion of the world's population due to undesirable connotations in many countries... especially those predominantly Muslim..

    Or predominantly Catholic

    Or Predominantly Irish

    Or Predominantly American Bible Belt

    Or Predominantly African

    Or Predominantly Russian

    Or.

    Or.

    Or.

    Wait a minute ...........There's appears to be a lot more than just Muslims that would be blocking those TLD's..

    If there is only one God how come the Muslim one said that Gay = Bad and yet our Western God thinks it's now Ok... Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

    Anonymous because anything even very, very, very, remotely borderline against the common percieved poliitically correct opinion is becoming taboo on El Reg

    1. Fraggle850

      @AC Re: Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

      > Or Predominantly Irish

      Not fair at all, with the Irish people having voted in favour of gay marriage in a recent referendum that is just incorrect.

      Otherwise I have up voted simply because you've pointed out the incorrectness of singling out Islam in the original post.

      > Re: Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

      It was always the case. It evolved in all it's many forms as a means of enforcing stability through support of the ruling class. The priestly castes were keepers of knowledge in the days before we had writing, a function which continued into the days of writing. This knowledge supported tradition and maintained the balance of power. That is why, for example, we have 26 Lords Spiritual in the house of Lords, i.e. 26 bishop's from the C of E.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @AC Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

        "Not fair at all, with the Irish people having voted in favour of gay marriage in a recent referendum that is just incorrect"

        There was approxiamtely a 60% turnout, and from those, 64% said yes. Which is the equivalant of only 38.4% of the population..... Not exactly an overwhelming majority...

        Ireland is a Roman Catholic country, the Pope views on Gays are not exactly welcoming which creates a major dilemma for that 38.4%.... Do you vote for the church/God or do you vote for your local politician who is playing the emotional card ( The Sinn Fein pushed for a Yes vote)... ( Ironically, Neither of which ultimately care about you, unless you are paying something towards their upkeep)

        Also, Northern Ireland are going through their "Fifth" voting session... Why, they have already voted "No" the first 4 times.... This reeks of a hidden agenda..

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          Re: @AC Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

          Homophobic much?

          62.1% is a resounding result, and 60.5% turnout is very high.

          Ireland showed far more interest in and support for same-sex marriage than most other democratic questions. For example, the current president of the US had a higher than usual turnout at 57.2%, with 51.1% for Obama.

          Yes, the Irish are far more interested in allowing equal marriage rights to all their citizens than most Western democracy are in who governs them.

          PS: If two strangers love each other and want to, WTF shouldn't they get married? It cannot possibly have any negative effect whatsoever upon you or anyone you know, so why stop them?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @AC Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

            "PS: If two strangers love each other and want to, WTF shouldn't they get married? It cannot possibly have any negative effect whatsoever upon you or anyone you know, so why stop them?"

            Oh shit, someone played the "homophobic card", you do realise that that is as pathetic as most of the policitians playing the "won't anyone think about the children card".

            Have a look though history about what happens just after promiscuity among the same sex increases.... The occidental society has indeed almost reached the the end of it's successfull period , we could continue but we refuse to look at ourselves objectively.. You, my dear commentard, are one of the blind helping the ignorant to reach the path of absolute catastrophy...

        2. Tom 38
          FAIL

          @AC with homophobic maths

          There was approxiamtely a 60% turnout, and from those, 64% said yes. Which is the equivalant of only 38.4% of the population..... Not exactly an overwhelming majority...

          So to put it another way, only 21.6% of people voted against it?

        3. SolidSquid

          Re: @AC Religion really has become a very "special" form of politics....

          So more people supported it than opposed it? I'm not sure how this makes it somehow invalid, just over 1/3 of people supported it, less than 1/3 supported it and the rest were, in one way or another, happy to let those people decide it for them by not voting. Hell, most elections are won with a smaller proportion of the population than that

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      The "predominantly Irish" line was unnecessary as this is already covered, generally speaking, by the "predominantly catholic" line. Otherwise you should have included the southern european and south american nations that have strong catholicism.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @werdsmith

        Yes, I thought about that but I felt that the Irish/Scottish cases were deeper rooted than just religion.

        It kinda makes you realise that the whole Pro-Gay campaign is only really a couple of US States + some parts of Europe....As mentioned before I see it as one of the cards that politicians have in their hands.. When they no longer feel that it can acquire them votes then they will simply stop talking about it, same story for the media.

    3. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      .bent?

      This entire argument is stupid - I say give them all the .domains they want - I'm blacklisting the majority of them at the mail server since all they do is send spam. It's tempting to blacklist them at the firewall but I don't give a toss.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Gay as slang

    I for one will be Excessively Happy when the Queers and Homos stop using it and give it back to me.

    Not that I have anything against Back-door Scuttlers or Rug Munchers - I think they are Brilliant.

    (Slightly less comfortable about them giving it back to Rolf Harris and his Two Little Boys though).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gay as slang

      4 down votes; ah well, some people cant take a joke, even when it has a serious point - "Gay" is being used as slang, and like many of the other words used, may fall out of favour quite quickly, leaving the tld vacant.

      In fact the ONLY slang word for homosexual I can think of that isnt now considered a bad word is "Brilliant". (17th/18th century)

      Hands up all those who didnt know that "Brilliant" used to be used as slang for homosexual.

      1. Kiwi

        Re: Gay as slang

        Hands up all those who didnt know that "Brilliant" used to be used as slang for homosexual.

        That could explain a few things.. People always used to say I was "brilliant" but I never felt that my actual intelligence met their acclaim...

        That said, I have had some very brilliant friends... ;)

  10. John Hughes

    The Economist

    Does anyone else find irt a bit odd that the go-to guys for deciding if the application is gay enough is the Economist?

  11. Six_Degrees

    Maybe Sepp Blatter can take over ICANN when he leaves FIFA.

  12. smartypants

    To the "they took away my gay word" brigade

    Here's how language works (all of them)

    1) People make sounds that have specific known meanings

    2) Sounds and meanings change over time.

    3) Er, that's it.

    If a set of people decide one day to start using the word 'sick' to exclaim how good something is, there is no objective reason for this being a bad thing. Wind forward 100 years and the meaning might have died out or become the only 'correct' way to communicate such an idea. We can't know now, but moaning about it shows how little you know about how our language is what it is today.

    'Gay' has gained a new meaning, and the old one has become archaic... but it might not have done. It isn't all that long since people started using the word 'fruit' to describe homosexuals. Did that destroy the use of the word 'fruit' to mean apples etc? No. Of course not.

    Nobody will give a damn if you want to continue using a word to mean an archaic meaning. They just won't understand you. Is that what you want?

    This is language. Deal with it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: To the "they took away my gay word" brigade

      Then obvious solution is to have a .TLD named : ".homosexual". It's not bigotted, it's straighforward and it won't change over time.

      [I can also think of some others but many on this thread can't take a joke.]

      1. SolidSquid

        Re: To the "they took away my gay word" brigade

        Thing is, the whole reason for the last rejection is that they were trying to cover more than just people who were homosexual, but also included things like transexual. As a community they generally are pretty closely associated, but .homosexual would work for everyone they were trying to bring under the umbrella as well as .gay would

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