[Foundation-l] [Fwd: Re: Do WMF want enwp.org?]

Waldir Pimenta waldir at email.com
Mon May 2 00:23:04 UTC 2011


On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Béria Lima <berialima at gmail.com> wrote:

> I preffer wp.org (if is possible) to make internationalization easier. So
> to
> en.wiki would be "en.wp.org", de.wiki "de.wp.org" and etc.
>

For the record (sorry I'm late btw :P), I had independently contacted the
owners of wp.org shortly before this thread came up, and they basically said
that even though they supported Wikipedia (they had even donated in the
past), the domain has too much potential value (WordPress, the Washington
Post, etc) for them to hand it over.

I also thought about this multi-language facet of Wikimedia, which is
further aggravated by the existence of multiple projects. That is, even
wp.org would have problems too, since we'd then need to get one for
wikinews, commons, etc. The best solution would be IMO getting the domain *
wi.ki*, since this could be adapted either through prefixes (i.e.,
subdomains, such as en.wi.ki) or suffixes (e.g. wi.ki/en) for languages
and/or project codes. In addition to that we could generate links as the
current shorteners do, like wi.ki/x23yz.

Now, the wi.ki domain at first seems to be unused, but
http://whois.nic.kireveals it is registered at least until 9 Jan 2012,
by
domaininfo.com. A search on that page reveals that wi.ki is not available
for registration, but seems to be buyable for 696 €. We could contact them
and ask for a partial donation, but it would work best if the request comes
from the WMF itself. Before figuring it was already registered, I sent an
email to organization that manages the .KI domain. The text of that email
might be useful for this effect: http://pastebin.com/L0v6uz1i

Here's a quote from that message that points out some of the advantages of
having these short urls:
*
*
>
> *"[Wikipedia] links are often long and hard to read (for instance:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=.ki&oldid=408287624 ), which
> makes them not only inconvenient, but also prone to reproduction errors.
> Since the practice of citation is such a critical component of journalism
> and scientific publication, minimizing this risk would bring very
> significant benefits for scholars, journalists, and even users who want to
> share links in social media.*
>

So, who supports that we request them a donation of that domain? And is
anyone from the WMF willing to send them the request? (Moka?)

It's fine if the tech team doesn't want to manage the domain; I'm sure
plenty of volunteers could offer to do that. But it we'd be much more likely
to get it in the first place if the request is made officially by the WMF.

So what do you guys think?

Waldir


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