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

[Waldir Pimenta]

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Martijn Hoekstra
<martijnhoekstra at gmail.com>wrote:

> Back to the issue at hand though: Thomas is (quite generously)
> offering the enwp.org domain. Would the foundation like to have it?


I can only guess that the tech-oriented people don't seem to fancy the idea
much. From this thread we have the following (explicitly stated):

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar+wmf at free.fr> wrote:

> Can we please stop multiplying the number of domains?  Although the
> registration is cheap, the administration overhead is not that cheap.
>

Plus the implicit indifference signaled by the absence of other inputs from
the tech staff despite their being asked at least once --so we were told--
to comment on the issue.

There's also a thread about this from 2008 in wikitech, especially this
message from Brion

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> I strongly recommend against making links through *any* unofficial
> alternate domain, whether WMF owns it or not. (Perhaps especially if WMF
> owns it!) Sooner or later someone will forget to renew it and it'll
> become a squatted spam site. :)
>
> -- brion
>
[source: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/137602#137602]

Well, I don't think this should be a valid impediment. I mean, don't domain
registrars send reminders when the expiration date is close? Even if they
don't, can't the tech people set one themselves? There must be some sort of
system already in place for the several top-level domains we already have:
one for every project (which amounts to 7), plus wikimediafoundation.org,
mediawiki.org, and the .com, .net variants of many of these and god knows
what else (funny, mediawiki.net seems to be owned by WM-IT).

So, on one hand I can understand the resistance towards adding even more
domains to that mix: the enwp.org would set a precedence for others in the
same vein, and this would mean up to 7 (projects) * ~200 (languages)
domains. Even if we assume only a handful of these would get enough demand
to be registered, it could easily double or triple the number of domains
currently managed by the WMF. In fact, if we assume only the .org domains I
noted above (9 in total), adding the current shorteners I have knowledge of
(enwp.org, frwp.org, enwn.net) means a 33% growth.

On the other hand, as I said, there are likely more than the 9 .org TLDs I
mentioned, so there probably is (if not, should be?) an automated system of
reminders or something to that effect. This system could easily be extended
to add one or a few more.

Waldir