[Wikipedia-l] www.wikipedia.de points to domain seller

[Jimmy Wales]

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >Indeed, this is really strange. Jimbo, how could this happen?

> Because whoever registered wikipedia.de didn't renew the
> registration. AFAIK wikipedia.de was never owned by nor ever an
> official Wikimedia domain name.  So its fate was in the hands of
> whoever registered it.

That's right.  The person who registered it offered it to me, at a
high price ($500 as I recall, but I could be mistaken about that).

> Wikimedia already has a whole bunch of domain names that have to be
> paid for (and renewed). If we purchase wikipedia.de then to be fair
> then we would have to do for every other wikipedia.xx where xx
> corresponds to country code that is also a language code we
> use. That is a lot of domain names for Wikimedia to pay for.

I think it's actually a good idea to do that.

> But there is nothing stopping individual Wikipedians from buying
> these domain names and redirecting them to us. Just don't depend on
> that domain name redirect working indefinitely.

Wait!  Since we have a functioning system for donations, it is a *lot*
better now to just donate money and let me know that you want it to be
used for thus-and-such a registration.  That way, the domain belongs 
to the Wikimedia Foundation from the outset, and we don't have to worry
about random lapses.

I hope some German-speakers will research who now has wikimedia.de, so
we can approach them and hope that they are charitably inclined to
give it to us.  We could reimburse them for the expenses they have
already in terms of registration, or they could just make a gift out
of support for our universal ideals.

--Jimbo