>Most people who use the Internet have little if any knowledge of what
>domain names are or what they represent, structurally. Thus, if they
>are presented with an address like tangled.web, no flag goes off in
>their head saying "oops, that is not an IANA TLD, so I have to do
>something different to respond to it." They respond to the address;
>it fails; they perhaps complain to their ISP admins, who say "it's not
>a valid address." You and I know that "validity" has something to do
>with what TLDs they have decided to search for. However, the end user
>is out of luck. They have no effective way of determining the validity
>of this address for themselves.
Ok, right, and this is exactly the same as sombody on usenet
listing their email address as [EMAIL PROTECTED] [1] in
their signature line. The practice is extremely widespread,
and poeple are still able to communicate just fine. One of
the addresses in my signature below works for anybody,
so I don't buy this argument as representing any impediment
whatsoever.
>I guess I am wondering what the point of alternative TLDs are. Do
>they exist to provide service, or are they just for proof-of-concept?
>I don't think anyone in the Internet technical community would deny
>that they can't work; what is at issue here is if they can work with
>the same level of stability as the IANA TLDs. Thus far, prominent
>people -- people who the Internet community generally respect, by and
>large, feel they do not.
What do you mean by "stability of IANA TLDS" ? Given things
like palestine.int, .tv, .<haiti>, .tm I'd say the alternative
tlds are more stable. What's your metric?
[1] I've had a non insignificant number of people try to
sign up for various mailing lists with a .nospam address.--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"I see you've got yout fist out. Say your peace and get out. Guess
I get the gist of it, but... it's alright. Sorry that you feel that
way. The only thing there is to say is to say: ever silver lining
has a touch of grey" - JG.
