Chris Shiflett wrote:
Right, and that brings up another thing I want to change! :) Actually you are right. Technically underscores are not allowed although I think some DNS servers and clients may support it (esp. from the microsoft world?). Even though the original? DNS RFC supports hyphens, I remember that many years ago when I worked for red-cross.org, the hyphen worked OK on the server and many clients, but some email clients didn't like the hyphen at all and said it was an invalid domain name if someone wanted to send email to us. So eventually it was changed to redcross.org.--- gunther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:www.mod_perl.com (doesn't exist) www.mod_perl.org (doesn't exist)A small point, and I would have to double-check, but I don't believe underscores are allowed in domain names. You'd want to replace those with hyphens.
But if some clients do support underscore, since mod_perl is frequently written with an underscore, may as well get that domain name too in case the client supports it and someone actually types www.mod_perl.com or www.mod_perl.org. But still having modperl.com as a primary project-name related domain name would be there for people who can't type _.
Regardless, this part (as I think you meant) is just a detail where the main point shouldn't necessarily be lost as discussed below.
You are right, but the point is to improve the PR.A Google search for mod_perl gives me the mod_perl Web site, the user guide, Stas's book, and Geoff's book, in that order. Those are all pretty good resources, and this is where people looking for mod_perl information are likely to end up. I think the more important issue is making mod_perl something for which people search for information, because they've already heard about it through other means.
I am not contending that people cannot find what they are looking for. I could find pubmed's real URL by searching on google also (following my example of www.pubmed.com instead of the long national library of medicine URL). But the point is one of convenience and perception.
[Convenience]
It's convenient to remember that major projects or entities generally have a domain name that links to them. Do you think www.newegg.com would be satisfied as www.web66.com/~newegg? (or substitute whatever you like bestbuy.com, pizzahut.com, and even... perl.com etc...)
The fact that you have to remember perl.apache.org instead of modperl.com is not so convenient unless you go to the site all the time or have it bookmarked. Most people on this mailing list probably do both so maybe you don't see this being a problem, but to the infrequenters, it's nicer to not have to remember what the "trick" was (Oh yeah, mod_perl is an apache project, so it's not it's own domain name, it's perl.apache.org). I am also not saying to give up perl.apache.org. www.modperl.com could simply redirect to perl.apache.org.
[Perception]
I could be wrong, but I think the message of key www.modperl.com URL belonging to a mere single book on the market sends a message that is not optimal to how the mod_perl community should present itself..
I perceive a project where a couple people (even if they are people without whom mod_perl wouldn't exist! :) ) taking the www.modperl.com domain name for a book rather than allowing the project itself to utilize that domain name is not serving the community at large. At best it is not convenient for the community at large, at worst, it sends a message of fragmentation that the project couldn't even get it's own domain name and "looks like" some private couple of people took it out from under the community (regardless of whether this is true or not).
I could understand why the authors would want to take the domain name for themselves because it will give them a lot more hits (which arguably increases the sale of their book), but I would argue that mod_perl books as a whole will sell better in general if the project itself has the added convenience of it's own primary domain name. Enhancement of PR of mod_perl is good for everyone who sells a mod_perl book including the original authors (I would think).
[How Important Is This...Really?]
Anyway, I am talking PR here. Many PR things are actually unnecessary to do. You could spend the next 5-10 years without www.modperl.com pointing to the real mod_perl website and it probably would only make a small difference, but still I think it would be a difference so I added it to the "to do list" of what I personally believe should happen to enhance mod_perl PR. It's OK if people disagree with me of course. :) :)
