Domain Name PR was Re: mod_perl presence at OSCON (and other CONs) is at danger

[gunther <gu...@extropia.com>]

Chris Shiflett wrote:

>--- gunther <gu...@extropia.com> 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.
>
>  
>
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.

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.

>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.
>
>  
>
You are right, but the point is to improve the PR.

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. :) :)

Re: Domain Name PR

[Larry Leszczynski <la...@emailplus.org>]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, gunther wrote:

> But still having modperl.com as a primary project-name
> related domain name would be there for people who can't type _.

Plus it will be consistent with other sites like modssl.org.  In fact both
modssl.com and modssl.org exist, but modssl.com just redirects to
modssl.org.  I think that scheme would be appropriate for
modperl.com/modperl.org too.

I also agree with the previous post that we shouldn't be creating domain
names with hyphens or underscores if there's the possibility of clients
out there that will not be able to handle them.


Larry


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Re: Domain Name PR was Re: mod_perl presence at OSCON (and other CONs) is at danger

[Stas Bekman <st...@stason.org>]

gunther wrote:
> 
> 
> Chris Shiflett wrote:
> 
>> --- gunther <gu...@extropia.com> 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.
>>
>>  
>>
> 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.
> 
> 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 _.

-1. the reason: if it works for some clients people will start linking to it, 
and having other clients fail to connect.

-- 
__________________________________________________________________
Stas Bekman            JAm_pH ------> Just Another mod_perl Hacker
http://stason.org/     mod_perl Guide ---> http://perl.apache.org
mailto:stas@stason.org http://use.perl.org http://apacheweek.com
http://modperlbook.org http://apache.org   http://ticketmaster.com

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Re: Domain Name PR was Re: mod_perl presence at OSCON (and other CONs) is at danger

[Patrick <pa...@patoche.org>]

gunther <gu...@extropia.com> 2004-06-09 16:42
> 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 

You can NOT buy from Registrars domain names with underscores in
them.
These ``domain names'' do not exist on Internet scale.

Problem solved.

-- 
Patrick.
``Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level,
then beat you with experience.''

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