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Comment by Aldipower | Hacker News Reader

This address will not work for obvious historic reasons in Germany.

For us who don't have the historic context (nor understand the reference to past concentration camps), what do you mean it won't work?

KZ is the shorthand for Konzentrationslager, i.e. concentration camp.

Ok, and .kz is the ccTLD for Kazakhstan. You think people can't realize the difference?

There's a difference between "realising the difference" and "actively wanting it as my internet identity".

Yep. If you're a German living or working in Kazakhstan it's certainly fine to have a .kz email.

Using it as in a vanity domain like we do with .me or .io, on the other hand, will definitely look weird.

You think the average person would know what a ccTLD is or that kz refers to Kazakhstan?

I think the average internet user is familiar with country-specific TLDs.

I think the average Internet user is not familiar with country-specific TLDs except for their own country and a few others. Most people do not realise that .me, .tv, .cc, are country TLDs, they think they are country-independent TLDs similarly to .com, .net, .org, and in practice they may well be used more by organisations and people that have no relation to those countries than by those that do. In this case even users who are aware that they are strictly speaking country TLDs have reason to assume the same applies: .kz was not picked because of any relation between Mailoji and Kazakhstan. It was picked for technical reasons, but users would not know of those technical reasons, they would have no reason to think it was picked for anything other than .kz being seen as a good name.

I'm just giving the explanation of the historical context to GP, I'm neither German nor a lawmaker in Germany.

Germany is a bit over the top in this regard. When abbreviating a name to two letters (like as an avatar or as a short form for a newspaper author name) we usually specifically avoid KZ, HJ, NS, SA, SS. You also can't get those in a license plate.

There must be some demographic which cares. I've personally only seen people amused by it.

Could you please explain HJ, NS and SA?

HJ = Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth)

SA = Sturmabteilung (NSDAP paramilitary org)

NS = idk, probably NatSoc / National Socialist

If you asked 100 people in Germany(!) what "KZ" stands for the result would be something like 95 say "Konzentrationslager", 5 say "I don't know" and 0 "ISO code for Kazakhstan".

Indeed. But if you ask the whole world (as we're on the internet), 1% might recognize it as "Konzentrationslager", 2% might recognize it as Kazakhstan and the rest have no idea.

So for general internet usage, I think it's fine. We're not modelling the internet after German customs after all.

No we're modelling the internet after US customs, which is why boobs are banned from mainstream Internet services and have to hide in the porn.

I'm not sure we're better off.

Maybe if you frequent websites based in the US, yeah. Otherwise no, there is plenty of boobs all across the web and some sites don't hide porn as not everyone is as prude as the americans.

But there are other webs out there, speaking many different languages and carrying many different customs. The beauty is that if you don't like US customs, you can usually find communities that are far away from US culture.

I just tried to explain why the .kz email-address would be problematic for germans. I didn't propose that this should be the general rule for all the internet. Personally I don't have a problem if someone from another country emails me from a .kz domain. But I wouldn't get one myself and if the person emailing me is german I would probably look twice to see what the reason behind that domain choice is.

I'm sure people can realize the difference, but I'd expect the thought process in Germany to go something like

1) hmm, they have .kz as the TLD

2) apparently thats kazakhstan? TIL

3) kinda weird that they, not being from kazakhstan, would choose to have that as their TLD. Maybe they're using it with another meaning in mind.

3.5) Let's give them the benefit of the doubt but remain wary of potential secret nazis, as one has to, here.

It's not whether they realize what it means as per the intent of the service provider, it's about what people think it means for other people. Since we're talking about an email service. I.e. I guess it's one thing to email someone in Germany from an <emoji>.kz email address and a completely different one to have customers (well, at least non-neonazi ones) signing up for such and address. Even if they do realize what kz stands for.

Ah, sorry, when I said "they" I meant a user of a .kz email address, not the service provider.

And .tv is Tuvalu, and .me is Montenegro, and .io is the British Indian Ocean Territory. But those domain names are popular largely because they have other meanings.

i.e. Nazi Death Camp

No, concentration camp. Extermination camps were a subset of concentration camps.

Doesn't mean that prisoners were expected to be well treated in a concentration camp (typically just well enough to be productive as a slave), but they were not directly sent to the gas chambers.

we don't make too much of a distinction in Germany or Austria in general usage of the word - while what you point out is technically correct, pretty much everybody here will understand "KZ" as "the whole of the nazi death machinery" and will definitely want to avoid to append it to their mail address in such a prominent way

Oh I'm all for simplifying the general language, the distinction doesn't really matter. However, I prefer to stick to the correct terms in writing :)

I think words here do matter. Concentration camp isn't taken as a euphemism, per se, but Nazi-specific jargon. This weakens its ability to invoke sympathy for other high-density, high-mortality regions

For the same reason, I hope he doesn't support this emoji https://emojipedia.org/star-of-david/ - or else the service would attract customers he might not want to be associated with...

Take nazi's money and give them a broken email system in return? Sounds win-win to me.

Jews?

edit: nevermind, I get it now.

Eh, you don't want the service to attract Jews or what? Star of David is a symbol within the Jewish community. What you are referring to is probably the "Yellow badge" that was used by Nazis for identifying Jews. Two very different things.

Let's not make all Jewish symbols Nazi-related, we have enough of that already.

Also, some soldiers wore the Star of David as a symbol of defiance against antisemitism. So if you see someone wearing that symbol (or using a domain with that symbol), assume they are Jews/supportive of Jews, not that they are Nazis.

Associating the star of david with the .kz TLD (concentration camp) is not a good idea.

Unless you're a avid Jew living in Kazakhstan of course.

Yeah, that product is pretty much dead on arrival in Germany

Such emails would look _very_ sketchy to most Germans

As a native German I have to admit that the problem with .kz only occurred to me after you mentioned it. I'm not sure if I should feel good or bad about this.

For anyone outside the german-speaking countres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps -- In german: Konzentrationslager, abbreviated with KZ. Similarly, never use abbrevations like SS, NS, AH, HH, HJ in Germany. Also, some of these are forbidden on our license plates.

Are Buddhists and Hinduists allowed to use Swastika in Germany?

Yes

Yes they are. The Swastika is a religious symbol, the Hakenkreuz is not.

The German swastika is a mirror reflection of the religious icon, btw.

No, it isn't. Dharmaic traditions use both directions.

This is correct.

Btw, there are dozens of other occurances, not just one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

"In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean the swastika is also a homonym of the number 10,000,..."

Why is Konzentrationslager KZ rather than KL ?

Good question! German Wikipedia says because it's got a harsher sound to it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konzentrationslager#Nationalso...

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