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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

Why do we even think about this? Custom TLDs are a farce, a way to shake companies and nonprofits out of money without any added value, neither technologically, nor in terms of marketing/communication. Everybody knows that, right? Didn't we all conclude that when the ICANN announced it? Aren't "we", the hacker crowd, supposed to be above this?

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I agree. Further, regarding this bit from the "Why?" section of the README:

> Okay, this is kind of a vanity TLD, but we freaking build the web every day... Shouldn't we have a TLD that JS hackers control?

Why are "JS hackers" being targeted specifically? Why not also Ruby, Python, PHP, .NET, and Perl hackers? Why not also HTML and CSS hackers? Why not also designers (.psd perhaps)? Why not dozens of new TLDs so that everyone could have a domain with the file extension of their choosing?

I'll tell you why: because arbitrarily polluting the top-level namespace is something we learn not to do.

Probably because .py is paraguay, .pl is poland, .net is ... whatever.

Sure, but there's no .rb ccTLD, and since 4-, 5-, and 6- letter gTLDs exist, we could certainly have Kickstarter campaigns for .php, .html, .css, .perl, etc.

I guess .NET hackers are screwed though.

Actually, Microsoft owns ASP.NET - which is a site about ASP .NET

They're probably less screwed, cause they can register their domain today, provided it's still available.

OMG!!! Imagine the amount of phishing that can be done with a .html TLD... hey access paypal.com.fantastic.promotion.html this would be horrible...

  .dotnet

javascript is more of the lingua franca of the web

That's why I find it so helpful that I can translate javascript to English using Google translate!

Couldn't agree with you more. I can't even fathom how ludicrous this idea is. What possible reason is there for a language to have a TLD?

Let's make custom TLDs for .py, .java, .c, .h, .php... really? Really?

I can't wait for the .bash_profile tld to become available.

Ummm, the country of Paraguay already has the .py cctld, and they are somewhat picky about who they hand domains out to (residents and nationals only basically), which is why you don't see a bunch of programmers with vanity domains that are python in-jokes.

This is exactly why I both love and fear the power of Kickstarter. It enables half-thought out ideas (claimed as "projects") to have a way to sucker good people out of their money.

You make a great ideological point sir. But let me make a pragmatic one.

The new gTLD's are coming whether we like it or not, so why not take advantage of it?

Pragmatically speaking, the new gGTLDs are likely to fail. So why not avoid that expensive bullet?

Aside: Has anyone ever run across a real functioning site that uses the .travel suffix? That is a precursor gTLD that went live in 2006. Presumably there are a lot more people interested in travel than there are in javascript.

>Pragmatically speaking, the new gGTLDs are likely to fail. So why not avoid that expensive bullet?

If the premise is true, then I agree with the conclusion.

But what will make the new set of gTLD's likely to fail?

And what does "fail" mean even?

If all you are going on is history, not sure we can conclude anything. Past performance is a poor indicator of future performance.

If it weren't the case, then I switch professions and become a stock broker, because it would be dead simple that even I could understand it ;).

Does the hacker crowd include the person who started the BH conferences? ICANN hired him and he's the one running the technical side of this farce.

I'm going to start a tiny country called "Jesss," and then get rich! It's a perfect plan!!!

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