Discuss mailing list

[Peter Green <peter AT greenpete.free>]

> 1) Lets start by looking at the .pirate zone.  The current zone file
> has NO registered domains, and has not been updated since Feb. 07,
> 2013. What's going on here?  Is there even a valid registrar page for
> this TLD?  If not, what has been going on in the past year? While I
> support the ideas behind such a zone, I have to ask... how long
> should we carry a TLD that is effectively dead and unusable?

Not very long in my opinion, whilst allowing for some latitude. Maybe 6
months max'.

I also think there should be a policy and or procedure for the T.L.D. to
be taken over if the admin disappears or needs it to be taken on by
someone else but perhaps only if there are some domains registered with
that T.L.D.

> I don't believe it is unreasonable to expect people to update their
> domains once a year to prove they are even still interested in it,

I agree, they are free after all, how difficult is it to renew? It also
helps keep OpenNIC tidy.

> Should we develop a policy for cleaning out our zone files?

Yes, it keeps things tidy and maybe as fast as possible. Would a 'fat'
data base slow things down? I would think so, so why carry dead wood?

> 3) Getting back to some of the basics now... What about general
> contact emails, and a consistent way to always reach the admin of a
> TLD?

Most definitely! Contact details should be easy to find and in many
places but specifically on the registration site and the wiki. As well
as effective and that may mean pointing the...

> hostmaster, postmaster, webmaster, and abuse emails for every
> registered domain, to point to the admin of the TLD.

> I would hope that by using an opennic TLD for the email address, it
> should prevent the typical spam,

Yes and an excellent thing about using an address at an OpenNIC T.L.D!

> but it would also be nice to have a consistent method for *anyone* to
> contact the admin if needed.

Definitely.

> 4) Required web pages:  The policy page mentions having a www.<tld>
> page for managing registrations.  I would instead like to submit an 
> alternative.  For all registrar pages, we use reg.<tld> and all TLDs
> are required to keep a homepage for the zone at www.<tld> and
> opennic.<tld> which contains pertinent info like links to the TLD
> charter, registration page, and the opennic homepage.

Why 'www'? Isn't that a redundant throwback to when... well does anyone
actually know why anyone used www as a sub-domain anyway?

> 5) Reserved domain names:  We should probably have a list of
> general-purpose domain names that are reserved for administrative use
> or potential future projects.

Good idea.

>  Also a general policy for domain name length?

I don't see why a registrar would dictate the length of a domain, can
anyone give me a reason why they would?

I would suggest allowing any length, at least within reason, that being
maybe nothing above 20 characters and 1 as an obvious minimum, unless
there is a good reason less than 2 or 3 is a bad idea?

> 6) Finally, I want to put forth the idea of requiring a central
> storage for domain information. 

Why not just make it a policy that T1 ops have a reliable backup system?
That way it spreads the load financially - it means that additional
servers don't need to be setup and maintained.

I guess you could backup the zones and respective accounts in order to
cover for loss of data or admin...

Thanks Jeff!

Peter