Talk:Top-level domain

[edit] Moved here

The following discussion has been moved here from another talk page. It refers to something that is not (and never was) in this article.

I'm not sure it's worthwhile to list all ccTLDs (rather than just mention the differences from ISO 3166 alpha-2 codes). But if we are going to do so, then it would make more sense to have a single list of TLDs that includes the gTLDs as well. So I think this list should be moved to Internet TLDs. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 20

I think its useful to have a list of ccTLDs separate from the ISO 3166 alpha-2 list. If someone wants to find out "what country is that ccTLD" or "what ccTLD is that country", a separate list would be helpful. Otherwise, they'd have to consult the ISO 3166 list, and mentally make the modifications listed in the TLD article. In fact, I think we should move most of the information on differences between ccTLDs and ISO 3166 to the end of this article (put the easier stuff for beginners first, the obscure nerdy details at the end :). I also don't having a merged page for ccTLDs and gTLDs would be that useful -- the ccTLDs outnumber the gTLDs significantly, and the gTLDs are likely to get lost amid all those ccTLDs. Unless of course, we put it into separate sections -- but then why not move all the information back to top-level domain then? Basically, my main idea here is to keep the basic information separate from the technical and historical details we seem to enjoy collecting :) -- SJK

But the distinction between gTLDs and ccTLDs is often meaningless in practice (consider NU, for example, or TV), so I think a unified list would be better. I'm not proposing to move any of the current information about gTLDs, I just don't want to see them omitted from our main list of TLDs. I've put the page at Internet TLDs so you can see what I'm proposing. The discussion on the Internet ccTLDs page would be moved back to Top-level domain, and the Internet ccTLDs page would be deleted or redirected. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 20

Zundark: Okay, now I think about it, I agree with you. -- SJK

I've removed the country codes from this page because I didn't see any reason to have them repeated in a second place, especially with the countries not linked. If they should be on this page instead, perhaps we should simply cut and paste the other page's info from the "edit text" box into this one.  :-) --KQ

Someone wrote that the TLD is the name after the last dot. That is not true. If you write out the domain name in full, there is no name after the last dot. In full, 'www.wikipedia.com' is really 'www.wikipedia.com.' However, in almost all circumstances you can omit the final dot, so people normally do. (However, IIRC, if you were on host 'don.black.com.', and there existed a host 'www.wikipedia.com.black.com.', then 'www.wikipedia.com' would resolve to that host, not 'www.wikipedia.com.') -- SJK

Could you explain what you mean here? The grammar in RFC 952 does not allow a final dot on the end of a hostname. In what cases are you saying that the dot is allowed? --Zundark, 2001 Nov 10

Well, to be honest I've never actually read the RFC. Since the root domain is '.', I just presumed that to be fully qualified the domain would need to mention the root domain as well. Otherwise how do you distinguish between the two examples I gave? (I know that using only part of the domain to reach hosts whose domain you are in works in at least some cases: I used to do it frequently...) And nslookup has no problem accepting domains with a '.' on the end... Nor does Netscape... -- SJK

It makes sense that there should be a final dot, but it's clearly not allowed in all circumstances. On a different subject: does anyone have any information about the NATO TLD? It ought to be mentioned in the "Historical TLDs" section, but I'm having trouble finding reliable information about it. It seems to have been set up in 1990 and removed in 1996 (long after it had been replaced in practice by NATO.INT). However, I'm not entirely sure about either of these dates. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 10

Some searching on the Web makes it clear that the NATO TLD was deleted in July 1996. However, I'm not at all sure when it was first established (looks like it could be 1988 or earlier), so I've avoided saying anything about the creation date in the article. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 11

http://dns.vrx.net/positions/ic/dns/ contains a copy of a message from Paul Mockapetris about the creation of NATO. The link to the mailing list archive is broken, but I remember reading the message when it was posted to the list in 1996. -- Marco d'Itri, 2003 Aug 1

http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-c/Arc01/msg00145.html contains interesting historical informations about the creation of .INT.

Does anyone have any history on .GB to add to the article? My vague recollection is that at some point (late 80's?) a decision was taken (by whom?) that the United Kingdom would migrate from its historical allocation of .UK to its ISO 3166 country code allocation of .GB. I believe that .GB was allocated on the basis of a migration, with a condition of the delegation being that .UK would remain only as a transitional delegation.

However, there was significant opposition to this decision, both (presumably) because of the disruption in changing all domain names, but also because .UK was perceived by many as a far more natural TLD for the United Kingdom than .GB (which, despite being the UK's ISO 3166 code, actually stands for Great Britain, which is only a part of the UK -- excluding Northern Ireland). I believe at the time attempts were made to lobby the DTI (the UK Department of Trade and Industry) to request a change in the ISO 3166 code to UK -- such a change would apparently have been possible if it had been requested of ISO 3166/MA by the DTI, but the DTI decided against this course of action (I think, due to the disruption it would cause to other applications of ISO 3166, and due to the fact that other country code systems such as those for car registrations, aircraft registrations and radio call signs all use G or GB to refer to the UK)

Nevertheless, the opposition to .GB was successful in reversing the decision to migrate, and .UK once again became the UK's official ccTLD. .GB, I believe now just exists for transitional reasons, as there were some allocations in (and migrations into) the .GB domain.

Alas, this is all somewhat before my time, and what I heard about this was all third hand, and my recollection is in any case hazy. Anyone able to confirm any of the above? Roy Badami 20:24 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I remember it being the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a division of the Department of Defense... - Arthur George Carrick 23:03, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I corrected this. It's now in the .arpa article. --Zundark 07:50, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting TLD article

Hmm, I see no reason why we should have ccTLD and gTLD on one same article when they should be separated. Thoughts? See User:Joseph Dwayne/Sandbox first. The main problem would be modifying every country article, as they link to top-level domain instead of country code top-level domain. —Joseph | Talk 23:02, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

You don't say why you think ccTLD and gTLD should be separated - they are functionally identical, so it makes sense to have them in the same article. Also, there have only been three deleted TLDs, so splitting the section on historic TLDs (as your sandbox suggests you want to do) is not a good idea. Adding a list of all ccTLDs (as you have done in your sandbox) would be undesirable because it duplicates the information in List of Internet top-level domains and is difficult to maintain. (In fact, it's difficult to even get right in the first place - your list is wrong.) --Zundark 09:03, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

An automobile and a motorcycle are functionally identical also, but we don't have them on the same article under "wheeled vechicles powered by an engine". ;-) Basically, merging information is not a good practice regarding information itself. When a user visits a certain page is because he wants specifical information about its subject, not about another subject or the parent subject. If we have them merged as it is now, users are forced to read what a top-level domain is before reading what a ccTLD is. We are forcing readers to chew information, when it is the user who should be the one who decides what food he chews. For example, by the way that I wrote it on my sandbox, readers choose to read what a top-level domain is (by clicking the TLD link). They can easily learn what a ccTLD is without knowing what a TLD is.

I don't understand why you beleive that splitting the historical data is not a good idea — I'm giving to each its own: not mixing up info about gTLDs, TLDs in general and ccTLDs.

Template do duplicate data, but they serve as navigation menus inside articles. Are you familiar with Wikipedia's templates? They are very easy to maintain, I don't know why you beleive the contrary.

The list is not wrong: every domain listed there is, was, or is reserved to serve as a ccTLD.

—Joseph | Talk 23:18, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Your argument seems to be based on the assumption that there is a fundamental difference between ccTLDs and gTLDs. But there isn't - the DNS doesn't distinguish between them. And your list is wrong. You appear to be saying that you have mistitled it and it should be something like "past and present ccTLDs, and labels reserved for use as ccTLDs". But even then it's wrong - at a quick glance I see at least one existing ccTLD that is missing, one former ccTLD that is missing and at least two reserved labels that are missing. --Zundark 07:50, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But there are fundamental differences between them: ccTLD are two letters long, reserved for countries, and most of them must comply to the ISO 3166-1 abbreviation standard, while gTLDs don't have a specific length, and are reserved for various purposes (not unique like ccTLDs). It doesn't matter how does a computer handles them, they are intrinsically different. By your same reasoning I could say that an HTML and a TXT file are the same because a computer treats them as plaintext files, but obviously they are not: they are very, very different because of what they hold. A ccTLD holds countries, a gTLD holds anything that is not a country. And if the list is missing stuff, then it is not wrong, it is *incomplete*. —Joseph | Talk 22:52, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

None of your cited differences is fundamental. The length is obviously irrelevant, and does not determine classification. There are gTLDs that are reserved for a specific country. There are ccTLDs that do not comply with ISO 3166-1.

As for your analogy: HTML was designed for the web, and web browsers (and other user agents) do treat it differently than plain text files. TLDs are designed for the DNS, and the DNS does not handle ccTLDs differently from gTLDs.

And I don't understand why you continue to argue about the correctness of your list. Your list is clearly wrong, because it is titled "Country code top-level domains" but contains things which are not and never have been country code top-level domains. And the incompleteness is wrong too, because a list like that has to be complete, otherwise it is misleading. --Zundark 11:45, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not fundamental? Zund, what's the ONLY difference between a ccTLD and a gTLD? Isn't that what makes them intrinsically different? For a computer they are the same, but for us, the users, they are different. Do you understand me now? For a car manufacturer, an automobile model is the same thing: it contains 4 wheels, an engine, seats, etc. but for us the users, each model is different to each other. It has fundamental differences: color, style, speed, gas consumption, etc. I know that ccTLDs are not treated differently by the DNS, I know that there are ccTLDs that do not comply with the ISO, but this doesn't make them the same thing as a gTLD for *us*. When you ask a network administrator if .jp is the same thing as .org he will answer yes and no: yes, they are the same thing, they are simply TLD, but at the same time they differ from each other: .jp is a ccTLD reserved for Japan and .org is a gTLD reserved for organizations.

And about the list, for what I can see in a flash I see only 4 domains that could be considered as "incorrect": .tl, .eh, .cs, and .kp but all of them must be included inside the list, it is the article which has to handle the information about saying that they are not assigned, not used, reserved, or were former ccTLDs. By they way, when you say list are you referring to List of country code top-level domains or to Template:ccTLD? Because the first one doesn't exist anymore, I'm referring to the template.

—Joseph | Talk 18:22, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

I'm referring to the template. Things that are not country code top-level domains should not be in a list titled "Country code top-level domains". This is obvious to anyone who cares about the accuracy of Wikipedia. And there are a number of real ccTLDs that your template fails to mention.

Your concept of "fundamentally different" is fundamentally different from mine. Fortunately, we don't have separate articles for red automobile, green automobile, etc., even though you consider them to be fundamentally different. --Zundark 19:07, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So the above discussion was just a charade - even though the only person who replied to you disagreed with the split, you went ahead and split it anyway. I suppose I ought just to revert you, but maybe I will first see if it's possible to get the articles into an acceptable state in their split form. --Zundark 09:04, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] .gov and .edu

I think this article and the Top-level domain articles are not very accurate when they say the .gov and the .edu domains are restricted to the US. That's not true, as they're easily seen in other countries. I can speak for Brazil, for instance. We have both here. The original intend for those domains might have changed, but if it did, this article should be edited to reflect that those "rules" are no longer active (in a clearer way).

Also, didn't the info on Country code top-level domain use to be much more friendly? Now people have to click on every link and wait for them to load to know what country they are from. That's very unconfortable, in my opinion.--Kaonashi 04:13, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, I was thinking of this article. So yes, that's alright, but I still think something should be done about .gov and .edu.--Kaonashi 04:18, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

...actually, nevermind any of that. I think I understand it now. The domains in other countries just can't end with .edu or .gov. That's why I wasn't understanding. So, sorry about that. =] --Kaonashi 04:30, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] TLD articles: .foo v. foo.

Wikipedia seems to consistently describe .foo as a TLD when the TLD itself is actually foo.; .foo is what you suffix to an SLD (prefixed by any necessarry subdomains) to make an unrooted FDN in circumstances were you want to be ambiguous as to whether the DN is an FDN or not by not using an FQDN. Also, in general, foo. and foo do not redirect to .foo. --Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 16:33, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

• question: Where can I register a ".mm" domain? - master

Technically speaking, the dot is just a delimiter and not part of the actual TLD, but in common speech (perhaps corrupted by the non-techies), TLDs tend to be referred to with the leading dot, and this can be useful for distinguishing them from other things that happen to be called the same thing (just without any dots); ".com" vs. COM, for instance. *Dan T.* 12:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reserved TLD

Is cypherpunk reserved? I heard so but want to be sure Reply to David Latapie 13:23, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sponsored TLD

Explanation of .aero .coop .museum is needed.

http://www.icannwiki.org/STLD

http://www.icannwiki.org/STLD_Renewals

[edit] .localdomain ?

Is .localdomain a valid name ? I see it is used on certain unix systems in ther /etc/hosts file :

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

.localhost is reserved by a RFC document to be used as a reference to the local host. Any use of .localdomain instead is probably a nonstandard usage of particular systems. *Dan T.* 12:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top level domains always necessary?

Hi,

I encountered http://capri-sun/bft, and was struck by the fact that this URL doesn't contain the usual .com or .net or whatever. How do they do this? Isn't a top level domain always necessary? I can't imagine they were able to register 'capri-sun' itself as a top level domain ;-) Heeb 10:17, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no capri-sun TLD, and so that URL doesn't really work. However, when a DNS look-up fails, some browsers will resort to a keyword search, which in this case may (or may not) come up with http://www.capri-sun.co.uk/bft/. On my browser (Firefox) there's a configuration option (keyword.enabled) to turn this feature on or off, and another (keyword.URL) to specify how the keyword search is done (e.g., a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search). --Zundark 10:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] phx.gbl

Perhaps there should be some explanation about the unofficial domain phx.gbl unilaterally created by Microsoft? – Kaihsu (talk) 21:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: This was also posted to the Talk:Pseudo-top-level domain page and probably would be best discussed there. Wrs1864 (talk) 22:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge infrastructure top-level domain

The iTLD article is a stub mainly promoting the unusual iTLD abbreviation and speculating about the existence of a .root iTLD. While that effect in some name servers is certainly funny and notable it is no real TLD, and it has its own article. --217.184.142.47 (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Done --212.82.251.86 (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)