The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe • Hacker News Board

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#101

Post by jmreid » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:21 PM UTC

antileet wrote: post #23

ucentric wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this advice only applies to commercial sites. I have several personal domains such as Richard.sDoma.in and Richard.sMyNa.me which are far superior to any .com domain name. Personal users are only just starting to get into having a personal URL to hosting their own id and blog etc. and with over 2 billion internet users and only around 140million registered domains, I think attitudes will change quickly.…

Despite it being shorter, it seems more awkward to type and sometimes seems more prone to error. Not to mention how it might affect your standing with search engines. Remember when http://delicious.com was http://del.icio.us When I first saw the product, I thought the name was "icio".

Couldn't agree more. I found it awkward to type—I could never remember what part of the word 'delicious' was the domain. deli.cio.us? de.licio.us?

This is why people just go to Google and type in the domain they want. If you're off by a character or two you still get to the site without a 404.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#102

Post by darklajid » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:26 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #57

ErrantX wrote: post #41

Culture clash... looking at the sites screenshot here: http://www.tinynibbles.com/blogarchives/2010/10/official-vb-... (NSFW) I can see how under strict Islamic law that pic would be construed as "obscene, offensive and illegal". I have... minimal sympathy with these people - a lot of the fault lies with themselves for not understanding the rules, morals and society of the country they were buying from. I don't think…

That link is NSFW.

Just to add some more amusement: Why the hell would that be not safe for work?

It's hard to state my question without ending up being dismissed as a troll, but I'm deeply amused by different viewpoints related to sex between western cultures. If I take a karma hit for that, so be it.

Anecdote: During the football (yeah, or soccer..) worldcup in Germany images were all over the internet that showed a brochure, which was rumored to be issued by the USA's department of foreign affairs for tourists joining the event. One interesting "fact" about the german culture mentioned in there was ,that violence (on tv, online, etc) might be far less accepted over here and might be felt offensive, while nudity/references to sex might offend the traveller.

I never found out if these things were real, but comments like these remind me of some interesting differences in cultures between states that otherwise often end up being regarded similar in morale and grouped as "western countries".

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#103

Post by seldo » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:27 PM UTC

waxman wrote: post #92

Ask HN: Do you think bit.ly should be worried? Do you think they could feasibly switch to a backup url (like j.mp) without totally killing their service?

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but all bit.ly-powered domains are actually mirrors of each other, so http://bit.ly/bdMwyV and http://j.mp/bdMwyV automatically go to the same place. This would make such a switch technically simple, but obviously you'd still break all the old bit.ly-domain links.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#104

Post by billybob » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:34 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #98

kloncks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer. Just so that you know, Sharia "law" is just six principles: 1. The right to the protection of life. 2. The right to the protection of family. 3. The right to the protection of education. 4. The right to the protection of religion. 5. The right to the protection of property (access t…

Is this at all representative of the way sharia exists in practice? Can you provide, say, 5 examples of Islamic countries practicing sharia according to this strict interpretation that aren't overwhelmed by the influence of religous and ethnic traditionalism? If not then aren't you just arguing semantics? If the way sharia is practiced conforms to a certain well delineated set of patterns and that differs from some i…

I disagree. If in fact, that's what the original text says, then I don't think it's just semantics to avoid slamming the original text.

I think it's important to distinguish between a religion or ideal - say, Christianity, or democracy - and what people do under that name. If church X doesn't follow the clear teachings of Jesus, that doesn't reflect poorly on Jesus, but on church X. If nation Y has rigged elections, that doesn't reflect poorly on democracy, but on nation Y.

It is important to be able to ask theoretical questions like "is capitalism inherently flawed?" and separate them from "how is it being practised in this situation?" If capitalism + government meddling = failure, it's unfair to say that capitalism failed. Rather, we should say that capitalism wasn't practiced.

I think the poster is just asking for the same kind of logical distinction.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#105

Post by dotBen » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:37 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #93

I think what really happened here is that someone at the Libyan domain authority decided they wanted the name and made up a story in order to seize it. I've heard of other cases of .ly names being confiscated, and for this reason we advise YC startups not to depend on them.

Yes, this is what I think happened too (I'm the original owner of vb.ly and that's my blog post linked above)

EDIT: and therefore I do feel Bit.ly need to be worried - perhaps they'll be able to do a deal rather than have their domain removed but clearly something is stirring here thus ".ly domain space to be considered unsafe".

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#106

Post by js2 » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:38 PM UTC

kloncks wrote: post #87

semanticist wrote: post #9

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer. Just so that you know, Sharia "law" is just six principles: 1. The right to the protection of life. 2. The right to the protection of family. 3. The right to the protection of education. 4. The right to the protection of religion. 5. The right to the protection of property (access t…

...when everyone was throwing around arguments against "infecting the constitution with Sharia" even though no one actually knows what Sharia is.

Sadly, quite a few of the people who are ignorant about what Sharia is are probably also ignorant about what is written in the US Constitution. We're equal opportunity ignorant here in the US. :(

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#107

Post by azim » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:40 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #98

kloncks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer. Just so that you know, Sharia "law" is just six principles: 1. The right to the protection of life. 2. The right to the protection of family. 3. The right to the protection of education. 4. The right to the protection of religion. 5. The right to the protection of property (access t…

Is this at all representative of the way sharia exists in practice? Can you provide, say, 5 examples of Islamic countries practicing sharia according to this strict interpretation that aren't overwhelmed by the influence of religous and ethnic traditionalism? If not then aren't you just arguing semantics? If the way sharia is practiced conforms to a certain well delineated set of patterns and that differs from some i…

I think you're misunderstanding what is meant by Sharia. It is not a strict set of rules. Because of this, it is necessarily influenced by ethnic traditionalism. Now if you're looking for western countries which have Sharia courts, the United Kingdom and India are two which come to mind which allow certain civil disputes to be resolved in Sharia courts.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#108

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:41 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #102

jacquesm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link is NSFW.

Just to add some more amusement: Why the hell would that be not safe for work? It's hard to state my question without ending up being dismissed as a troll, but I'm deeply amused by different viewpoints related to sex between western cultures. If I take a karma hit for that, so be it. Anecdote: During the football (yeah, or soccer..) worldcup in Germany images were all over the internet that showed a brochure, which w…

It's not safe for work because plenty of people reading HN do so from their work during breaks and if they happened to be showing a page which has full-frontal nudity on it, even by accident during work hours they could get fired for that.

Your - or mine - morals don't enter in to it, it's just a fact of life. So it's common courtesy to label links that are not safe for work as such.

It's no trouble at all and if it helps keep the Hacker News crowd employed then I think that's a good thing to strive for.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#109

Post by dotBen » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:43 PM UTC

semanticist wrote: post #9

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

(I'm the [former?] owner of vb.ly and that's my blog post linked above)

I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter.

So I'm not American, so this isn't about imperialist America wanting everything to be in English.

The issue is the Libyans WANT international folks to buy their domains - they have all of the site in English, English-speaking pre- and post-sales support and even the domains themselves are sold in US$.

The issue I'm suggesting is that if you are going to put regulations up for the use of the domain that include needing to be in compliance with Libyan Law, it's quite unhelpful not to provide ANY resources or links to where I can read Libyan Law in English (ie the same language the website is selling the domain in).

As it happens I can't find any online resource for explaining to me the gist of Libyan Law in English.

Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their ccTLD to link to porn and other things they find offensive?

Well with that chain of thinking then bit.ly, and everyone who uses it, should be very worried. Thus I hardly think this is a "rant" as you later describe my post!

It's our internet and we're just letting you weird foreigners use it'.

That's actually your somewhat judgmental opinion. Like I said, I'm not American so this "weird foreigners" remark is off-base.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#110

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 4:43 PM UTC

azim wrote: post #107

InclinedPlane wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this at all representative of the way sharia exists in practice? Can you provide, say, 5 examples of Islamic countries practicing sharia according to this strict interpretation that aren't overwhelmed by the influence of religous and ethnic traditionalism? If not then aren't you just arguing semantics? If the way sharia is practiced conforms to a certain well delineated set of patterns and that differs from some i…

I think you're misunderstanding what is meant by Sharia. It is not a strict set of rules. Because of this, it is necessarily influenced by ethnic traditionalism. Now if you're looking for western countries which have Sharia courts, the United Kingdom and India are two which come to mind which allow certain civil disputes to be resolved in Sharia courts.

For a Sharia court in the UK to have the power of law though the participants in the case all first have to agree to that though, otherwise they don't have a legal leg to stand on.

So it is only after you've voluntarily agreed to be bound that the court can proceed.