HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Organization: Wimsey Information Services
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 08:13:53 GMT

In article <HN2VwB3w165w@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca> davem@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Dave McCrady) writes:
>
>   At the risk of stirring still more mud into the mix, has anyone 
>considered using the nearest airport as a location code?  The three-
>letter codes stamped on your baggage tags?  They're understood and 
>accepted as meaningful internationally, at least by airline people 
>and meteorologists and could even begin to mean something to the rest
>of us if we started using them.  
>
>   And there are nowhere near as many of them to contend with as postal
>codes.
>
>   It would instantly shorten my site address to ersys.yeg.ca (the real

Hmm...
	wimsey.yvr.ca

That would be acceptable. I like it. It's still using political geography 
but masquerading it and reducing it to a bare minimum. So it becomes a
suitable compromise.

I don't think it's as practical as postal codes. I can give you the PC for
any currently registered domain, or someone I have a business card for in
a few seconds. But airport would require looking up in a list. And there
is a minor problem with knowing what airport someone is near. But that
doesn't make it unusuable.

-- 
Stuart Lynne <sl@wimsey.com> ......................... UNIX Facsimile Software
Wimsey Information Technologies ................... moderator biz.sco.binaries
uucp login:nuucp passwd:nuucp .................... ftp.wimsey.com:~ftp/ls-lR.Z
PD Software for SCO UNIX .................... ftp.wimsey.com:~ftp/pub/wimseypd
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: bryanf@cspace.comspec.com (Bryan Fullerton)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: Cyberspace
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 19:41:34 GMT

In article <C08zs2.4uG@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>In article <1993Jan2.195509.27735@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) writes:
>>3) Postal codes (believe it or not) assignments are NOT static for a given 
>>address over all time. The can change depending on changes in the city 
>>planning, street re-arrangements, or other odd re-shuffling that may take 
>>place according to Canada Posts's whims.
>
>There is little change when you just look at the first three chars. 

<BZZZT>  Wrong.  See below.

>There has been some mention of how do specify the municipality. Or abbreviate 
>it. There doesn't seem to be any official list of abbreviations. Well the 
>post office has implemented the Postal Code such that the first three chars
>work admirally in this respect.
>
>For example how do you specifiy Portage la Prairie?

Let's look at this Postal Code issue.  I live in Metro Toronto.  It's _big_.
My PC starts with M4G.  The PC of my company's head office (about 10K away)
starts with M6B.  The PC of the store I work for, about 15K away, starts
with L4B.  Heck, there are about 20 different postal codes per city within
Metro Toronto.  I'd have to use a different PC to send e-mail 10 blocks
away!  I'd see similar problems within Montreal, Quebec City, Victoria, 
etc (not sure, yes, I am _assuming_ ;).

As for using descriptive municipality names, there are 15+ different
municipalities in Metro Toronto.  I live in East York, I work in
Richmond Hill, and our head office is in the City of Toronto. 

As for the question posed above, how about p-la-p, or even port-la-pra?
No spelling problems, no memorizing postal codes.

I admit that I am commenting on a problem that is specific to urban areas
and as such may have limited effect on most people using the .ca domain,
but you should take it into account. (there is no .TOR or .ON domain, eh!)

Bryan Fullerton
bryanf@cspace.comspec.com
-- 
--------------------- All comments and opinions are my own --------------------
Bryan Fullerton                                         Computer Variables, Inc
bryanf@cspace.comspec.com                        155 East Beaver Creek, Unit 27
uunet.ca!comspec!cspace!bryanf           Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada L4B 2N2
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: anton@analsyn.gts.org (Anton J Aylward)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Reply-To: anton@lethe.gts.org
Organization: ASCI: UNIX Database and Communications
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:34:40 GMT

In the article (<C0Cn87.4H2@wimsey.bc.ca>) Stuart Lynne (sl@wimsey.bc.ca) posted to can.domain:
: In article <C0CK0H.6A8@newsflash.concordia.ca> anne@maxwell.concordia.ca (Anne Bennett) writes:

: >Ms. Anne Bennett          anne@maxwell.concordia.ca           (514) 848-7606
: >Computing Services C-1012, Concordia University, Montreal QC, Canada H3G 1M8
: >(Administrator for Concordia University mail relay, news transfer, and DNS) 

: To be reached at some point in the future as:

: 	anne@maxwell.concordia.montreal.qc.ca

I trust that is meant to be sarcastic or humerous despite the lack of smiley.

When I ran into the guidlines I was told ther were exceptions to the 
<org>.<prov>.ca layout, such as organizations which span provinces, or
universities.  I can see a few of these in the maps and records,
although some, like bell, choose to use province designators as well.

Are we going to FORCE everyone to use province, even if they wern't
before and didn't need to ?
--
Anton J Aylward
	"The body politic is swerving from left to right and right to
	 left looking for quick fixes for systemic problems."
	   - Paul Palango, Journalist, ex The Globe and Mail
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Subject: Re: can.domain
Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1993 06:54:59 GMT

In article <C08wCs.LDI@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>In article <C08H06.6xB@uunet.ca> smd@uunet.ca (Sean Doran) writes:
>>	[...] Policy should be made by the
>>person who controls the nameservers for the top-level-domain. 
>
>Don't agree with that. He should implement policy. Not create it.

If the person responsible for the top-level CA nameservers _and_
granted with the authority for the CA domain isn't the one to set
and administer policy for his position, who is it that is capable
and able to do this instead?

                --ed            (Ed Hew)
--
        Canadian UUCP Map Coordinator           <path@cs.toronto.edu>
   ==>  UUCP liason to .CA Domain Registry	<registry@cs.toronto.edu>
        XeniTec Consulting Services             <edhew@xenitec.on.ca>
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1993 21:11:21 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.193540.920@combdyn.com> lawrence@combdyn.com (Lawrence Chen) writes:
>I had tried 'medhat' before I read the conventions...since this seems to
>be an acceptable abbreviation.

We don't know that "medhat" might or might not be an acceptable
abbreviation at this time, although it _could_ be.

>At least the post office doesn't seem to have
>a problem with it.

In chatting with one of those people working at Canada Post who's duty
is to glance very briefly at addresses and decide which bin to toss
the letter into, I discovered that Canada Post has _no_ document stating
what is and what isn't useable as a locality abbreviation.  The worker
simply makes his best guess, tosses the letter accordingly, and lets
the next sorting station operator make his next best guess.

Of course, when it comes to CA naming conventions, "guesses" just
aren't good enough.  Since there is no "abbreviation list", the
committee is going to have to develop one if abbreviations are to
be allowed.
>
>>This implies that if the application were to be submitted today,
>>it could very well be for:
>>	combdyn.ab.ca
>>
>>Not that bad, is it?
>>
>I suppose I should take this up with the manager and see if he wants to get
>a CA domain name....

I see no problem in dealing with an application for combdyn.ab.ca,
or potentially combdyn.ca, given the information I've seen on this
issue recently.  Fortunately there is no non-existant abbreviation
to deal with here, so there's no reason why the abbreviation issue
should delay approval of such an application.

                --ed            (Ed Hew)
--
        Canadian UUCP Map Coordinator           <path@cs.toronto.edu>
   ==>  UUCP liason to .CA Domain Registry	<registry@cs.toronto.edu>
        XeniTec Consulting Services             <edhew@xenitec.on.ca>
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: vances@xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley)
Subject: Geographic Naming Conventions Considered Harmful
Organization: SwitchView Inc., Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1993 04:36:26 GMT


When it came time to register a domain name for our organization I carefully
considered my options.  Many told me that I had no choice, I would join ON.CA.
In the end I chose to register switchview.COM.

This choice is in keeping with our company's preference to down play the fact
that we operate across an international border from the vast majority of our
market.  This attitude may upset the more nationalistic types but it is a very
realistic approach.  The ignorance Americans have of their largest neighbor
is a fact we must deal with daily.  This has little to do with my arguments
against enforcing geography in naming conventions though.

The direction networking is taking us is toward a global community.  Distance
poses less and less of a problem for people to work together.  Physical pipes
carry bits.  The bits flowing over these pipes create an overlayed network of
circuits.  The map of circuits looks very little like the map of the physical
pipes.  Over these circuits many types of networks are built, thus more and
more layers of abstraction are created.  This my friends is cyberspace, a new
dimension quite different from the physical one far below.

Let's say I work in Beavertown, Ontario and use a modem to access a network 
point of presence in Toronto.  I have registered as acme.beavertown.on.ca.
Now let's say I move to Moosetown, Ontario.  I'm still accessing  the Toronto 
POP with a dialup modem, nothing has changed as far as the network is concerned 
but now I must change my network address to acme.moosetown.on.ca?  This is an
unatural imposition.

The situation would be different if municipalities maintained MANs (Municipal 
Area Network) connected by WANs (Wide Area Network) run by the provincial
governments which were all connected to a federal government run backbone.
In this scenario there are valid reasons to enforce naming conventions which
follow the network topology.  Even in this case it is an issue of easing the
administration of the network.

I'll go along with naming schemes which reflect the realities of the networking
topology and technologies in use.  However I can't see the sense in imposing
geography on cyberspace.  It's like requiring cellular telephone users to be
called using street addresses.

(I think I'll get switchview.waterloo.on.ca registered to add to this list :)
-- 
Vance Shipley 
vances@xenitec.on.ca         vances@switchview.com         vances@ltg.uucp
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: smd@uunet.ca (Sean Doran)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Organization: UUNET Canada
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:51:48 GMT

davem@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Dave McCrady) writes:

>   I didn't forget.  In fact, given where I live, it's a tossup whether 
>I'm closer to the muni or to the military airport at Namao.  I was trying to
>provide a meaningful example.  Which airport in Toronto is meaningful to you?
>Pearson or Toronto Island?   Which one is _in_ Toronto?

Without making any specific comment about using airport codes as
subdomains of CA, I want to pick one small nit.

UUNET's offices in Toronto overlook the Island airport.  On a cold
day, you can almost walk to it from here.  We see planes arrive and
depart on a regular basis (what fun, but not so much fun as being on
them).

If someone colocating with us were to choose an airport-based
subdomain, it would be the same as Pearson's (YYZ), simply because
that is the three-letter code that the Toronto Island airport puts on
people's tickets and check-in luggage.

Does anyone know if the three-letter codes cover only International
airports (like LAX, ORD, SFO, DFW, YYZ, YUL) or whether (in Canada)
every airfield to which one can get commercial service has one?

	Sean.
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: Wimsey Information Services
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 06:17:49 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.002358.21390@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) writes:
>> 003316g@dragon.acadiau.ca (Steve Gregory) writes:
>toplevel domains, then you should look into that and not try to make 
>.ca do things it's not really intended to do. 

And where is is writ in stone what it is intended to do. As a resident
of Canada I presumably have as much right as anyone else to expect
that I would have a say in the use of the domain assigned to Canadian
use. If it's not being used in the way I like you can expect me to 
complain. It is a public resource. If the majority like things the
way it is, fine, I'll go and find a corner to whimper in. But in the
mean time time I reserve the right to make my views known and try
and changes things to my world view. That what free speech and
democracy is all about.

-- 
Stuart Lynne <sl@wimsey.com> ......................... UNIX Facsimile Software
Wimsey Information Technologies ................... moderator biz.sco.binaries
uucp login:nuucp passwd:nuucp .................... ftp.wimsey.com:~ftp/ls-lR.Z
PD Software for SCO UNIX .................... ftp.wimsey.com:~ftp/pub/wimseypd
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: TDK Consulting Services
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 23:38:08 GMT

In article <C0CMw0.401@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>In <C0CAr4.Hr4@ccu.umanitoba.ca> rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Budi Rahardjo):
>>It's not hard for you, but hard for me.
>>If I want to send you a mail, I have to think...
>>was that v3h ? or v8h ? or v3e ... it's easier for me to remember 'bc'.
>
>If you have received mail from me, you will already have it in a mailbox
>and will use R(eply (if you are using elm), or alias it. If you havn't
>then you have to construct it by phoning me, looking at business card
>or something similiar. At that point it's not a matter of you remembering
>anything but of transcribing it right.

Which is a good enough reason to use the munic.prov.ca convention, 
which is much easier to remember - AND - has much less of a 
transcription problem.

>Stuart Lynne <sl@wimsey.com> ......................... UNIX Facsimile Software

 +-----------+-----------------------------------+---------------------------+
 | Tim Kuehn | TDK Consulting Services           | timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca |
 | <><       | Ask me about news and mail in KW! | (519)-888-0766            |
 +-----------+-----------------------------------+---------------------------+
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: anton@analsyn.gts.org (Anton J Aylward)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Reply-To: anton@lethe.gts.org
Organization: ASCI: UNIX Database and Communications
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:30:35 GMT

In the article (<C0CK0H.6A8@newsflash.concordia.ca>) Anne Bennett (anne@maxwell.concordia.ca) posted to can.domain:
: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
: > 
: > We need a more reasonable alternative from a useable source.  If one
: > isn't available, then someone should create one, and if no one does
: > that, then we (the domain committee) will have to create our own
: > "official" abbreviation list, within the CA Registrar's scope of
: > authority.  If the government chooses to adopt it later, we'll likely
: > let them.  :-)

: I don't agree.  There are squillions (pardon the technical term :-) of
: municipalities in Canada, and it would probably be very difficult to come
: up with a reasonable set of abbreviations.  Doing so would be *way*
: beyond the domain committee's resources, I think.

This is in fact not the case.
Canada Post Corporation's database of postalcodes list 'municpalities'
and 'delivery areas' some of which are the same.  This includes things
like "North York" which covers all the smaller municpalities like
Willowdale.

I ran a count of these last week while loading the database.
I will check it again this week now the database if fully loaded and
normalized.

There are only 600 distinct entries.

Now there may be duplicates, "London, Ontario" "London, Manitoba" or
some such.  But if we are using province designators too this doesn't
matter.

--
Anton J Aylward
	"The body politic is swerving from left to right and right to
	 left looking for quick fixes for systemic problems."
	   - Paul Palango, Journalist, ex The Globe and Mail
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: TDK Consulting Services
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:51:25 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.121734.20982@analsyn.gts.org> anton@lethe.gts.org writes:
>In the article (<1993Jan5.174007.6132@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca>) Tim Kuehn (timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca) posted to can.domain:
>: However, if we took the first four letters of all the city name(s), 
>: would that generate a unique identifier within a province? For example, 
>
>: Medicine Hat 	= medihat
>
>: Toronto 	= toro
>: Waterloo 	= wate 
>: St Catherines 	= stcath 
>: Kitchener 	= kitc
>: Hamiltion 	= hami 
>: Wentworth 	= went 
>: London 		= lond
>
>: Vancouver	= vanc
>
>TLAs are regognized for many of the above,
>	tor, lon, van
>	and kw for Kitchener-Waterloo

Yes, but those well-known sites/cities which have an already (by their 
sheer size) a well-known name associated with them. Other, smaller cities 
(Breslau, Ayr, Baden, etc.) a) aren't as big and b) don't have associated
TLA's to go with them. From a quick perusal of the cities in the maps, 
most of them seemed to be unique in the first four characters, while a 
good number of them were *not* unique in the first three.

>Have you looked at what DHL and their competitors use ?

Not yet. 

>Anton J Aylward						

 +-----------+-----------------------------------+---------------------------+
 | Tim Kuehn | TDK Consulting Services           | timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca |
 | <><       | Ask me about news and mail in KW! | (519)-888-0766            |
 +-----------+-----------------------------------+---------------------------+
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: John Demco <demco@cs.ubc.ca>
Subject: Hyprotech.AB.CA registration
Submit-To: candom@xenitec.on.ca
Organization: [resent by] The CANDOM gateway and Propagation Society
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 06:53:00 GMT
Resent-By: registry@xenitec.on.ca
Precedence: bulk

[This registration and a few others have been held up while the CA committee
discussed scope issues. --John]

Subdomain:      Hyprotech.AB.CA
Date-Received:  1992/12/11
Date-Approved:  1993/01/11
Organization:   Hyprotech Ltd.
Type:           For-Profit Partnership
Description:    Hyprotech is a software engineering firm which develops
                and markets a chemical process simulation package called
                HYSIM, available on various platforms.
Admin-Name:     Larry Danberger
Admin-Title:    Programmer/Analyst
Admin-Postal:   Hyprotech Ltd.
                #400, 119 14th Street N.W.
                Calgary, Alberta
                T2N 1Z6
Admin-Phone:    +1 (403) 283-7710
Admin-Fax:      +1 (403) 283-4764
Admin-Mailbox:  admin@hyprotech.ab.ca
Tech-Name:      Larry Danberger
Tech-Title:     Programmer/Analyst
Tech-Postal:    Hyprotech Ltd.
                #400, 119 14th Street N.W.
                Calgary, Alberta
                T2N 1Z6
Tech-Phone:     +1 (403) 283-7710
Tech-Fax:       +1 (403) 283-4764
Tech-Mailbox:   tech@hyprotech.ab.ca
Location:       51 05 N / 114 01 W city
Forwarder:      Internet: none;
Forwarder:      NetNorth: none;
Forwarder:      CDNnet:   none;
Forwarder:      UUCP:     none;

Newsgroups: can.domain
From: smd@uunet.ca (Sean Doran)
Subject: Re: Q: organizational subdomains?
Organization: UUNET Canada
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:19:01 GMT
Distribution: can.domain

anne@maxwell.concordia.ca (Anne Bennett) writes (of co.ca):

>This seems like a logical suggestion...

Why, thank you.

>The only question
>would be whether the number of potential domains in Canada is still too
>large to be accommodated by splitting them into only half a dozen groups,
>i.e. whether more hierarchical levels are necessary.

The number of potential domains anywhere is far too large for DNS to
accomodate as a protocol.  Designing a domain in the DNS to plan for a
future in which the DNS will probably not be used to resolve names and
addresses strikes me as wasted effort.

If we ever get to the point where a large fraction of everyone has
some type of connection to a global network, most of what has been
happening in the Internet will be assigned to the history books; IP
will only go so far, and DNS is a pretty nasty thing in which to build
enormous distributed databases.

Ubiquitous email will require a completely new addressing scheme.  
Even the CA-DOM's most farsighted proposals don't scale well to everyone.  

To continue your train of thought, there are a number of Anne Bennetts
in Montreal (I know at least one, and know that you are not her).
There are probably a huge number of R. Leblancs in Montreal.  Given an
ubiquitous network, do we try for uniqueness by specifying street
addresses and apartment numbers?  Do we list qualifiers when there is
more than one Jennifer Smith living in the same place (say,
mother-daughter)?  Or do we go for the CompuServe solution, and have
unique mailboxes along the lines of 72120.1121@compuserve.com, with a
neato directory service to map names to numbers and vice-versa?

Anyone for SIN.CA?  

The namespace problem is similar to what large computer facilities at
Universities have to deal with.  How do you choose something that
uniquely identifies say an undergrad?  How do you resolve namespace
conflicts?  How well does your system scale?  To a city?  

Personally, I have no problem following the "traditions" of the
Internet and assigning things like domain-names to people on a
first-come-first-served basis, and worrying about namespace conflicts
later.  The sky hasn't fallen yet, especially not in Canada.

>BTW, if we end up with functional subdomains under ca, I think we should
>use the same groupings as are now used in the root domain, i.e. com, edu,
>etc., because (1) they are already familiar, and (2) they do not resemble
>the two-letter abbreviations for provinces.

Well, that would be OK too.  I have no great preference for co.ca or
ac.ca or whatever over com.ca, edu.ca &c.  The latter might also avoid
a potential trademark infringement suit by the Coca Cola Company.  :-)

	Sean.
Newsgroups: can.domain