HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: anne@maxwell.concordia.ca (Anne Bennett)
Subject:  Domain naming conventions
Reply-To: anne@maxwell.concordia.ca (Anne Bennett)
Organization: Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 19:35:10 GMT

lyndon@unbc.edu (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes:
> 
>  anne@maxwell.concordia.ca (Anne Bennett) writes:
> 
> >   3) If we allow a very large number of sets of "guidelines", we will in
> >      effect have no guidelines; the namespace will in effect be flat
> >      under ca, but we will have lots of artificial one-member subdomains.
> >      That would be the worst of all possible worlds.
> 
> What is "artificial" about a one member subdomain? For email purposes,
> every machine at UNBC will identify as "unbc.edu" in the RHS. Does that
> somehow make us less valid in your eyes? How do you know how many machines
> may or may be hiding behind that top level domain? And why does that matter
> anyway?

Edu is not a one-member subdomain.  If you were unbc.subdom.edu where
unbc was the only member of subdom.edu,  then subdom would be a
one-member subdomain, and would be a useless addition to your site name.

> Let's look at another namespace: personal names. As far as I can tell, I
> am the only entity registered under the subdomain "Gordon Lyndon Nerenberg."

Lucky you. :-)   And who is the registrar for your subdomain?

> Last time I looked I wasn't artificial ... Are you?

I'll never tell...

-- 
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) 
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: Wimsey Information Services
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 08:57:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.074003.9959@cs.UAlberta.CA> cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.CA (Chris Shaw) writes:
>In <C098As.KF1@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan2.234428.886@cs.UAlberta.CA> cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.CA (Chris Shaw) writes:
>>>Thousands of studies of human memory performance bear this out. Postal
>>>codes (and other seemingly random strings of letters and digits) are harder 
>>>to remember than place names.
>
>>You will of course give us some journal references so we can check out this
>>assertion.
>
>Here's a standard test that proves my point. Try to remember the following 
>sequence of letters:
>
>    B C S B M I C R A
>Now try these:
>
>    C B S I B M R C A

Now try and reduce the number to 3 characters which is what I'm suggesting.
As in:
	wimsey.v3h.ca

That's
	V 3 H

Now that's not hard is it :-)

-- 
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: dave@revcan.rct.ca (David Blackwood)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations (was Re: What is this group for?)
Organization: Revenue Canada, Taxation; Office Communications Division
Distribution: can
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 02:49:23 GMT

In article <C0BGIv.A6L@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>I was suggesting that the postal codes (first three digits) would be
>quite a reasonable code from an official government source. I.e. it's
>short and everyone has one (and hopefully with only a few exceptions)
>and only one.

Sorry to disappoint you but we have one postal code for general use that
applies to some fifteen different locations scattered all over the city.
Several of these locations are actually in different cities within the
region.  If you use a postal code program you will find that this code
is assigned to the building in which our central mail room is located.
We also have several other postal codes which are typically reserved for
certain high volume applications such as tax returns.  There is also a
postal code assigned to the building where I work but it is not
applicable to our department, it is applicable to the other commercial
tenants only.

Many businesses have two postal codes, one for their actual street
location and a second for the post office box where they collect their
mail.  These two codes may, when using a reverse lookup, indicate two
different cities.  Most businesses and almost all individuals will find
that in an urban area, even a short move of a few blocks may make a
significant difference in their codes.  However, many large volume
mailers have a code assigned to them that will move with them anywhere
within a region.

Postal codes were designed for efficient sorting and delivery of mail.
They are also useful for census data because this data is collected from
individuals and uses the postal code of their home.  However, they would
make a very poor choice for human readable e-mail addresses.  If you
want to use a coded e-mail address why not just start using ip addresses
instead of site.domain names?
-- 
D. J. Blackwood			Room 1139, 400 Cumberland Street
Systems Integration Manager	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  K1A 0L8
Office Communications Division	voice: +1 613 957 9305, fax: +1 613 952 1095
Revenue Canada, Taxation	email: uunet.ca!revcan!dave, dave@revcan.rct.ca
From: lyndon@unbc.edu (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Newsgroups: can.domain
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Summary: People in .nl are just as confused as us :-)
Date: 8 Jan 93 03:41:55 GMT
Organization: University of Northern B.C.


 eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:

> Has anyone bothered to contact the people with authority over
> the .nl domain to ascertain what exactly their needs and position
> on this issue are?  Without this information, comments on .nl are
> sheer speculation.

Yes. And the .fi and .de zone administrators. The bottom line is none
of them have any real policy on this. My interpretation of their
responses is that they really don't see geographic domains as being
an issue at this time. Some have thought about it and rejected is as
a solution where there isn't a problem.

I did receive a comment that the .CA application provides some very
good guidelines on choosing a domain name. The .de folks in particular
plan on lifting some ideas from that document for one they are currently
working on.

What was unanimous, though, was that none of them saw a *need* for
geographic domains.

--lyndon
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: smd@uunet.ca (Sean Doran)
Subject: Re: Q: organizational subdomains?
Organization: UUNET Canada
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 09:21:33 GMT
Distribution: can.domain

morton@gaul.csd.uwo.ca (Brent Morton) writes:

>I've wondered for some time why Canada chose not to adopt the organizational
>subdomain system in use in countries such as the UK, Australia, Taiwan,
>New Zealand, South Africa, Austria, and even, as a domain, in the US. By this
>I mean 'ac.uk', 'edu.tw', 'ac.za', 'co.uk', 'gen.nz', etc. I've noticed that
>a couple of sites in B.C. and one, I believe, in Ontario, voluntarily use
>'gov.bc.ca' and 'gov.on.ca' -- why not nationwide? 

I like the idea of functional subdomains alot.  I doubt that my
preference is shared by very many of the people who are part of the
CA-DOM committee, but a couple of former members and at least one
current member think that something along the lines of co.ca (as an
analogue of co.uk) might be useful.

Heck, I volunteer to set up and maintain nameservice and registry work
for any commercially-oriented functional second-level subdomain of CA
that the committee and CA-DOM coordinator will allow, provided that we
are allowed to allocate subdomains thereof without quite the same
restrictions that the rest of the CA domain has.

All you'd need to give me are a pair of nameservers (names, addresses
and host types), and the same sort of POC info that the NIC collects.

Things like wimsey.co.ca, xenitec.co.ca, reptilian-research.co.ca or
even yuggoth.co.ca would be registered without too much ado about the
name, and with no concern about geographic location; everyone would be
on an equal footing.  

ac.ca would be neat too, but I doubt that even the CA-DOM committee
will ever be able to migrate things like utoronto.ca to anything else.
After all, they still haven't completely replaced toronto.edu or
mcgill.edu.  Even waterloo.edu still exists and is used, despite the
fact that one of the CA-DOM members is a Prominent Figure at the
University of Waterloo.  A gov.ca domain would be beset by similar
problems.

Although I understand some people's dislike of functional subdomains,
I feel that they represent one big way to keep Canadian sites
registering in CA rather than in one of the NIC-controlled domains.
All the more attractive to Canadian organizations if the registry of
an appropriate functional subdomain is technically proficient,
professional and fairly pragmatic and flexible about the purity of the
functional subdomain's namespace.

At the very least, I feel it might be an interesting experiment.

	Sean.
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations (was Re: What is this group for?)
Organization: Wimsey Information Services
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 09:35:34 GMT

In article <1993Jan04.081324.21529@xenitec.on.ca> eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
>In article <C0BGIv.A6L@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>>I was suggesting that the postal codes (first three digits) would be
>>quite a reasonable code from an official government source.
>
>Referencing the 1986 Ontario Postal Code Directory, I don't want to be
>foo.N2[GJHACBLMEKNPTV].CA.

Come on Ed. Your address would be XeniTec.N2N.CA. Didn't even take me 
more than about 15 seconds to find it out, and I didn't have to do more
than switch to another screen and grep a file for your *Real* postal 
address.

Lot's faster to type in the XeniTec.Kitchanar.on.ca too.

>Besides, I wouldn't want to have to re-register every time I moved
>a few blocks away.  Would you?

Well personally I don't believe in political geographic designations
at all. And that's one of the (many) reasons.

My main point in the postal code suggestion was to suggest something that
has some of the same characteristices that the political geographic 
designation people seem to want (i.e. it has a politcal geographical
basis and allows us to add another level so we don't have billions and
billions of domains like XXXX.ca), but get's away from some of the
things that *I* don't like (e.g. too long, and no privacy). 

Personally I think both ideas smell. Just one a bit more than the other.

I realize that suggesting *any* change is going to be a battle. But at
least you can't fault me for trying. Meanwhile you can reach me at
sl@wimsey.com (formerly sl@wimsey.bc.ca).

-- 
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
From: davem@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Dave McCrady)
Newsgroups: can.domain
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 93 07:25:20 MST
Organization: Edmonton Remote Systems #8, Edmonton, AB, Canada

bugs@atlantis.uucp (Dan Berry) writes:

- Dave McCrady (davem@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca) wrote:
- >    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?  

   (stuff deleted)

- >    It would instantly shorten my site address to ersys.yeg.ca (the real
- > one appears below) ... and we could probably dispense with the .ca.
- 
- This is a prime example why this SHOULDN'T be done.
- "YEG" is the airport code for the Edmonton International Airport, a major
- airport some 20 (guesstimated) kilometers away from the city of Edmonton.
- 
- "YFG" is the airport code for the Edmonton Municipal Airport, a smaller (but
- still somewhat major; jets land there) located 5km away FROM THE CITY CORE.
- 
- Dave, I'm not sure if you remembered it or not, but if you as a fellow
- Edmontonian forgot about the Muni then how is a non-dweller going to?  

   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?

-  I don't
- suspect that the Muni (or others like it in other cities) are listed anywhere
- else but in maps available to aviators, or city maps.  National maps won't
- have it.

   As discussed in a previous post ... finding that out is a phone call.
If it were adopted, a FAQ could be developed for periodic posting that
provided a basic list along with pointers for getting the information for 
airports not covered by it.

   I don't have any particular problem with the site.city.province.ca 
form.  I've used it from day one here.  But someone was asking about 
_existing_ location designations that offer an alternative to longish 
community names or postal codes. This one gets the job done with three
characters,  is out there and is meaningful to a world-wide community.
I simply offer it as an option.


Dave McCrady              davem@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca 
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations (was Re: What is this group for?)
Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1993 08:13:24 GMT

In article <C0BGIv.A6L@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>I was suggesting that the postal codes (first three digits) would be
>quite a reasonable code from an official government source.

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.e. it's
>short and everyone has one (and hopefully with only a few exceptions)
>and only one.

I'd much rather be foo.kw.on.ca (assuming that we can successfully
impliment location abbreviations as we're currently discussing in
committee), or even foo.kitchener-waterloo.on.ca.  Given the context of
the discussion (being registration under locality.province.ca), I'd
currently wind up as foo.kitchener.on.ca, which isn't too bad as in
this scenario I must be in a panic for my registration and simply can't
wait for abbreviations to be allowable.  I can always ask for voluntary
re-registration should it become desireable, although changing things
after implimentation would be a royal administrative pain.

Referencing the 1986 Ontario Postal Code Directory, I don't want to be
foo.N2[GJHACBLMEKNPTV].CA.

I've deliberately left the shell expansion in the order I pulled it out
of the book, and there may be a few more since the '86 directory was
published.  KW is not that large of a community, and aside from that
fact that it's a harder to remember, one has a whole lot more to
remember unless one had a Canada Post database handy.  I have better
things to do with my brain, which after all, is a finite resource.

You might as well try to register me by latitude and longitude.
I don't remember everyone's ICBM coordinates very well either.

Besides, I wouldn't want to have to re-register every time I moved
a few blocks away.  Would you?

                --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: Mon, 04 Jan 1993 16:37:25 GMT

In article <C0BnJ2.wA@wimsey.bc.ca> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>Now try and reduce the number to 3 characters which is what I'm suggesting.
>As in:
>	wimsey.v3h.ca
>
>That's
>	V 3 H
>
>Now that's not hard is it :-)

[I know I'm ignoring the locality issue here; merely comparing what
 I consider a cryptic 3 characters to a more useable 2 chars.]
	....
Let's reduce that further to 2 chars which are coincidentally more
meaningful given a modicum of knowledge on Canadian geography.
As in:
	wimsey.bc.ca

That's
	bc

Now, that's even easier, isn't it? :-)

                --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>
From: lyndon@unbc.edu (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Newsgroups: can.domain
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Summary: People don't have domain names ...
Date: 7 Jan 93 20:03:03 GMT
Organization: University of Northern B.C.


 davidf@golem.waterloo.on.ca (David J. Fiander) writes:

> Because The Netherlands and Finland are about the size of Nova
> Scotia and the Yukon respectively, and the more populous of the
> two (The Netherlands) has about the same population as Ontario
> and BC combined.  There isn't any _need_ to have more than one
> level of domain at present.

Population numbers are not relevent. What counts is the number of domains
registered under .nl or .fi or .whatever. I was wondering about this
number yesterday so I did zne transfers of .nl and .fi, however I haven't
had a chance to reduce the data yet.

--lyndon
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods)
Subject: Re: Q: organizational subdomains?
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc.
Summary: YES!
Distribution: can.domain
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 15:37:20 GMT

In article <C0DJBy.LAE@uunet.ca> smd@uunet.ca (Sean Doran) writes:
> I like the idea of functional subdomains alot.  I doubt that my
> preference is shared by very many of the people who are part of the
> CA-DOM committee, but a couple of former members and at least one
> current member think that something along the lines of co.ca (as an
> analogue of co.uk) might be useful.

Me to!!!  :-)

> Although I understand some people's dislike of functional subdomains,
> I feel that they represent one big way to keep Canadian sites
> registering in CA rather than in one of the NIC-controlled domains.
> All the more attractive to Canadian organizations if the registry of
> an appropriate functional subdomain is technically proficient,
> professional and fairly pragmatic and flexible about the purity of the
> functional subdomain's namespace.

On the other hand, I cannot understand why anyone would favor
geographical subdomain names, and certainly cannot understand why
anyone would dislike functional subdomain names.  I'm even more at a
loss to understand why anyone would want to corrupt things by mixing
together both schemes (i.e. organiational and geographical naming).
Seems to be the general answer when we can't make up our minds!  ;-)

For general network entity naming, I fail to see why geography matters
at all!  For electronic mailbox naming, geography only matters if we
wish to associate the entities we seek to communicate with by some
sense of their geographical location.  As has been adequately (IMHO)
argued already, this is totally bogus, since the actual physical
location of an entity associated with a mailbox may have no relation
to the location implied by the geographic sounding domain name, or
even in fact with the actual location of the e-mailbox!

As Vance said in another thread here:  This is cyberspace folks!  It
has a totally different geograph that probably doesn't relate to
planetary geography at all.
-- 
						Greg A. Woods

woods@robohack.UUCP, woods@Elegant.COM  VE3TCP	UniForum Canada & ECI
+1 416 443-1734 [home] +1 416 362-XRSA [work]	Toronto, Ontario; CANADA
Newsgroups: can.domain
From: sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Organization: Wimsey Information Services
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 22:22:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.123440.22233@analsyn.gts.org> anton@lethe.gts.org writes:
>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:
>
>: 	anne@maxwell.concordia.montreal.qc.ca
>
>I trust that is meant to be sarcastic or humerous despite the lack of smiley.

Ok, :-) 

>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.

I think you trimmed out some text where I suggested that address would be
consistent with a) the proposed CA domain guidelines (add municpality) and
b) the US domains practice of applying the rules uniformly.

I.e. in the US domain there are no registrations for organizations at 
anything other than the org.city.state.US level. There are some funny
rules for state agencies etc, but you get the point. 

>Are we going to FORCE everyone to use province, even if they wern't
>before and didn't need to ?

No. I don't think that is the intention at all. But it should be noted
that at this point in time any universities registering in CA domain
under the new guidelines would not be allowed to register at the top
level. They have been move to the XXX.prov.ca level. But how many 
universities are there in Canada that have not registered already?

So we have a bunch of people who already have their addresses registered
where they like them (as XXX.ca), who won't be forced to change them,
commenting on how the rest of us should be happy :-(

-- 
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
From: lyndon@unbc.edu (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Newsgroups: can.domain
Subject: Re: Committee Discussion Archives (was Re: (large) Re: Q: organizational subdomains?)
Date: 8 Jan 93 03:59:10 GMT
Organization: University of Northern B.C.


 eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
> sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) writes:
> >Wouldn't it be nice if we could see the CA Domain Committee's archives?

> Speaking strictly for myself, I get the distinct impression that
> no one on the committee is violently opposed to public perusal of
> CA Domain Committee discussions, although there has been substantial
> comment that making this available should be done in such a manner
> as to not preclude performance of the daily duties and necessary
> operation of the committee.  For example, we don't want to do anything
> that might delay approval of applications.

Oh for Christs sake! You wonder why I seriously doubt the sanity of
this group of people?

The committee meets as a mailing list. Hundreds of internet mailing
lists maintain automatic archives. so what is the problem!?!?! Surely
*someone* on that esteemed group can figure out how to set it up?

Is there an archive of the mailing list anywhere? If yes, just put
the file up for anonymous FTP and we'll take it from there.

Next, add a line to the committee mailing list alias that appends each
message to a file that sits in an anonymous FTP directory somewhere.
Write an incredibly complex five line shell script that cron can run
once a month to rotate the file. You now have publically accessable
mailing list archives. If you're *really* daring, add another line to
the mailing list alias that gateways each message into can.domain.bozo
so UUCP sites can read them.

--lyndon
Newsgroups: can.domain