[WikiEN-l] Re: domain donation, cybersquatter, our copyright

Fri Aug 13 13:22:03 UTC 2004

CB low

> Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 06:55:36 -0700
> From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: domain donation, cybersquatter, our 
> copyright
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>
> The nice thing about "particularly bad serial cybersquatters" is that
> they tend to offer reasonable prices.  Once upon I time, I foolishly
> allowed bomis.net and bomis.org to expire and they were promptly
> squatted.  I was horrified at what it might cost to get them back, but
> it turned out to be quite reasonable, given the fact that it was
> completely tragic in the first place, of course.
>
> If this person is a professional, he's going to be smart and know that
> this isn't worth *that much* money to us.  He'll charge us a small
> nuisance amount, like double what he paid, and that'll be that.

Okay, that's possible. Couple of points:

(a) I made a strong case on 
http://www.ropersonline.com/Area_51/wikipaedia.html (user: guest, 
passwd: 1ns4nI+y) that we should own and control /all/ the major 
wikipAEdia domains (in addition to the wikipEdia ones). Do you agree? 
Is there consensus on that?

(b) Are we /willing/ to pay for the wikipaedia.com, .org and .de 
domains, considering that we are pretty much guaranteed to get the .com 
.org ones by the ICANN UDRP and also rather likely to get the .de 
domain through the German legal system? POVs on this may include 
considerations of principle vs. convenience -- as well as, in the .de 
case, legal costs.

(c) Once we have a clear decision established on (a) and (b), can we 
get down to business? I happen to know German and might be able to 
help, if suitably "authorized and ordained" ;-)

(d) Speaking of getting down to business -- and keeping (a) in mind -- 
are people willing to accept my donation of the wikipaedia.net domain? 
The domain name registrar I used is 
http://www.ev1servers.net/english/index.asp and I could create a 
profile of, say, jimmywales (or whoever holds the keys to the kingdom), 
move the domain to that profile and email you (Jimmy) the password. No 
cost would incur (until and unless you renewed the domain or moved it 
to Register.com, who AFAICT are your registrar for wikipedia.org). I 
would be happy to do that now if you're ready. I'd prefer though, if 
you gave me a public key of yours (PGP or whatever). Safer is safer.

(e) Also, again assuming you're happy to accept wikipAEdia.net, I 
suggested doing the applicable DNS changes in my last email, and to 
point wikipaedia.net at the respective applicable DNS boxen, to 
actually get it to work. Any word on that? Who actually looks after the 
Wikipedia associated DNS servers? (Of course, once (d) is done, you no 
longer need me for this and can DIY ;-)

Thanks, and looking forward to your replies :-)

- Jens [[User:Ropers|Ropers]]

> Angela_ wrote:
>
>> (moving thread from wikien-l to foundation-l. Please reply there)
>>
>> Jens Ropers wrote:
>>
>>> 1. I am seeking to donate the wikipaedia.net domain name (which I 
>>> have
>>> registered) to the Wikipedia Foundation.
>>
>> Thank you for offering us this. My only concern is that confusion
>> could arise if we own wikipaedia.net but not the other wikipaedia
>> domains. If we don't own any of them, it's more obvious that
>> wikipaedia is nothing to do with us.
>>
>>> 2. A particularly bad serial cybersquatter is controlling
>>> wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.de. We really should 
>>> get
>>> these domains off him (and would be able to do so).
>>
>> I asked in the German IRC channel about this. Maybe I'm assuming too
>> much good faith, but I think we ought to approach that site owner in a
>> friendly way at first before we get too heavy handed. Sansculotte is
>> going to take this to the VereinDE-l mailing list and discuss it
>> there. Hopefully someone who speaks German can contact the site about
>> this. We might well get no reply, but at least we can say we tried
>> before taking this any further. It is worth noting that Akl was
>> successful in getting the wikipedia.ch and wikipedia.at domains back,
>> so perhaps this can be successful too.
>>
>> Angela.
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