| Archive for Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org Scottish Politics Discussion Forum / Messageboard - Dedicated to online discussion about Scottish Politics and an Independent Scotland, as well as Scottish Society today. We also have a section dedicated to Banter, Sport and Recommended Sites. |
| Luke P |
.SCO web domainAlec Salmond is keen on the .SCO web domain. Are you? |
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| Dave Coull |
Re: .SCO web domain
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| alfred |
Re: .SCO web domain
How fascinating. How utterly fascinating. |
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| Aventinian |
It's nothing more than a pissing contest. Part of the 'let's pretend we're a big, grown-up country' mentality.
The merits of such a domain thingy are more or less insignificant. |
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| Cruachan |
As opposed to the Nuclear p***ing contest of "I'm a world power too" variety? Can't say I am that bothered about the .sco issue - I heard there is a move for a ".eng" domain and even a ".me" domain", though I guess come independence .sco would be a fairly obvious move given that Scotland would no longer be part of the UK. I would like to think that there would be rather more substantial matters for a new Scottish state to deal with. There is no wish on behalf of nationalists to pretend at being anything. It certainly is about growing up as a country and casting off the parent-child relationship with the UK state. |
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| Aventinian |
.me is the TLD for Montenegro. It already exists. .sco wouldn't be used for an independent state. The TLDs are based on the 'ISO 3166-1 alpha-2' standard - essentially the two-letter abbreviations for countries. Whilst there is some deviation (.uk won out over .gb for the UK) they are all two-letter. Scotland would actually be up s**t creek in this regard, since all the good ones are taken: .sc, .sl, .st, .sd - even .al if you decided to go Gaelic.
Well, it's one of two strategies in action as far as I see it: self-delusion strikes me as the most obvious amongst the emotional nationalists; the more calculating are perhaps working under the assumption that to de-normalise symbols of Britishness and our integration within the United Kingdom will somehow make people less politically supportive of the UK. |
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| Holebender |
So Scotland isn't a big grown up country. What is it then? When it comes to top level domains, Scotland can happily claim .aa for AlbA. Puts us at the start of any alphabetical list... now that must be really big and grown up, eh? |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
Although so can Albania 
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| Holebender |
They could but they haven't. Albania's TLD is .al
.aa is available, and Scotland has a good claim to it. |
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| Alasdair |
Whilst I don't particularly care I don't think .aa would really chime a bell with anyone outside (or even inside) scotland ... maybe it could be gifted to a worldwide umbrella group fro alcoholics anonymous! | ||||
| Red Justice |
I agree with Alasdair and would be happy with dot sco as a domain name at the end of Scottish email addys | ||||
| Holebender |
You can be as happy as you like, but the naming convention requires a two letter top level domain. Would you prefer to continue to use .uk? | ||||
| Red Justice |
Then why not dot sc?
I would prefer a change from .uk to a Scottish TLD I thought I had made that clear. |
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| Holebender |
.sc has already been assigned to the Seychelles.
The only .s something codes available are .sf .sp .sq .ss .sw .sx Do you think any of those would suit Scotland? At least .aa is available and can reasonably be claimed as meaning something in Scotland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains |
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| Red Justice |
OK fair enough Holebender.
I see the dilema that exists now
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| babykitten |
I was going to mention the two-letter rule, but others have beaten me to it. Is there any reason why this rule/convention cannot be changed to allow 3 letter country codes? I'm guessing there's no technical reason since we already have TLDs with more than 2 letters. The 2 letter rule for country codes was pretty stupid to be honest. Time and time again mankind has run short of identifiers of things due to not being able to imagine the future. Telephone numbers have been extended countless times. The IP addressing scheme was flawed from the start, requiring IP v6. A two letter country code (if my arithmetic serves me right) means 26x26=676 possible combinations and many of them are clearly useless, e.g. virtually all the .q*, .x* and .z* ones. With some 200 countries/nations around the world already, somebody should have foreseen a shortage in at least some of the combination groupings with just 2 letters. Perhaps the solution is, as is always the case, to introduce a new system of 3 letter country codes, where new countries can get a 3 letter code, and old countries can continue to use a 2 letter code, or a 3 letter equivalent. e.g. USA use .us and .usa. Scotland use .sco (no 2 letter version) UK (without Scotland) use .uk or .ukm or something. EDIT: It seems that there is indeed an ISO standard defining 3-letter country codes. I guess it would be possible to update the domain system to work with this new coding scheme, meanwhile keeping the old 2 letter scheme running alongside. As others have already said, the UK's ISO country code is "GB" but the UK "exceptionally reserved" "UK". I actually think this makes sense. The "GB" was taken from the long name for the UK, but clearly this was done without a full understanding that the "Great Britain" bit is only a part of the UK. However, this, and other "exceptionally reserved" codes, show that it is possible to reserve an ISO code for non-sovereign states. Perhaps the Scottish Government should look into reserving the 3 letter code "SCO". Then, if the domain system ever is upgraded to use 3 letter TLDs alongside 2 letter TLDs then the problem is solved. |
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| Alasdair |
If you can have .com then there is no reason why you can't have any other three letter domain. Also, is it not also the case that you need to have an address in the USA to use .com? | ||||
| Holebender |
As with many systems, the country which starts it off can get away without specifically identifying itself. Most famously, postage stamps from every country in the world bear the name of the country of origin except stamps from the UK. This is because the UK was the first to issue and use postage stamps.
The internet started in the USA and domains in the USA do not need to specify their country. I don't know if you need an address in the USA to qualify. |
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| Alasdair |
the point being however, there is no real need why domains need be limited to two letters so .sco is entirely possible were there the will. | ||||
| babykitten |
There is actually a .us domain name, but hardly anyone uses it. I don't think the .com domain is 'de jure' for American businesses, but has become the 'de facto' domain for America. I don't think you have to have an American address either. There are plenty of UK companies with .com addresses, even those whose "who is" information points here. This is actually an interesting point. I recently registered a domain name and was slightly surprised to see how easy it was for me to register virtually any TLD around the world. I also note that the .sc domain has been specifically targetting Scottish businesses. So there appears to be no rule against registering domains that are not where you come from. |
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| babykitten |
Exactly, hence why it's the "Football Association" in England. There are countless examples, even within the UK, where English organisations are often called "The National this or that" whereas the Scottish equivalent has "Scottish" in front of it. Personally I don't think this should be allowed with the likes of charities, because many English charities with names including terms like "National" collect in Scotland but don't spend in Scotland. |
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| babykitten |
Yes, this is my point too. There is no technical reason. It seems to be a convention that, in the past, the 2 letter ISO codes were used as the basis. I see no reason why the 3 letter ISO codes can't also be used. It could ultimately replace the 2 letter system, but also run alongside it perfectly happily. It would be interesting to see if there are any other problem TLDs or countries that feel that they have got the short straw with their TLD. |
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| Holebender |
The biggest problem is that Scotland wasn't considered a country when TLDs were being assigned so we are waaaaay at the back of the queue and have to make do with whatever's left over. | ||||
| azzuri |
Fair enough, I can't see it as a huge problem however. Realistically, whatever domain suffix is assigned will be adopted quickly and the symbolism of whatever letters are chosen will be forgotten quickly enough... |
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