Talk:.org/Archive 1

Open source generalization
"...most .org domains do not qualify for this generalization." -if true, why is it worth mentioning in the first place? mtz206 04:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Please add some info about ads on .org sites
Ive been to so many .org websites with heavy advertising. For example: phpnuke.org has so many pop ups that my pop up blocker gets overwhelmed and cannot handle all of them. Cmon if you have a .org why does it have SO many ads. Aceofspades 14:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Advertising is a valid way to collect money to non-profits. This projects need money to buy hardware, pay full time employers, etc. And .org TDL are not only for non-profits. -- EduardoPadoan

Questionable history
"In the US, the .org TLD is mostly associated with non-profit organizations, due to the TLD's early adoption by the open-source movement ..."

I doubt the accuracy of this statement (unsupported by citation), which states (or at least implies) that the use of .org by nonprofit organizations was inspired by the open-source movement. I suspect that the use of .org by nonprofits was independent of the open-source movement and may even have preceded the rise of the open-source movement as a significant cultural influence.

Does anybody have an accurate history?

68.73.52.164 00:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that's a misleading statement that should be changed. The actual history is that the original structure of the domain name system allocated .org to miscellaneous organizations that didn't fit in the other categories (see ), which basically meant nonprofits / not-for-profits that were not governmental or educational.  This predated the open source movement.  When open source software started becoming popular in the 1990s, such projects often used .org domains to indicate their noncommerciality, causing some degree of association of that TLD with the open source movement, but it's fairly weak; there are of course many other kinds of organizations with .org domains and some open source projects that (illogically, in my opinion) use .com domains (possibly indicating over-infestation with marketing types). *Dan T.* 00:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I remember at some point .org was opened up to registration by anyone, whereas previously you had to be approved in order to use it (and it was generally only approved for non-profits). Anyone know the details of this? anthony 20:52, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The way I recall it (and I worked at an ISP in the mid-to-late 1990s and was involved in submitting domain registrations for various clients), at first domain registrations were free and were all "vetted" for the registrants fitting the appropriate categories. Then the then-monopoly (for .com, .net, .org, and at that time .edu also) Network Solutions got governmental approval to start charging for registrations (where previously they just got a flat government grant per year to do the registrations), which was a major step towards domain registration becoming a saleable commodity instead of a public service.  .com was the first to go unrestricted, as NetSol stopped all pretense of checking the appropriateness of registrants there.  For a while, .org and .net continued to be restricted to some extent, with the NetSol people sometimes rejecting registrations that didn't seem appropriate, but eventually they too were made unrestricted.  .edu remained tightly restricted and was ultimately spun off to a different, nonprofit registry.  .org was also later spun off, but remained unrestricted (it's much harder to add restrictions to a formerly unrestricted domain than to go the other direction). *Dan T.* 21:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Can Comanies use an .org ?
It is not specified in this article if companies can use a .org domain. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.164.85.97 (talk) 21:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC).


 * Registration is unrestricted, so anybody can use it; nobody enforces any restrictions, and the registry actually suggests that companies register the .org version of their names both for name protection and for possible use for related foundations or charitable use. Tradition and RFC documents hold that .org is supposed to be for noncommercial organizations, but this is not a mandatory rule. *Dan T.* 21:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

assembler directive
I hear org/.org/ORG a very common assembler directive, apparently used in many assemblers to move code to some specific location --24.201.100.166


 * Yes. We should probably have a disambiguation page at Org or ORG, as there are a number of other meanings too (e.g., the Open Rights Group, and orgs in Power Rangers). --Zundark 08:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Add source with ' some people '
although some people question whether it is ethical to do so there's no source of who these people are. i apologize if i made a wrong suggestion, i never edit Wikipedia. this just caught my attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.248.84.9 (talk) 18:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Example Use
I don't think that we need the text starting with "Political parties..". While it might be true, it doesn't make any sense listing various political parties as examples. This is starting to become a list of parties.

--Bluezy (talk) 15:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed them all (along with the diplomatic missions). This sort of thing happens a lot: someone gives an example, then people start adding their favourite examples, and soon we have a long list of random junk that shouldn't be there. --Zundark (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Suspected vandalism?
To a couple of examples of country domains that can go with .org, someone has added a whole string of countries, a US State (Hawaii), and these two suspicious examples: "Mar del Plata (mdq)," "People's Republic of Tomate el Palo (tep)." Somehow, I don't believe those last two. I'm going to take them out. If someone can show that they're legit, I'd be interested in seeing that. 173.79.191.234 (talk) 23:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

COI contributions
I would like to request some modest improvements. My proposed edits are documented in an edit history here. They include:
 * Updating the price from 2008 to 2012 numbers
 * Adding section-headers and a lead that summarizes the article to give the article structure
 * Removing a couple sentences discussing the diversity of orgs that use .org, not because it isn't good information, but just because this is repeated so much throughout the article.
 * Adding growth stats and a chart on the growth in the number of registered .orgs

The edits are fairly straightforward and non-controversial. I'd be happy to make the edits myself if an editor deems it appropriate. Using will approve my edit but request I make them myself, so the reviewer doesn't have to go through them tediously to replicate the edits. User:King4057 19:04, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I compared both your proposed version and the current version, and I think your version is a great improvement. The only suggestion I would make would be to omit the sentences you have tagged as needing citations; those seem unnecessary and don't appear to enhance the article. Go for it. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool - will do. Someone removed some "citation needed" content from the current article, giving the appearance that I added it to the draft, when it was actually already there. User:King4057 00:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

.org Founded
I have a WP:COI with the Public Interest Registry. The current article says: "'It was originally intended for non-profit organizations...'"

The person I talked to at PIR said this was incorrect. It was founded for "organizations" and merely became popular among non-profits. They also suggested this information may have been "taken to the grave" and I am not sure if sources exist.

I'm just posting here as a possible issue for discussion or looking into. PIR is actually publishing a book soon, which could be used as a source for the change, if editors are ok with a self-published source. User:King4057 00:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Primary sources are fine for referencing statements that an organization says about itself.


 * If the statement you quote is wrong, it should be removed, although replacing it with a self-evident unsourced statement that .org is popular among nonprofits wouldn't raise any eyebrows and would be acceptable. Replacing it with a statement sourced to a personal conversation, of course, wouldn't fly. I have this problem a lot with some wine articles, because I know winemakers who have encyclopedic knowledge about their art, much of which isn't published, but I can't use conversations I've had as sources.


 * By the way, there is no problem with a person with a COI making non-controversial corrections directly to an article, particularly if you explain your reasoning on the talk page. ~Amatulić (talk) 02:01, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! So I'll wait until the book comes out, unless you think we should change it now? I'm happy to come back and add the citation as a non-controversial edit.


 * I know, I know. Editors are often telling me I should directly edit articles. Our attitude is of course more lenient for non-profits. Many of the request edits in the queue are mine and are of corporations, where the scrutiny is higher. User:King4057 02:40, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

hi online method is OK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.160.72.90 (talk) 07:12, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

2019 sale
I'm still reading up on this, but there's a story that needs to be covered:


 * https://savedotorg.org/
 * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_shambles/
 * https://medium.com/@jacobmalthouse/whos-going-to-run-org-in-a-word-the-gop-8809ef6f9679
 * http://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2019/11/23/a-tale-of-icann-and-regulatory-capture-the-dot-org-heist/
 * https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/private-equity-firm-buys-org-domain-months-after-icann-lifted-price-caps/

-- Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Something more
 * Marc E. Jeftovic of the ISCC (Internet Society Canada Chapter) has an interesting take on this here:
 * https://easydns.com/blog/2019/12/06/its-called-f-you-money-for-a-reason-why-isoc-sold-org-to-vcs/
 * Maybe things from this text can be worked into the article when more gets out about the background of the deal.
 * --2A02:908:4B16:2D40:1041:DF31:4988:B596 (talk) 21:40, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 December 2019
Please change existing image https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c6/DOT_ORG_%28ORG_Marketing_Resources_logo%29.png/200px-DOT_ORG_%28ORG_Marketing_Resources_logo%29.png to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ORG_RGB.png

Please change existing image https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Growth_in_registered_.orgs.png/240px-Growth_in_registered_.orgs.png to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ORG_Growth_Chart85-2010.png Jklefevre (talk) 04:13, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

✅ Please let us know of any similar updates that are needed. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 15:48, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 December 2019
Need to update the .ORG logo as well as the .ORG Growth Chart image in the right side callout areas of this page. Please advise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ORG_RGB.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ORG_Growth_Chart85-2010.png Jklefevre (talk) 04:11, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
 * See below. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 15:49, 18 December 2019 (UTC)