Talk:Example.com

Down?
Is it just me, or have example.com, example.net, and example.org gone down? – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 23:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * According to the Wayback Machine it seems to have happened in 2005 (com, net, org). Not simultaneously for all of them, though. Bromskloss 09:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * =/ Surely this is not a good thing, long ago as it may have happened. Shouldn't there be.... someone, who should deal with this? --Jeremy Banks 12:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting. The sites server still respond to pings. --Jeremy Banks 22:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * RFC 2606 (you can read it, it's short) does not say that the mentioned addresses should respond with a web page (nor are they required to respond in any other way). On a side note, "example.com", "example.net", "example.org", "www.example.com", "www.example.net" and "www.example.org" all resolve to the same IP address, namely "192.0.34.166". —Bromskloss 10:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * They're up again. —Bromskloss 16:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Down again! -- Flutefluteflute Talk Contributions 11:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This must have been some ICANN employee who has taken them down... Last few lines of a traceroute to www.example.com:

18  207 ms   208 ms   210 ms  xe-7-3.r00.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4 .238] 19  192 ms   192 ms   192 ms  198.172.117.162 20  195 ms   192 ms   192 ms  gr-1-m7i-e-1-3.icann.org [207.151.118.18] 21  191 ms   193 ms   194 ms  cs-1-bi4k-e-1-1.icann.org [192.0.33.245] 22  199 ms   192 ms   194 ms  www.example.com [192.0.34.166]

Mbimmler 16:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Contacted ICANN to get more information about this. Mbimmler 17:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And up again. Mbimmler 14:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

example.org redirects to porn :(
And that sucks! Here I was, adding an example link, and it gets reverted. OK, I undo the revert and think "stupid bot", well I then copy and paste the link, and I get porn!

Needless to say the link is now Wikipeida rather then example.org

example.com still doesn't work either. AFA http&#58;//revleft.com 23:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It's fine here. (Points to 192.0.34.166, which doesn't have a web server running, but that's not that important).  Perhaps your computer is infected, or your ISP is ripping you off? –EdC 20:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * bah. Now it isn't.  It was only example.org and not example.com or example.net (these two not resolving).  But now, none of them resolve.  I guess that bit can be removed now.  I'll get onto it. AFA http&#58;//revleft.com 15:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC) (hah I remembered to sign this time you stupid bot!)
 * Strictly speaking, they do resolve (to 192.0.34.166), it's just that there isn't a web server at that address to respond to connection requests. Weird about the porn thing, though; it does happen that web addresses get hijacked, but I'm surprised that someone would go to the trouble of hijacking example.org. –EdC 23:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll believe you about that whole resolving thing. And I agree that it is weird that someone would hijack example.org AFA http://www.revleft.com

The IP address should not be included in the article
1) It's not relevant: the RFC is about the reservation of the name; the IP address is incidental information

2) It's subject to change: It's already changed once before, and it will probably change again in the future. Anything could happen to it: it might change to a different IP, it might resolve to IPv6 in addition to IPv4, it might resolve to multiple IPs, it might not resolve to *any* IP (since there is no requirement that a DNS entry have an A or AAAA record), or it might not even exist in DNS in the future (since the RFC only reserves the name, with no provision that it exist in DNS, much less resolve to an IP that points to a real live server!)

3) It's confusing: It adds no useful information while potentially confusing readers (e.g., is this IP reserved as a part of the RFC? is this IP permanently linked to the domain and thus can be hard-coded?). At worst, it can lead uninformed users to start using the IP in lieu of the domain, which is just plain wrong.

4) This is information that can be very easily looked up.

Code65536 (talk) 05:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I have taken the IP out of the infobox because of these concerns. However, in order to build consensus I'd like to present some thoughts:


 * As for concern 1): this article is about the domain, and not merely about the act of reserving it. I feel that the IP is relevant for the associated domain.


 * Considering concern 2): Wikipedia has hosts of information that's subject to change. I see no reason for this making an exception. As for other potential forms the IP could take (e.g. IPv6), these could be presented alongside with the IPv4 form.


 * Taking into account concern 3) is important for further refining this article. In the future, the article text should be written so as to avoid said confusion. However, since Wikipedia is not a manual of any sort, it's the readers' responsibility to make sure they digest and implement knowledge they've gathered from articles correctly. Using the example.com IP is of course bad for two reasons: first, it's a shared-hosting EdgeCast IP shared by some fifty other domains, and secondly, there are actual reserved IP addresses for example/documentation purposes.Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 23:56, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Source for "example.edu"?
It says "while it was reserved for the edu domain by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) since 2000", but there is no source linked/mentioned. --80.130.161.44 (talk) 14:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Any controller of any TLD can chose to reserve a name of their own choosing. As they are not mandated by the IETF I’m not sure if one can rely on the TLD owner never changing their mind in this regard and it’s anyhow a different matter as eg example.se and a lot of other similar ones also exists – all being a class of “voluntary second-level example domains” rather than “IETF directed second level example domains”.
 * This page describes the latter as far as I understands. Voxpelli (talk) 23:28, 22 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I can't see anything on any of ICANN's related RfC about [example.edu], but a WHOIS search shows that it's registered to the ICANN Domain Administrator: who.is/whois/example.edu

8341888
How can it be that 8341888.example.com resolves to some Russian spammers IP? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdruiter (talk • contribs) 23:59, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 31 May 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. The nominator should see WP:MERGE if he plans to go through that process.  Calidum   17:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Example.com → Special-use domain names – As Special-use domain names (as outlined in IANA-RFC6761 include more than just example.com, I propose that this article is moved to Special-use domain names and that the example.(com/net/org/edu) Wikipedia articles redirect to such. ItsPugle (talk) 03:57, 31 May 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. buidhe 01:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose There's a case to be made for creating Special-use domain names, but example.com is a thing unto itself and deserves its own page. PrussianOwl (talk) 02:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There doesn't appear to be any direct coverage of example.com in any news source (failing WP:NOTABILITY. There's also not really any specific importance of example.com, other than the fact that it's a generic dummy URL. ItsPugle (talk) 10:38, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Andrewa (talk) 03:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Support to intentionally expand the scope to the other domains, as there is really not more that can be said about Example.com/.net/.org/etc alone (which would actually be called the "Example domains"). -- Netoholic @ 14:30, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Support. It is problematic whether the current article even satisfies the GNG, in my opinion it should but technically doesn't. This broadening of the article scope is an excellent idea and solves any such problem. It could be done by creating a new article and merging but this is neater. Andrewa (talk) 03:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Turns out an article (Special-use domain name) already exists. Do we have consensus to merge this article into an Example domains section in that article, then delete this one? ItsPugle (talk) 02:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose at this time, since I don't see appropriate level of thought going into this. The official group of special-use domain names is more comprehensive than just *example* and articles of considerable length have already been established for some of them, e.g. .local. With that it stands to reason that self-standing articles are appropriate for detailed content. Similarly it appears to be practice in WP to create self-standing articles for many other domain names no matter how notable that may be by common WP standards of notability. It appears that being a domain of the Internet, official or not (alternate zone), is sufficiency for notability. Kbrose (talk) 16:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Abosolutely. This article would be expanded to cover all Special-use domain names once moved. .local is a special top level domain name (it's the phrase after the dot), not a reserved domain name like example.com (which is a top level domain name + the domain), so I fail to see the relevance of that article, especially about its size. There's also literally nothing significant to add to this article, there's no primary coverage of example.xyz series domains (failing WP:NOTABILITY) and isn't really anything special apart from being a simple website. On your comment about self-standing article for non-notable domains, there's no visible consensus for this. With that logic, we'd have an article for example.com, example.net, example.edu, example.org and on and on. In fact, you'd be proposing that we create an article for every single website then - some 1.3 billion sites. I think it's also worth remembering that a domain name (example.com) is different from a top-level domain name (.com). ItsPugle (talk) 00:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Hold on... We already have Special-use domain name. Do we want to merge example.com into that instead? --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 19:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm so dumb. Yep, this should then be merged. ItsPugle (talk) 02:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Not so dumb, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special-use_domain_name&diff=next&oldid=660587413 and we move on. Andrewa (talk) 02:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Support a merge and redirect. But we do not delete this one. Andrewa (talk) 02:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose, the idea is short-sighted, and is not a solution to any problem. Please look for something else to do. Write a good article. If example.com/org/net were the only special-use domain names it might make some sense. But they aren't and considerable articles have been written about some of the other domains. Furthermore, the article special-use domain name is not about example.com or local., or any other of them, but about the class itself, and how it obtains its authority and what the class contains. If you want to discuss that further, go ahead, perhaps it could use some historical context for the concept. It already has links to each existing article. The only thing that all these domains have in common is that they are designated for special use. Each of them should have its article as has been stable for years. The example domains are very notable, btw, because they are used in probably millions of documents and tutorial, and code samples, etc. But naturally very rarely is anyone writing about them, people use them. Use is the test. Kbrose (talk) 14:51, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: If very rarely is anyone writing about them, then they would fail the notabilty tests and should be merged (or deleted). Use is not the test at all, that claim and most (not all) of the others above show no understanding of the matter of issue, see wp:discard. Being in sources (including primary ones, that might be what you mean I hope) is the test. And it is just not true that there are no sources. Seven sources are already given in the article, and https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6761 and of course http://example.com/ are particularly relevant. And here are some more: https://whois.domaintools.com/example.com https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved - and these were not hard to find. Expand and improve the article by all means... maybe take your own advice on this? As it is, the article is short and not well focussed on the topic indicated by the title. And that is a problem.
 * But the observation that they are used in probably millions of documents and tutorial, and code samples, etc. is I think important. It's one reason to merge and redirect, rather than merge and delete as was suggested above. Others are of course to preserve existing wikilinks, incoming links, and significant edit history (otherwise we are in breach of copyright and compromise reusability). Andrewa (talk) 16:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * No, that is a misrepresentation of reality. Example.com and the others are akin to personal names. WP has many articles of persons and companies whose notability could or should be challenged. But that does not mean that those are lumped into a merged article of whatever common characteristic they may have, e.g. "Engineers", or "Export companies". I recall reading somewhere about the idea that all university professors are notable by their virtue, for example. Example.com is no different and is notable because not only are there some articles about the institution of example domains, but also that they are in fact in common use for their stated purpose. A blind or narrow application of perceived rules is not meaningful. I never stated that these are nowhere written about, another falsification. I said it is rare. The URLs that you provided for supposed additional write-ups about the topic are misleading too, because they don't discuss the topic, just list the domain because of its existence. A commercial listing service (domaintools) is not a reliable reference for the concept, but only indicates its common use. Kbrose (talk) 18:26, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

"192.0.34.166" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=192.0.34.166&redirect=no 192.0.34.166] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. DefaultFree (talk) 08:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)