Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Domain hack

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. Woohookitty 10:32, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Domain hack

Delete as vanity, neologism, website advertising: The first half-dozen pages of Google results for "domain hack" suggest that no-one uses this term in this manner (they're all referring to hackers grabbing control of a domain or similar). The article has been edited almost entirely by one IP range, and the only page I found in the Google results that does use this sense of the term is [1], which coined the term a year ago and presumably created the article (to which the site links; also, the IP range that edited the article and the owner of xona.com correspond geographically.) — mendel ☎ 19:39, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

• ...oh crap. It's a neologism? Dammit. There has to be a name for the phenomenon, though. No vote yet. DS 20:31, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

• Keep: Interesting article that clarifies an emerging practice in domain name creation. As per Mendel's neologism reference, though, is there a better term than "domain hack"? jareha 20:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Hm, I see what you mean about the practice being notable beyond the problems with this article. Does it deserve more than a paragraph on Domain name system? It doesn't need a catchy name that way, and it won't be an advert for their website (where, oddly enough, they claim a trademark on "domain hack"). — mendel ☎ 21:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

• Weak keep: rather informative and amusing, even if not quite encyclopedical. --tyomitch 22:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep but rename to something sensible (I'm thinking about what it could be). This isn't a "hack", but it's notable. Tuvalu (.tv) has made a lot of money out of a similar domain name phenomenon, after all. Tonywalton  | Talk 22:43, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

• Keep: (I'm not sure how to properly edit this page, so please format it preperly afterwards.) To clarify, I am the creator of the article and the creator of the Domain Hacks search utility. As for self-promotion, the article was not created for the promotion of my website. I would have linked to any and all websites better than mine (along with mine), if I could have found any, any at all, but I couldn't. I could only find a few blog entries almost a year after the creation of my utility. I eventually found V3's site. All of these sites I linked to. I did my best to find as much information on domain hacks as I could. There is truly very little information out there. You can see this is true, or else you would already have another name/title for the article in mind. Anyways, I created the article (and my search utility) as this is something big, and there exists little to no information on it. When I programmed the Domain Hacks search, no one else had come up with a name for these type of domains. If they had, I would have used it. I searched very hard and found nothing, so I had to create a name myself. I came up with "domain hack", even though I appreciate the media uses "domain hack" in a completely unrelated sense. If "domain hack" is not used widely enough to have a wikipedia article, then I suggest to rename to "unconventional domain names" (and rename email hack to "unconventional email addresses") and change the article to say that I suggest (and actively use) the name of "domain hack" and "email hack". As far as I know, I am the first one to come up with any name at all. You can appreciate the difficulty in coming up with a more 'proper' name, I can tell by your comments. It is hard. It would also help to consider that the media tends to use "hack" in the system breach sense, not the sense of making a system do something it was never intended to do, which is the type of "hack" I had in mind during the naming of these domains. "Hack" and "hacker" predate computer security, anyway, so my version of "hack" I believe to be more accurate. Because the media uses "domain hack" in another sense, I would NOT use this as a reason to not call these domain names "domain hacks". (That is my personal opinion.) I have held #1 in Google for domain hacks for a long time. So, with the plural search, it favors to keep the name. As for trademark issues, there is nothing to worry about. I put that "(tm)" to protect my www.domainhacks.com domain name, so nobody would come along afterwards and claim they have more right to use it (with their own trademark) and steal it away. It was done out of protection, not for money making reasons. I solved the situation by moving the search utility under the www.xona.com domain name. I can remove those trademarks, although "Domain Hacks" will more than likely remain the name of my search utility. The trademark was never intended to make money. Anyways, I wrote the article under the name of "domain hack" for two main reasons: 1) it is the only name I know of and 2) it is the only name that is currently in use (albeit by myself via my search utility, none-the-less no other name is in use). I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that this was enough to justify the wikipedia article of the same title. I hope this clarifies my position. Please do whatever is best, of course. 137.186.22.240 01:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete: As mendel states, it is a neologism, unused outside of its inventor's website, and is a poor neologism at that. (It does not employ the work "hack" in any of its common meanings). Useless and uninformative. -- riotnrrd 15:49, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I coined the term, but I did not invent the idea. The idea still exists, is very popular, and deserves recognition. A rename maybe, but not a delete. Explain why a delete and not a rename. The only question here is the title/name, not the content. As for usage of "hack", it is common to use "hack" in terms of a "programming exploit" or "clever hack", in where things are done that were never meant to be able to do. So that cannot be used as the reason to reject the name. "Domain hack" is the only title that exists and the only one in use. However, it is only used by me, so this is the only reason why the title should be rejected, but not deleted (just renamed to something else, but what?) As for your "useless and uninformative" comment, it is a very individualistic (and emotional?) comment and is obviously not true for everyone. As always, please do what is best. If a rename is in order, what should it be renamed to??? I am new to this. 137.186.22.29 22:53, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Simply put, your concept of a "domain hack" is that people make words out of domain names. That's it. Sure, it's clever to use the top-level-domain "icio.us" to create memorable domain names such as "del.icio.us" in a namespace already heavily occupied (delicious.com, org and net being taken), but is it worthy of note? Is registering the domain "del.icio.us" substantially different from registering "delicious.com?" In the broadest possible sense, this may be a phenomonon that deserves a name, but does it deserve a wikipedia article? I don't think so. So, when I said this entry was "Useless and uniformative" I meant that the article itself provides no other information than "some people register clever domain names and here is a list of them." -- riotnrrd 16:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
    • I believe it is worthy of a note. Perhaps it needs to become more popular, more of a phenomena, before Wikipedia will accept it... not sure. But, it IS something, and I looked for info on Wikipedia FIRST when I went to research it, expecting it to be here in great detail. There's something that told me it should be here. It just felt like Wikipedia type stuff. Hope this poor explanation makes some sense to all of you. 137.186.22.208 20:42, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
• I was thinking about this some more, since there seems to be a strong "Move it... somewhere?" sentiment. There are essentially three parts to the current article: the part about people doing this with domains, the part about the history of "Domain hack" and the related website and its founder, and the list of names. I suspect there's consensus that the phrase "Domain hack" and the history of the related website aren't encyclopedic, so there's that section done. The list itself is borderline; there is a website about this stuff, and where there's a good external resource for something like this then there's no point in keeping a list here, better to provide an external link. So that leaves the observation that people do this — that can be merged into Domain name system with an external link. Thoughts? — mendel ☎ 20:14, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia can maintain the list better than any other site, so is that something to consider? I think the list is interesting, and would wish it to remain on Wikipedia somewhere. 137.186.22.208 20:38, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
  • So IF a rename, what would it be renamed to? What are these domain names called? How should one refer to them? 137.186.22.208 23:56, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete As they author seems to make clear above, the term was coined to advertise his search tool. --InShaneee 20:40, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Not true, it was coined to have a name and be able to write about it. The search tool could be called what else? Not that this affects the outcome, just making it clear. 137.186.22.208 20:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
    • As recently as Tuesday you were claiming it as a trademark over on the search tool: Google cache — mendel ☎ 21:22, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
      • I explained the trademark issue already, it was trademarked to protect the www.domainhacks.com domain name from being stolen away. I removed this as it basically makes no sense, which this discussion brought to light. (Thanks for this.) This does not mean that I coined the name "domain hack" to promote my search, which was the point. I can see why you could think this, but it is incorrect. Think of this from this perspective might help: Whatever name I decided on would probably have ended up in the title of my search. I.e. if I could go make the first domain name search, I would probably call it domains.com or domainnames.com. I hope this clarifies my position and thought process on the matter. Again, I doubt this matters. The trademark thing is now irrelevant. 137.186.22.208 23:41, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, although rename if there is any good alternative. Sarge Baldy 23:21, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep or merge ··gracefool |☺ 18:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep -- I like the article, and would like to see it stay around in some form under some title, but I'm not sure the current title is more than a neologism. Perhaps it ought to be renamed, but I'm not sure to what. *Dan T.* 20:13, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I am also unsure of this being neologism. If a rename occurs, my search utility will also be renamed... the end result is the same as what exists now, the only difference is that I did not create the new name. 137.186.22.135 15:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
• Merge -- the phrase as it is used in the article is an invention of the author, as Mendel pointed out. However, the content itself isn't bad; I can see the first couple of sections being compressed a little and merged into Domain name#Unconventional domain names with appropriate rewording. In my opinion, the phenomenon itself is notable; the name isn't. --David Wahler (talk) 19:14, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.