Should There be a .wiki Top-Level Domain (TLD)?
ICANN, the Internet’s primary oversight agency, has voted to allow new top-level domains (TLDs). This could mean a massive expansion beyond the original .com, .net, and .org TLDs, and country specific TLDs like .co.uk, .ca, .pl, and .de, and that raises a timely question – should one of those new TLDs be .wiki?
Building Greater Awareness
It could build greater awareness of wikis, and their uses beyond Wikipedia, especially in an organizational context. There’s a general misconception that Wikipedia is what a wiki is, and we need to do a better job educating people about the wide range of wiki uses, such as: project management, building documents, managing meeting agendas, minutes, and action items, etc.
Is it Necessary?
But, is it really necessary to identify a site as a wiki? As wikis become embedded into the fabric of more and more websites, it seems reasonable to ask whether those sites would specifically call out the presence of a wiki using a .wiki address. Also, it would likely be difficult to ensure that a site using the .wiki TLD really is a wiki, but this isn’t a showstopper by any means.
So should there be a .wiki TLD? What do you think? Would you use .wiki? Let’s get a debate going in the comments!
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Sherif says:
Jun 30th, 2008
I believe there should be. The TLD should do what it was intended for – reflect the type of content on the site. Eg. .com – Commercial .org – Non-profit/Organization, etc.
However enforcing this is another issue. As see with the recent .xxx domains – its probably not going to happen – although it would certainly benefit the web.
.wiki would be great. I cast my vote!
Nicola says:
Jun 30th, 2008
Hi, it always feels strange typing….wiki.com on things, I think as they become mixed in with other sites, social networks, activities – it may be confusing to have them identified separately.
I can see it might be useful for search engines – i.e. they should be easier to find if every wiki had a .wiki TLD. It would also be useful to for demo / training purposes to anyone unfamiliar with wikis.
For me, wikis are an extension of web functionality rather than a separate type of website or web activity ?
Luca Perugini says:
Jun 30th, 2008
It should be!
A wiki it’s not just another slice of code, it’s a new work style.
Wiki it’s not just a tools it’s social behaviour.
http://lucaperugini.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-need-wiki-tld.html
Yvonne Kucher says:
Jun 30th, 2008
Yes, I believe there should be a .wiki, absolutely! It will raise awareness.
I would use it & I wouldn’t be concerned about misuse of the .wiki TLD.
I also think that this question is not directed at the appropriate audience–readers of your books and sites already HAVE this awareness thanks to you!
Brion says:
Jun 30th, 2008
The primary function of new TLDs is to take money out of the pockets of individuals and companies with a web presence and move it to the pockets of companies serving as domain registrars.
Country TLDs make at least moderate sense given the existence of different legal jurisdictions for companies and trademark laws, and different needs to serve different visitors/customers in different locations, but an explosion of “disambiguation” TLDs doesn’t help anybody who’s not collecting domain registration fees.
We already started at “Buy this name in NNN domains and protect your brand!” and these just make the N bigger.
Stop the insanity!
Skuds says:
Jun 30th, 2008
I think it would be useful in limited circumstances, but pointless in others.
Where someone has set up a ‘traditional’ wiki (which in many cases is a Wikipedia rip-off, homage, or pastiche) it would be handy . If you have set up an encyclopedia of football you could call it football.wiki instead footballwiki.com and that would be great.
But you wouldn’t want to get carried away and use it for sites where the wiki engine is more disguised. It would be like saying that all sites built with Dreamweaver should end in .dw for example.
Charles Miller says:
Jun 30th, 2008
No, there absolutely shouldn’t be. Would you call your website “mycompany.www”, your mail server “mycompany.email” and so on? Of course not. So why would your wiki be special?
scott says:
Jul 1st, 2008
The quick answer is no.
The only real winners of additional gTLDs are the registry bodies that will be selling them. Adding additional gTLDs is akin to printing money. The the value of existing domains is invariably diluted – and for many organisbusinesses the cost of protecting thier brand goes up due to the need to buy more domains to protect it. While this is not going to be so much of a problem for large companies, for smaller businesses it could be testing.
What is also clear from past experience, is that registries are more than happy to maximise their revenues by selling their domains to anyone who asks for one, and not just the user group to whom the domain is supposed to be open/limited. You don’t have to be a company to have a .Com address, an organisation to have .Org, etc etc
Also, people do not as a rule use URLs, they use search (google mostly) to find what they are looking for so in that sense the suffix is of no importance – which makes adding additionals one frankly pointless.
Scott says:
Jul 1st, 2008
The quick answer is no.
The only real winners of additional gTLDs are the registry bodies that will be selling them. Adding additional gTLDs is akin to printing money. The the value of existing domains is invariably diluted – and for many organisbusinesses the cost of protecting thier brand goes up due to the need to buy more domains to protect it. While this is not going to be so much of a problem for large companies, for smaller businesses it could be testing.
What is also clear from past experience, is that registries are more than happy to maximise their revenues by selling their domains to anyone who asks for one, and not just the user group to whom the domain is supposed to be open/limited. You don’t have to be a company to have a .Com address, an organisation to have .Org, etc etc
Also, people do not as a rule use URLs, they use search (google mostly) to find what they are looking for so in that sense the suffix is of no importance – which makes adding additionals one frankly pointless.
Dave Crosby says:
Jul 1st, 2008
Wiki identification/awareness is taking a big step forward with the Universal Edit Button: http://universaleditbutton.org/Universal_Edit_Button
Fred Zelders says:
Jul 1st, 2008
I don’t think there should be a .wiki TLD: Where will this end? For every kind of webservice/content a TLD of its own?
If this will happen almost any TLD will have no meaning at all in the end.
I agree with Brion.
Stu Downes says:
Jul 2nd, 2008
No, my view is wiki.company.com should suffice. Agree with earlier comments do we have .mail .portal .socialnetworkingsite etc… I don’t see why wikis should have their own extension.
Bill Roberts says:
Jul 3rd, 2008
It will be interesting to see how the new TLDs work out. My feeling is that for a URL to be memorable and short matters more than what TLD it has. Since so many .com domains are already registered, myname.wiki could offer a good alternative, but I don’t think there is any real need for function-based TLDs.
TLD Managers says:
Jul 29th, 2008
I think a .wiki makes perfect sense and falls into exactly what ICANN is looking to do to promote an expansive Internet. It will definitely create a very niche neighborhood being developed behind it.
Niels Olson says:
Jan 17th, 2009
YES!
It is intuitive. If these computers are supposed to make our lives easier, then .wiki is an obvious step . It perfectly describes what have become a fundamental resource type on the internet. I would use .wiki. To me it makes more sense than using .doc for a document or .com for commercial websites.
Is it a matter of funding?