Should There be a .wiki Top-Level Domain (TLD)?

Jun 30, 2008

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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14 Comments, Comment or Ping

Sherif

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!

Jun 30th, 2008
Nicola

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 ?

Jun 30th, 2008
Luca Perugini

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

Jun 30th, 2008
Yvonne Kucher

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!

Jun 30th, 2008
Brion

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!

Jun 30th, 2008
Skuds

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.

Jun 30th, 2008
Charles Miller

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?

Jun 30th, 2008
scott

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.

Jul 1st, 2008
Scott

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.

Jul 1st, 2008
Dave Crosby

Wiki identification/awareness is taking a big step forward with the Universal Edit Button: http://universaleditbutton.org/Universal_Edit_Button

Jul 1st, 2008
Fred Zelders

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.

Jul 1st, 2008
Stu Downes

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.

Jul 2nd, 2008
Bill Roberts

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.

Jul 3rd, 2008
TLD Managers

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.

Jul 29th, 2008