1y ago

Queer.af is Shutting Down, Due to Taliban

When registering a country code domain, keep in mind where the domain is being registered. A shift in government or geopolitics can have serious consequences.

Fediverse @kbin.social

deadsuperhero @kbin.social

1y ago

wedistribute.org /2024/01/queer-af-is-shutting-down-due-to-taliban/

Fediverse @lemmy.ml

Sean Tilley @lemmy.ml

1y ago

Queer.af is Shutting Down, Due to Taliban

wedistribute.org /2024/01/queer-af-is-shutting-down-due-to-taliban/

36 comments

That’s an old story, and if I remember correctly the title was misleading, it was more of a decision of the instance admins to not renew it rather than the Taliban having anything to do with it
- Yeah, they didn't want their money going to the Taliban, and it's a little shaky as to whether the Taliban's Ministry of IT would take a stricter content enforcement on their ccTLD. For a while, it was only possible to renew domains, not buy new ones.
  Still, I stuck with the title because the Taliban is still the reason.
- the misleading title you are remembering was closer to “queer.af is shutting down, killed by the taliban”
- It's more like just because you can make a funny domain name out of a specific top level domain like .af Make sure some country doesn't have dibs on it first.
  Like it wouldn't be smart to start a business selling che Guevara merch at comra.de.
  
  Why would Germany of all places ban a shop selling Che Guevara merch?
  
  I think "funny" names involving TLDs as a whole just need to be more careful. It should never be what you expect.
  Like, if someone from the US told me to go a website called "comrade" to buy merch, I'd expect comrade.com. To get me to go to their intended address they'd need to be a German telling me to go to "comra". That's utterly unintuitive as far as verbal communication goes.
  
  I hope no country has dibs on .rodeo
That sucks but it's also funny because it's a pun.
Can we stop for a minute and appreciate the fact that to this day, a queer community uses domain of freaking AFGHANISTAN? :D
That by itself is based, although yeah, registrar fees issues are real.
Unfortunately in the fediverse changing your domain isn't really possible. You basically have to start over.
- It's technically possible, just really, really hard. One example of a successful migration was the transition from calckey.social to firefish.social. It was a massive, extremely difficult undertaking, though.
  A big problem involves how user identities are tied to instances. If there were a way to decouple that, I think a lot of the pain goes away.
  
  People change domains all the time right? Isn't it just a matter of reconfiguring your servers to recognise the new domain provider and address?
  
  In a similar fashion, it would be great to find a way to migrate your post history, not just your followers, between one service and another. So far it's possible to request a backup, but only a few services allow importing said backup, let alone import a backup from a different provider (so far only Firefish, Pixelfed and its derivatives allow for the latter).
That green pixel tho. I know it's not the point at all, but I can't unsee it.
- when you're so queer you can't even get your flag straight smh
  
  Actually, that's probably my fault, I had to edit the graphic on a phone, and don't have the steadiest hands.
  I'll fix it when I get home.
  
  Its just occurred to me that the pride flag is a bunch of STRAIGHT lines. I am amused.
Domain hacking is fun, but politics isn't fun. Bit.ly got taken over by the Libyan government agency, FMHY.ml also had to start over after Malian government stopped Freenom from giving out free domains.
- So many companies will be at the mercy of Anguilla
  
  and a few to tuvalu and in by extension the sea
@deadsuperhero
What a good report!

36 comments