Clueful about Iraq? I'm sending this out to the people I read (bloggers, jornalists, public data holders) in an effort to get help putting together an Iraqi namespace.
I'm one of your readers, and ironically, I seem to be the "go to" person for the Iraqi portion of the internet domain name system. I would like to start pre-populating the Iraq domain name space with what I hope will be useful to the eventual users, and without going into a long and very complex explination, ask you to assume that at present the operator/sponsor is unable to function. A fuller explination can be found at my website, "What I know about the .IQ delegation", at http://nic-iq.nic-naa.net.I'm asking for assistance putting together lists. I've done universities, provinces and airfields, I haven't scratched the surface for hospitals, secondary schools, and so on. All of these will eventually have network access, directly or by proxy, and some will change their names, or have additional names and funtion as email relay and so on.
I'm conducting this project openly on the North American Network Operators Group mailing list, which has global operator readership, and the South Asian Network Operators Group mailing list, and I periodically notice ICANN that leaving the Iraq namespace "dark" due to an act of belligerency isn't in the best interests of the Internet Communities.
Questions, comments, and above all, names of people, places, and things, please. Reporters, stories and bloggers too.
The structure of the zone files I created in mid-April 2003 isbelow.
.iq - top-level, NS and glue
.ac.iq - universities
.aero.iq - airfields, stld projection (new)
.sch.iq - secondary and primary sites
.edu.iq - tertiary sites, stld projection
.med.iq - hospitals, clincs
.muhafazat.iq - 18 administrative units
Iraq proper:
al-anbar, babil, baghdad, basrah,
dhi-qar, diyala, karbala, maysan,
al-muthanna, an-najaf, ninawa,
al-qadisiyah, salah-ad-din, at-tamim,
wasit
Iraqi Kurdistan:
arbil, dahuk, as-sulaymaniyah
.fed.iq - assuming a federal form
.gov.iq - assuming a non-federal form
.press.iq - press, domestic and foreign
.nom.iq - individuals
.{com,net,org}.iq - gtld projections
.mil.iq - prudent
.pol.iq - political parties, candidates
.int.iq - stld projection
This is a real RFC (Request For Comments). Please forward widely.
Posted by EBW at January 7, 2005 01:24 PM | TrackBackOverall I like what you're doing.
My only comment is from a "human factor design" POV: it seems there are way too many domain distinctions.
While obviously we need adequate granularity to distinquish between different entities and provide enough choice for people to get appropriate names in the domain space, this goes well beyond the "magic of 7 (+/-2)". That might make it hard for humans to remember the various domains which is, afterall, the goal of the DNS in the first place! Not a useful mnemonic if I forget the various names.
How 'bout trying to find 9 second-levels and leaving it at that for starters. One of the nice things about the IETF perspective is that we address issues at hand, and when new needs arise, we adapt. I'd like to think that we don't need to take the ITU approach and try to anticipate every need and go overkill.
So mebbe, for example, you just use .gov for all governmental agencies, Federal or otherwise. Heck, we're doing that in the US: I can go to www.vermont.gov, rather than the more cumbersome www.state.vt.us. So if you consolidate a bit, perhaps it will be easier to implement initially and cause less confusion?
Just my two cents (not sure what that's worth in euros or dinars).
Posted by: NTodd at January 7, 2005 02:45 PMI mean, I like what your reader is doing.
Posted by: NTodd at January 7, 2005 02:46 PMAt this point populating projections is sufficient. I'd be happier with a list of kindergardens in Basra than the discovery of "the one perfect tree", since moving limbs is trivial. Populating them is the hard part.
Posted by: Eric at January 7, 2005 05:43 PMOh, you've got the reader/writer backwards. I'm sending notes to Cole and others who specialize in or have reason to have Iraq-clue. I assume they lack dns-clue, and I'm publishing "Eric's Fake .IQ zone" for the benefit (conjectural) of the Internet Community, some of which is in Iraq.
In short, I'm to blame for all errors.
Posted by: Eric at January 7, 2005 05:45 PMYou should reserve "high.iq" and "low.iq" and auction them off. Probably get more money than the country's getting from "reconstruction aid."
Posted by: boz at January 7, 2005 08:17 PMThat was already proposed by the Mensa idiots something like a year ago.
Feel free to do something useful, like look up all the museums or off-shore oil platforms and send me a list.
Posted by: Eric at January 7, 2005 09:08 PMThat was already proposed by the Mensa idiots something like a year ago.
Why am I suddenly reminded of that Simpsons episode where the Springfield intellectuals take over management of city? :-)
Posted by: NTodd at January 7, 2005 10:10 PM