Wiki Seed Planted

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Map showing borders of Greater Jackson HeightsJackson Heights, NY, April 18, 2017 - Here’s a “just for the very interested” notice: We’ve started a key element of the JacksonHeights.nyc initiative by activating the wiki.JacksonHeights.nyc.

The wiki’s goal is to be a repository of information about the neighborhood. During the germination period access is limited to those with a tolerance for imperfection. For example, you’ll find that only the highly transitory home page is visible to those without a member account. And to establish a member account you’ll need to weave your way through a three step process - create an account, wait for an email ok’ing your member access, then login.

Ease of access and the quality of content will improve over time. The very interested are invited to help set the road.

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Premier Presentation of JacksonHeights.nyc

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New York, January 4, 2017 - Connecting.nyc Inc.’s founding director Tom Lowenhaupt will present an overview of his organization’s development plans for the JacksonHeights.nyc domain on Thursday, January 12, at 8 PM. The presentation will be made at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center, 37-06 77th St. (map), a short walk from the Roosevelt Avenue - Jackson Heights subway stop on the E, F, M, and R trains, and the 7 train’s 74th Street station. The occasion will be the regular monthly meeting of the New Visions Democratic Club. All are welcome to this free event.

His presentation will begin with a description of the .nyc TLD and the city’s hopes for its neighborhood names licensing program. Then, after a project history and timeline, he’ll describe the system’s initial features - a neighborhood resource directory and common calendar - and the ways neighbors and organizations may join in developing and using them. He’ll then speak of the long term potential as social and civic features are developed and introduced.

He’ll conclude with a discussion of the ways existing neighborhood organizations might benefit, and of the plans to transition control of the endeavor from Connecting.nyc to neighborhood residents.

Mr. Lowenhaupt said the audience for this first public presentation was carefully chosen as the project’s success depends on engagement and support by the neighborhood’s civic, social, and business leadership, sectors strongly represented at New Visions.

A video of the event is now available.

 

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What’s Hot and Not On .nyc?

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New York, October 2, 2015 - Would you like to know what .nyc websites are popular? The ones that are getting more popular? And less? Newbies?

One way to find out would be to have access to something called the .nyc DNS Data Log. It’s a list of all the URLs that are requested for sites using .nyc domain names. Every time a .nyc URL is sent to a machine called the Domain Name Server, a log entry is made. If we had access to this DNS Data Log we could find out things like what’s hot and not.

Today we submitted a proposal to the Knight Foundation for funds to explore this idea.  We think it’s worthwhile, but there are technical issues and privacy concerns, and some fresh eyes would be appreciated. It’s called Pulse: Making The Invisible Visible, see it here. (Commons graphic of URL courtesy of Wikipedia.)

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Going once. Going twice… The .nyc auctions

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­Jackson Hts., New York, July 29, 2014 - With the .london Landrush ending on Thursday, “30 applications for the properties.london address and over 40 for nightlife.london” have been received (see V3.co.uk/) with an auction to decide the recipient. What? Let me try to unbundle that statement.

Over the past 50+ days anyone with $75 to invest (see GoDaddy’s rates) has been able to buy a lottery ticket of sorts for a domain name within the .london TLD. With the July 31 deadline to apply for a .london domain name nearing, 30 people have purchased tickets for the “properties.london” lottery, and 40 for the “nightlife.london” lottery. By midnight on July 31 more than 50,000 different domain names are expected to have been applied for overall, with several thousand names having multiple bidders.

In London…

The operator of the .london TLD has established priority rules to sort out those instances of “multiple-applicants for same name?” Here’s how it works.

  • Getting first priority are those with a registered international trademark. If more than one entity has a trademark, for example, Cadillac cars and Cadillac foods, then a high bid auction is held to determine the winner.
  • Second priority goes to ticket holders with a valid London address and an established right to a name. For example, a business can upload “evidence” to demonstrate its current use of a name, and thus right, to a parallel .london domain name. Within this Second Priority several sub-categories have been established: In descending order of priority those are: entities with local trademarks, businesses without trademarks, charities, and those with unregistered trademarks. Again, if more than one entity presents evidence of prior use in a sub-category, for example, cadillac.com and cadillac.net, a high bid auction sorts things out.
  • Third priority goes to those applicants with a valid London address, but no prior use of the name.
  • Final priority (if that’s the right word) goes to applicants without a valid London address, a New Yorker for example who wants to own a piece of digital London. In these last two instances it’s an auction that breaks a tie.

In New York…

Here in New York we’re doing things differently. There’s no value to having used a name for years or decades. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve registered it with the state - neither a New York State trademark nor d/b/a counts.

Excepting those with international trademarks, local businesses and non-profits have no more right to a name than anyone else. The Bloomberg Administration, which established the rules, made the decision to start the naming process all over again on a level(ish) playing field.

So between August 4 and October 3, if you like a name, buy a ticket (it will cost you about $75). Then out bid the current owner (and possibly other ticket holders) at auction, and its yours. But you may get lucky - the current owner might not even know the .nyc TLD is being introduced, and not buy a ticket. In that case, no auction, it’s yours.

So what happens when 30 tickets are sold for a domain name such as properties.nyc? “The auction will be held in accordance with the auction rules… Any auction fees, charges and the final bid price for the domain name will be the responsibility of the Applicant.” A regressive process that promotes the status quo.

This Bloomberg legacy process is slated to move ahead. For the administration it’s the easy, fast, and cheap allocation process. But if you believe as I do that it’s unfair, call 311 and tell Mayor de Blasio -  è ingiusto.

For our older posts 2007-2014 see here.

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