FA's Current Status

I would agree with that. It would be very nice if TotJO was much more open about it's finances. It would build a lot more trust in the group for me. It is not exactly information that needs to be kept private after all.

Just to clarify, the question is the domain name for Force Academy, which was originally a .com and also has a .org. The server everything runs on is financially maintained by me and that's not an issue. As much as pointing DNS to someone else with the domain they own helps branding, it is not giving ownership of the domain to the owners of the property. This is called domain squatting, and even in the greater tech world is seen unfavorably. I have no trust in the domains owned by John in that situation, so cannot and will not make use of the name. That's the current situation.

However, the FA is up at a new domain and the only thing really impacted is the history via the old domain, as someone way back earlier in this thread noticed. There is only so much I am going to pay for that history. But since it was noticed in this thread, you have your answer on why we had domain gyrations.

To be fair, it's not the server that was bought. It was the URL. The two are separate from one another. And while URLs become available for resale when the previous owner fails to renew for whatever reason, the content of servers themselves do not go up for resale when the previous owner fails to renew. Rather the server provider wipes it and resales it. The only way a server with data is ever sold is if the owner actively chooses to do so.

What it sounds like happened here is the previous URL owner failed to renew the contract, which made that URL up for purchase. By themselves, URLs are totally worthless... They have to be assigned to (pointed to) a server, otherwise you'll get a missing page error. URLs also tend to cost very little... My URL costs me $16/yr. The only way a URL ever costs as much as listed in this thread is when there's been intrinsic value applied from brand association. Example, if Lucasfilms/Disney were to allow the starwars.com to expire for whatever reason, and someone else bought it before they could renew.... There's intrinsic value associated with the Star Wars brand, but the person who bought it probably wouldn't have paid more than $20-$50 for initial domain registration.... However Disney would probably pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get it back.

The thing is, most domain name providers hold on to a URL for a set period of time after the owner fails to renew it. That period of time allows the initial owner to register it again. My provider gives me a 60-day period to renew my domain if I fail to renew it on time, at a small extra fee. It's only after that extra 60 days expires that they fully release it back for purchase by the general public.

So, in order for John to own the forceacademy.org URL, the original owner would have had to have failed to renew it in the proper period of time initially, AND have failed to renew it during that grace period. But he wouldn't have been able to purchase the data on that server unless the owner actively sold that data to him. No (reputable) server provider will sell a server with data in it without permission because then you run into copyright and intellectual property infringement and it opens them up to being sued for every penny they're worth.

That said, I don't blame the current administrators for FA for not wanting to accept a "free of charge" pointing of said URL to their server. That opens up a whole slew of potential problems, nevermind their stated branding issue. . . . And as far as I feel, there's really no reason for that URL to be owned by anyone but the Force Academy organization, thus no reason for there to not be a reasonably priced resale.

Arisaig wrote:

Twigga wrote: That's not offering to give someone ownership of a server.

Perhaps not directly. But the spirit is right. The intention was, at face value, noble.

Hows achieving that tin badge coming for you? No one should trust your objective judgment as far as they can throw you.

How about not only no but f*** no. I agree with twigga here. I have agreed with John on certain things over time but I would never trust him! His war with Daniel Jones alone is proof enough of his sinister ways. Given any trust, that trust betrayed in any perception will result only in hardship. The very fact he is not willing to give up the domain is proof of his need for control. I say just walk away.

(apart from the very helpful clarifying statements from Satelle and Avalon about servers and domain names being different things)

Hardware or virtual domains is irrelevant. John's ownership of either is not to be trusted.

It's also a matter of record that the person who owned FA's .co.uk domain was informed when the URL was purchased. Br. John brought it to me, and I told Colin (our previous administrator) about it. I also informed my council, and I'm pretty sure I told the Inner Council at the time. So it wasn't information kept away from us.

That said, when we moved, I'm not actually 100% sure that I made an effort to re-inform the group that it was still being held by Br. John, simply because I would have taken it for granted that I remembered but maybe they didn't.

Kyrin, I believe your jab at Arisaig to have been out of line.

I'm not really sure why force academy domains are owned by other people not members of Force Academy. Despite whatever noble intentions we may consider to have been on the brain, the image such a purchase conotes is not in line with noble action.

I poke around Force Academy a bit. The us domain is fine and does the job. I would hope the .com domain could be turned over to FA's current leadership via the offer brought forward. I think it was $100.

There's probably no reason to be buying domains unless you are snapping up competition, which I don't believe to be in the spirit of what we do here

Yes your right ros, it was prolly a bit out of line but given his recent trolling of my board that i found in very bad taste for an aspiring knight here I hope you can take it into consideration. I apologize in any case.

Thank you, Ros