Registering a Locality Based .US Domain?

waffle zero asks: "I've been looking for a simple domain to host personal photos and journals. I gave up on getting a .COM or .NET TLD and started looking into one like firstnamelastname.ny.us. NeuStar manages the .US TLD and sub-domains like los-angeles.ca.us are run by third parties (mostly regional ISPs and universities). My local municipality is a small city so there is no 'delegated zone'. The only ones I have seen frequently are of the form k12.ny.us used by primary schools. I would like to hear users experiences working with locality based domains and what it would take to run one for my area."

UK

[jago25_98]

A very good idea. I'd like to the same for .uk

Unfortunately AFAIK the problem over here is worse, I'm not even sure how to register a foo.uk domain rather than the usual .co.uk ...

Hope we can figure something out

Re:UK

[bastardsquadmuzz]

You cannot register your own 'second-level' domain for .uk because Nominet [www.nic.uk] (owners of .uk) like to keep it organised [www.nic.uk]. Normal people aren't even supposed to use .co.uk, as there is a .me.uk for people, but when I purchased my domain only .org.uk and .co.uk were offered to me. Whilst being able to create your own SLD would be nice I think Nominet are taking the right approach, because it is very destinct whether the address holder is a company (.co.uk), an organisation (.org.uk), a school/college (.ac.uk) or

Re:UK

[Otter]

Seems like pretty much every domain that wants to maintain a national identity for their TLD does it that way (which strikes me as entirely sensible). It's primarily the TLDs run as vanity domains (cx, tv, nu) that allow you to routinely register second-level domains. There are exceptions, undoubtedly...

& to add to that list...

[eugene ts wong]

...you can also get a .tk 2nd level domain. If you are short on funds, then @ least you can still have the address point to you web site for $0.

http://www.tk/

nic.us

[Anonymous Coward]

go to http://nic.us/ and find the registration
forms. You'll need affidavits from your town/city
government though.
http://nic.us/register/locality.html

You might want to mail russ nelson?

[Bazzargh]

I took a gander at the delegated registrars, and one of them is Russ Nelson (of Crynwr driver fame, and who has in the past been a regular poster to /. [slashdot.org])

NY ALEXANDRIA-BAY.NY.US. [e-mail]

Since this is clearly an "individual geek" operation like your own, he might be able to help.

Sorry Russ if this is unwelcome!

Re:You might want to mail russ nelson?

[Russ Nelson]

IMHO, you are much better off getting fooSTATE.US than foo.STATE.US. Why? Because that's what Neustar wants you to do, and because it's cheap enough. They've been allowed to destroy the locality.US registry, so run with it.

Do I sound too cynical? I hope so. I don't want there to be any room for more cynicism where the .us locality domains are concerned.
-russ

Clout is the Chicago answer for chi.il.us

[netringer]

Uniforum Chicago [chi.il.us] set a solution up to this many years before the web, much less the .com boom.

They sponsored the Clout Project [chi.il.us] where anybody can apply for a domain in chi.il.us.

Would just .us be ok?

[damiangerous]

Does it have to be ny.us or is just .us fine? You can register a .us domain at GoDaddy for $4.95 (til the end of January), I have two of them.

Re:Why?

[suky]

Because a whatever.city.state.us domain is usually free.

How about the .name TLD?

[juntunen]

I've been looking for a simple domain to host personal photos and journals.

Why not just get something in the .name domain? The Global Name Registry [nic.name] says ".name goes from a special interest, third level TLD to a mainstream, second level domain space for individuals, structurally identical to a TLD like .com, on 11:30AM EST on 14 January 2004."

"gave up on .com or .net"?

[kwerle]

I gotta wonder... Why?

My city didn't have a domain when I started out, so I went with the county, which did have one. It's worked great for me.

Dynamic DNS, good dsl, and your own server

[t0qer]

Seems like a better solution to me, especially if it's just your photos.

It's going to be hard...

[jlv]

Since Neustar took over administration of .US, new locality delegations have been frozen. This "freeze" was supposed to have lasted 6 months. It's been 2 years. Neustar hasn't been forthcoming as to when this will be lifted.

I've been using a .us domain since 88/89, and have been the locality manager for my town's .us domain since 96. I only signed up to be the locality manager to prevent certain out-of-town name squatters from taking over the domain name and charging me $50/yr for the privledge (this h

Re:It's going to be hard...

[jlv]

I should clarify that my comments are for getting a new locality delegated.

If you want to register in an existing locality, you need to go to the US NIC (http://www.nic.us/register/locality.html) and check out the list of delegated managers (http://www.nic.us/delegated_managers/delegated_su bdomains.txt). Neustar has not been applying updates to that list, though (for updates that they've been sent). So, some of it is dead information.

Each locality is free to charge their own rate. Many charge nothing.

Names under the k12.ST.us are controlled differently, and names under gen.ST.us (for non-profits) are handled by Neustar directly and are supposed to always be free.