support the scots! Why do we want a .SCO? Because the Scots language and culture is a community that we believe should be identified with its own domain on the internet. Under a .SCO domain those organisations, companies and people that express themselves in the Scots language and/or wish to encourage Scots culture will be able to be registered and will be clearly identifiable. Can languages and cultures have domains? Since cooperatives (.coop), the aeronautical industry (.aero), museums (.museum) and the Catalan language and culture (.cat) have all been recognised as communities with their own domain on the internet, then the Scots language and culture should have a very strong basis for having .SCO as a domain. Who is behind the push for .SCO? The name of the association who is in support of .SCO is called dotSCO. The association, dotSCO, is calling on all individuals, groups, organisations and companies that wish to express their support for this initiative to join us. We want to demonstrate support for the Scots linguistic and cultural communities around the globe online. We believe that support can be gathered from across civic Scotland and from throughout the Scots Diaspora. We are basing our organisation on the successful puntCAT campaign for a .CAT for the Catalan language and culture (www.puntcat.org). Who can join dotSCO? Those organisations that work to promote the Scots language and culture can request to join by writing the interim council of dotSCO. Membership of dotSCO is subject to the approval of the interim council of the association. Membership is open to individuals and organisations that work to encourage and promote the Scots language and culture. Political parties and public administrations may not become members of the association. What are we looking for at this stage? Currently dotSCO is looking for members and supporters. We are looking for supporters of the Scots language and culture from within and outwith Scotland. The Scots language and culture has influence across the globe and we hope that our membership will eventually reflect this. What we hope you will do is take time to consider joining the campaign and the organisation. We hope that you will join with us in taking this campaign forward and help give the Scots language its place in the World...Wide Web! sign it at dotsco.org
everyone should support it - even if you arent scottish. small countries, like Nauru get one - yet scotland doesnt. pm me to show your support!
When you say Scots language your referring to scottish gaelic? if you are then that would be quite a minority, my parents are scottish, my ancestry is scottish and further back to ireland. Unless your right up north then the use of the language is not common. What would you refer to as Scottish culture? How would culture and language influence the start up of a new type of domain?
IMHO there's too many TLDs already - .COM, .NET, .ORG and one TLD per country was enough - try telling the average person on the street to go to something .BIZ or .AERO, .ME.UK or .ASIA and you'll probably get a confused look. If Scotland becomes independent at some point in the future, I would fully back a two character TLD (unfortunately .SC, .SO, .ST, .SL, .SA, .SN and .SD are already taken), but breaking the existing standardisation is just going to confuse and devalue the domain market in the long run. In terms of the identification of a site being in the Scots language, could that not be similarly achieved by having the domain name itself in Scots? Search engines and other robots could use pick up on a language meta tag (which probably already exists)? taba.sco
So what about England, a .eng? Think about it, England, Scotland and Wales are all apart of the UK, therefore .co.uk, UK does not mean England. So I do not support any special tld for each nation. This would be similar to Italy then, they have a .it, although separate islands such as Sicily, Sardinia, etc although all still resolve to the same extension. Just to continue the idea. how about di.sco
Or like Spain that has the Basque region in the north, with their own dialect i think, even Cornwall in england has a dialect, though probably hardly used. It could get out of hand, constantly beaking things down into more and more smaller TLD's, as i often read that still people usually type in .com regardless, the average person would be bewildered already at the number of TLD's available.
Like Norfstar said - there are already too many extensions. All a new extension will do is force existing sites to spend more money to grab the new extension to protect their brand. "Membership is open to individuals and organisations that work to encourage and promote the Scots language and culture. " .sco seems very limited as it only for sites to promote the Scottish language (Gaelic) and culture - not just for anyone with Scottish ancestery or a Scotland based business. Seems like a very limited market & applications must be approved. There aren't that many sites promoting Scottish culture and they already have a domain name - so they would just have to buy an extra extension to protect themslelves. sco doesn't sound good. If it is just to promote Scottish (Gaelic) culture perhaps the they could use .gae instead. A public campaign will not get the .sco domain approved. Recent new domains (.aero, .pro, .jobs) require a registry sponsor who puts up money and makes a business case that their new extension is needed and will be profitable. Both .pro and .jobs have been business failures. .sco is a patriotic feel good extension that won't do anything to promote Scottish culture, (above and beyond what is happening today), or make money. If Scotland gets an extension why not England, Wales & each of the American states & Canadian provinces. .que for Quebec. At least these are geographic not cultural and would have greater appeal being open to business sites in their areas. BTW: I was born in Scotland & raised in Canada. Sometimes i think the ex-pats in Canada are more Scottish than Scots in Scotland (much like Mike Myers family in 'So I Married an Axe Murderer'). The 'skirl o' the pipes' always bring a tear to my eye and lump to my throat.
Good points, the Scottish Gaelic community is so small that it can be easily out numbered by for example: British Asians, applying for one for British Asian culture would lead to one for the black culture and community. Ironically these two examples are larger established in the UK, but when you start breaking things down this small it literally gets silly. As tobycoke points out, it forces businesses and individuals to grab more extensions to protect their business.
I totally support the call for a scotland specific domain, however its got very little to do with gaelic speakers... (and my family are gaelic speakers, from skye) Scotland could/should have its own TLD especially since devolution, and lets face it, salmond could get tax revenue's out of this one!! The people to approach would be a university IT team (ie. edinburgh) and see if the head of IT likes the proposal, then they would no doubt have to get support from the new parliament & as this would be right up the SNP's street I have no doubt that this little flight of fantasy could actually work!! About 12 years ago I tried (unsuccessfully) to get a TLD for a pacific island state, and argued with ICANN for about a year before giving up (the whole project wasnt my idea so I cant take credit, although looking back it was kind of visionary I guess). someone with some time on their hands should start a poll, and publicise this on scottish forums, facebook and so on... once theres 20,000 people signed up Im sure someone will listen!!
Theres not enough people to jusify it though, for the reasons originally stated, if its for the whole of Scotland, then maybe, but then it would lead to one for england, wales, ireland, would then nr. ireland need a seperate one? and then pass through europe breaking up the various borders and sections of countries. Its not ideal and sounds like wasted time and would be rejected because it would open the flood gates to an already flooded situation.
when you say "not enough people to justify" I assume you are meaning actual gaelic speakers? I did try to distance myself away from that standpoint as well, as I agree, there absolutely are not, BUT there's 5 million plus scots, and about 30,000 vanuatans, but THEY got a TLD
Likewise, born in scotland and raised in spain, the ex pats down here have a rockin burns night as well mate, but I am a fully signed up member of the tartan army and do attend the footie matches so I count myself as firmly scottish!
I see your point and maybe its much more possible than i realise. Yeah ive been referring to gaelic speakers, because of the impression i got from the original post, but understandably 5 million scots is number enough, i agree. I guess its not impossible, id just not want to see it open the doors to a mass of TLD's to the point where it gets too messy.
Err seriously though, no way should this be allowed; stick with .CO.UK. Shall we have ccTLDs for every single city of India just because there are enough people to fill the need? Heck, I wouldn't mind buying www.da.bom or www.your.mum