Post B6kN2ErMUOI3S2r7bs by BigHeadMode@social.linux.pizza
 (DIR) More posts by BigHeadMode@social.linux.pizza
 (DIR) Post #B6kN2ErMUOI3S2r7bs by BigHeadMode@social.linux.pizza
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       More than one person has told me that they are slightly suspicious of #mastodon URLs, because most of them use uncommon TLDs like `social`, `engineer`, or `pizza`.It might be worth explaining TLD basics on the common onboarding sites for Mastodon (like lists of servers, or explainers for what Mastodon is). These are people who don't really know what a TLD even is. #UX #fediverse #askfedi
       
 (DIR) Post #B6kN2F9nNr2GNDTqLI by BigHeadMode@social.linux.pizza
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       My informal TLD explainer:you can just buy a domain name for about $10 a year. there's literally no technical or security difference between any domain extension, be it .com, .org, .social, .engineer, or anything else. there's nothing that makes wikipedia.org more secure than wikipedia.party. (wikipedia.org is owned by the wikimedia foundation, unlike wikipedia.party.) A domain name is just something you choose to call yourself, and you give a company 10 bucks a year for the privilege.It's basically the same thing as putting up a cardboard sign in front of your house, with the added restriction that your cardboard sign can't be an exact duplicate of one that already exists. wikipedia.org is only trustworthy because people go in the wikipedia library and note "right, got it. the cardboard sign that says wikipedia.org is good." and maybe when they see wikipedia.party they think "that cardboard sign isn't set up outside the library."almost every domain name (TLD) is managed by reputable companies who respond to spam and virus takedown notices. you can look up domain names via a "whois" search, which is like looking up someone in a phone book. you can look up a domain on whois and see some basic facts about it, like how long it's been around.I could create microsoft-official.com and there's nothing about .com that would get it closed faster than microsoft-official.cool . If anything, the .cool is an easier identifier that this is not a popular corporate site. By social conventions, major corporations stick to .com, .org, .ai, and so on. mastodon servers can be hosted on any extension, so a lot of people have fun with it - lgbtqia.space for example.extra info: a handful of domains are not open to the public, like .google . in very rare cases, the group that manages the domain extension ("TLD") may prohibit some kinds of material. for example, .de is germany and they (presumably) ban holocaust denial. this is not something that comes up in practice basically ever.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6kN2FSaG043JUGqcy by BigHeadMode@social.linux.pizza
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       cc @scottjenson
       
 (DIR) Post #B6kN2FSwEgLdKaR8BE by selea@social.linux.pizza
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       @BigHeadMode Different TLD's has different rules, so there is differences.For example .dev - HSTS directly on that TLDSome TLD's does not even support DNSSEC, or have a working WHOIS (instead uses RDAP)