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I have encountered a few complaints that the domain name of this site, Geminispace.org, is problematic because it can be somewhat ambiguous and misleading: it may be unclear whether one means just this capsule or Geminispace as a whole — a collection of Gemini capsules and the people who maintain them. One might react to this dismissively and think that a name is just a name, but I want to give this topic some serious consideration.
szczezuja: From my bubble about Bubble
I can't argue with szczezuja's positioning of the pubnix culture — Gemini's birthplace, if you will — as somewhat religious, and there is definitely a culture clash here with the modern style of social networking. I can also see why one might take it as presumptuous and overreaching to name a site "Geminispace", intentionally or unintentionally influencing what the word means to people. (It's easy to miss the ".org".)
I registered geminispace.org in February 2022. This was quite a long time ago, and now I can't recall exactly what the original motivation was. I was likely thinking about moving Cosmos there.
In my defense, the justification for the domain name and its use as a Bubble instance is that the site exists to, or at least aspires to, facilitate ORGanization of activities and discussions in Geminispace through topic-oriented forums. "Topic" here is broad enough to also encompass project issue tracking. Organized discussion is something that has been lacking in recent times since there haven't been suitable communication channels readily available to everyone on Gemini. (IRC and the newsgroup being probably the most used, but difficult to access for many; GitLab was/is specification-focused.) Antenna and gemlogs could be considered such a channel but gemlogs lack crucial feedback mechanisms for effective communication.
I purposefully did not want to "brand" this capsule as part of skyjake.fi, because as a community site, its contents are the collective works of the community, me acting mostly as a facilitator. I strongly believe that the entire value of this capsule is in what the community decides to put in it, including posts and commentary, but also the time invested in many-to-many communication. So for example, bubble.skyjake.fi would IMO be inappropriate for a community site with open access to everyone. (I may at some point run a closed Bubble capsule at that domain.) On the other hand, a subdomain like that would make the current control structure and ownership unambiguous, but it is not my goal to retain ownership of this capsule indefinitely. Ideally, in the long run, if/when the capsule grows and becomes more mature, it would be administered by a small group of trusted members of the community.
While TLDs like .com and .org have lost much of their original meaning, .org does imply an "organization" of some kind. In the case of Gemini, I argue that community self-organization is the only kind of organization that makes any sense, given that the specification itself is under Solderpunk's sole control. Now, one may feel that small pubnix-like units is all that Gemini needs as a means of organizing, and that may be so. But that is also a mighty form of gatekeeping. Geminispace can be more than just a small group of tech-savvy *nix folks who have tired of the web and enjoy their shell prompts and Lisp programs a bit too much. (I say this with tongue-in-cheek affection as I count myself in this group, too.)
My current registration of geminispace.org expires in February 2024. Until then there is plenty of time to consider potential changes to the name, as the option to not renew is always on the table. In any case, the capsule is certainly not going to disappear even if it changes domains.
With all this background and preamble, what do you think? Are you willing to go along with the premise that Geminispace can expand to this style of interaction, and Geminispace.org could facilitate said expansion? As an approachable entry point into "social Gemini", the capsule can provide information, inspiration, and the means for people who are so inclined to set up their own capsules and venture into the serene and cold frontiers of Geminispace. If Geminispace.org succeeds in this role, I believe it has earned the right to use its name.
2023-05-27 · 6 weeks ago · 👍 gritty, sirwilburthefirst, michaelnordmeyer, Addison, stack, beetledjuice, lori, flipperzero, benk, mike
my two cents: This capsule may or may not earn the "right" to its name as described above, that's a very subjective judgement. But it's generally a *confusing* name to newcomers who don't totally understand what the term Geminispace means and what all this is.
It might not ever be worth changing the name. I don't find it to be a big deal, it just causes a bit of confusion which is easily sorted out.
gotta say, bubble.website is only $546.33 for the first year on Porkbun....
2023-05-28 · 6 weeks ago
I am always wary of designing something for ambiguously defined “new users”. If you’re paying attention you will not assume that any domain names means anything until you read a statement to that affect. Why not wait to see if people are confused?
As to potential confusion, I do mean to have an introductory text somewhere, either in Help or the top of the front page when not logged in. That should help to clarify what's this all about.
As bubble is a "common space" for folks using the gemini protocool I don't personally have any issues with the domain.
geminispace.org is a very "central" name and I can see why it could lead to confusion. That said, it is entirely up to you how you tweak Bubble to deal with that potential confusion. Bubble is a _very good_ starting point for new geminauts to find content, people, interaction. You can't please everyone.
I think there's a definite risk of confusion, and actually I already found myself avoiding using the term "Geminispace" because of the risk of it being misunderstood as referring to this capsule. But hopefully we can deal with this by just being careful to always write "geminispace.org" (possibly capitalised, but maybe better not) to refer to this capsule, and "Geminispace" to refer to the general concept.
@mbays I think lower-casing the site title is a good idea. I've applied that on the front page. Small details, perhaps, but together with ".org" there is certainly some distinction from "Geminispace".
I am just happy we now have a good place to discuss Gemini and other things that is actually on Gemini itself.
@cquenelle
Why not wait to see if people are confused?
I should have mentioned, two of my friends who I have introduced to Gemini in the past couple of weeks have been a bit confused. Again, not a big deal, and if @skyjake puts something on the top of the front page when not logged in that would be perfect.
I do tend to see a problem in the same way that "The Linux Foundation" is problematic. By using such a name a lot of people mistakenly believe that the Linux foundation is directly responsible for the Linux kernel and the direction that it's development take, and not just one of many financial sponsors. In the case of this capsule the name will likely lead newcomers to believe that this is the "official home" of the Gemini community. That said, I can live with it and I appreciate @skyjake taking the issue seriously and addressing it openly like this.
I never thought there was an issue with this domain. It might be confused with geminispace.info, but I don't consider it a larger issue like what's being discussed here. I get that Gemini Space is a term we've used before to broadly refer to the whole network, so maybe you differentiate this capsule from that concept we will have to add the .org when referring to it. That will also differentiate it from .info as well.
I'm guilty of doing something like this when I created Gemini Radio, which is the name of just a single podcast/gemcast, but my original thought was that the term could refer to all audio content on the network. Although I guess something called that would only ever be a single project. (Maybe with multiple contributors, but oh well. It's not even really radio!)
This issue didn't occur to me until I read the post. But I'm not the audience that would be confused, I suppose.
Even so, I don't think there's much issue. If there's confusion it's easily talked through. More importantly, skyjake isn't out there picking strategic domain names in some evil master plot. I think it'll all be just fine.
2023-05-29 · 6 weeks ago
@tomasino
That’s what skyjake *wants* you to think… 😂
The v3.0 update has allowed me to add a proper capsule introduction in Help, and also there is an expanded front page welcome text that is shown to unregistered visitors. These should already help quite a bit, but I'm still considering what to do about the domain. One quite a simple option would be to add a subdomain (cf. @Morgan's gemlog.org), so we'd have a "social.geminispace.org" or "bubble.geminispace.org", for example. Long domain names are not ideal, but keeping the subdomain short is always possible.
2023-05-30 · 6 weeks ago
@skyjake actually I really like that idea. Maybe bbs.geminispace.org would be more fitting than social?
@jeang3nie "bbs" is appropriate, short, and descriptive. Definitely a contender!
Nice idea. I'm a little hesitant to point this out since it's the sort of minutia you can't unsee once you see it, but, here goes: "bbs" is almost a shortened form of "bubble". If you rebrand to "bubbles", it works. BuBbleS. Naming is hard...
Nice idea. I'm a little hesitant to point this out since it's the sort of minutia you can't unsee once you see it, but, here goes: "bbs" is almost a shortened form of "bubble". If you rebrand to "bubbles", it works. BuBbleS. Naming is hard...
I like it, even moreso if "subspaces" are renamed to "bubbles" to match the theme!
@mozz Changing what the subspaces are called would make a nice customization option:
It would be relatively painless to redirect all URLs on geminispace.org → bbs.geminispace.org. Might have to add an official redirection feature to GmCapsule first, though.
@Morgan I was only thinking about how Bubble is more like an old school bbs than modern social media, but I like the connection. It could even be considered a recursive acronym, Bubble<is not a>BbS? I mean, for extra Unix geekery points that is.
I think "bbs" would work fine either way. I partly chose the name "Bubble" because it's a bulletin board system and the word has a "BB" in it. (The other part being the speech bubble.)
Keeping the subspaces term, it could also mean "BuBble Subspaces". Or just "Bubble Bulletin boardS".
I vote for "bbl"
2023-05-31 · 6 weeks ago
@morgan @jeang3nie If you check the blurb at the top of the Bubble subspace you’ll see it described as a bulletin board system. Which I think is cool, because they are way better than (anti) ‘social media’
As long as it's geminispace.org, subspace is quite fitting.
And if gs.org's content is moved to a subdomain, what is going to be displayed on "geminispace.org/"? It cannot be anything about Bubble, because bubble.<tld> would be more fitting for that.
I don't think a subdomain removes much of the potential geminispace.org confusion.
@michaelnordmeyer for now, the root domain could redirect. Personally, I think a subdomain removes the confusion almost entirely. It's not a super necessary change, but I don't really see a drawback.
I'd like to say that I reserved geminispace.club till 2024... I am not even using it since we moved on pebcak.club... geminspace.club is the sibling of the geminispace.org... And honestly I like it more... Would it be ever possible to transfer a domain to another person? 🤷
2023-06-01 · 6 weeks ago
@freezr it is easy to transfer a domain to another person
geminispace should be registered for every tld
2023-06-04 · 5 weeks ago