1412499 - Don't use eesti.ee to replace example.com

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Mozilla Localizations :: et / Estonian, enhancement)

Description

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

See
https://transvision.mozfr.org/?recherche=example.com&repo=gecko_strings&sourcelocale=en-US&locale=et&search_type=strings_entities

See this old discussion for background
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.l10n/NCCo8Xmx99o/OoFSuAnnAQAJ

Comment 1

[Merike Sell (:merike)]

How strict is that requirement exactly? I see

"I've received a confirmation on IRC from Gerv: it's fine to use a
different domain name as long as there is clear documentation that the
target domain is used and managed by the national registration authority
in exactly the same way as the standard examples." 

in the referenced discussion and it's true that eesti.ee isn't an example domain in that specific sense.

Yet, it's a very special domain in Estonia, registered to Estonian Information System Authority and very unlikely to distribute malware or have similar security implication to users. It also offers many state-provided digital services that were considered useful to Firefox' users and in need of further publicity at the time of translation. It supports encryption so in places where protocol is specified https could be used.

If it's a strict requirement nowadays it can be changed but I don't think having an English language site makes much sense for any users not understanding it. I'm not aware of a similar example domain existing under .ee currently.

Comment 2

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

(In reply to Merike Sell (:merike) from comment #1)
> Yet, it's a very special domain in Estonia, registered to Estonian
> Information System Authority and very unlikely to distribute malware or have
> similar security implication to users. It also offers many state-provided
> digital services that were considered useful to Firefox' users and in need
> of further publicity at the time of translation. It supports encryption so
> in places where protocol is specified https could be used.
> 
> If it's a strict requirement nowadays it can be changed but I don't think
> having an English language site makes much sense for any users not
> understanding it. I'm not aware of a similar example domain existing under
> .ee currently.

It's a strict-ish requirement, that's why I filed a bug instead of replacing directly the URL like I did in other cases (including a locale using mozilla.org instead of example.com).

Practical concerns: 
* Curiously enough, ww.eesti.ee is a valid and reachable domain, so some of the current error messages are not completely relevant (did you type ww.example.com instead of www.example.com?).
* You're using it for email addresses in some places (they might or might not exist, but I assume there's a mail server behind that domain).

I'd really prefer localizations to use example.com consistently, since that's a domain created for a specific purpose, and it's even documented on Wikipedia.

it would be great if the message displayed there could be localized, but it isn't. In my opinion that's the only reason to allow alternative domains created for the same goal (only da, eu have one, as far as I know).

Comment 3

[Merike Sell (:merike)]

(In reply to Francesco Lodolo [:flod] from comment #2) 
> * Curiously enough, ww.eesti.ee is a valid and reachable domain, so some of
> the current error messages are not completely relevant (did you type
> ww.example.com instead of www.example.com?).
Interesting. Seems to be because you can have firstname.lastname.eesti.ee forward to your own domain (which I even activated for myself some time ago but forgot about). ww probably matches that url pattern well enough to land you on the information page.

> * You're using it for email addresses in some places (they might or might
> not exist, but I assume there's a mail server behind that domain).
There is. Or more specifically a forwarder. Similarly for [e-mail] and [e-mail] addresses. These may sometimes have numbers appended for namesakes. From Firefox side it's not possible to guarantee that [e-mail] won't at some point be a working address although it doesn't match current usage patterns as far as I have heard. Probably not a good idea to use it for email examples because of that, though.

> I'd really prefer localizations to use example.com consistently, since
> that's a domain created for a specific purpose, and it's even documented on
> Wikipedia.

I'm generally for consistency too. In this case using example.com for email and eesti.ee for www makes most sense to me currently. Eventually it's up to Sander unless you overrule. I just wanted some more info on the matter :)

Comment 4

[sander.lepik]

I was avoiding this topic, but it seems I have to add my two cents as well :) Me avoiding it already speaks about my disgust for the example.com domain (sorry about the harsh word but it's the best one to describe my feelings). example.com means nothing to regular non-English user when eesti.ee should be familiar to every user in Estonia.

(In reply to Francesco Lodolo [:flod] (traveling, slow answers, back Nov 22) from comment #2)
> It's a strict-ish requirement, that's why I filed a bug instead of replacing
> directly the URL like I did in other cases (including a locale using
> mozilla.org instead of example.com).

I prefer to use eesti.ee as long as possible. If it will be forbidden then we have to come up with some other more reasonable domain for our localization as example.com is not acceptable :)

> Practical concerns: 
> * Curiously enough, ww.eesti.ee is a valid and reachable domain, so some of
> the current error messages are not completely relevant (did you type
> ww.example.com instead of www.example.com?).

I consider them relevant as the example is pretty clear and I don't think there are many users who have actually visited ww.eesti.ee. Even if they did then I consider this page as an example of a broken address/page.

> * You're using it for email addresses in some places (they might or might
> not exist, but I assume there's a mail server behind that domain).

That's true and I have to come up with some more unrealistic names. I guess [e-mail] isn't realistic as eesti.ee uses [e-mail] pattern, but Ants Karu seems like a real name and I have to change it (Ants will be disappointed :P)

Comment 5

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

(In reply to sander.lepik from comment #4)
> I was avoiding this topic, but it seems I have to add my two cents as well
> :) Me avoiding it already speaks about my disgust for the example.com domain
> (sorry about the harsh word but it's the best one to describe my feelings).
> example.com means nothing to regular non-English user when eesti.ee should
> be familiar to every user in Estonia.

I feel that's not a strong argument, most domains don't have a meaning to non English speakers.

> I prefer to use eesti.ee as long as possible. If it will be forbidden then
> we have to come up with some other more reasonable domain for our
> localization as example.com is not acceptable :)

Again, I'd prefer to have a perfect equivalent of example.com (e.g. http://www.adibidea.eus/), not just a website owned by the national registration authority. But I also don't want to start a war about this, so I'll close this as WONTFIX.

> That's true and I have to come up with some more unrealistic names. I guess
> [e-mail] isn't realistic as eesti.ee uses [e-mail]
> pattern, but Ants Karu seems like a real name and I have to change it (Ants
> will be disappointed :P)

You should really change this. As said, even if the specific address doesn't exist, you're still hitting their mail server if someone decides to try.