[sf-lug] SFLUG.[...] Re: SFLUG.org

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):

> As for registrar, I prefer Gandi.net,
> Jim prefers (has preferred?) Joker.com - but Rick now considers
> that a non-starter, as Joker.com will not allow registrant whois
> customary details (such as email) to be made public (they give no
> opt-in option and appears they have no intention to do so).  I'm
> quite inclined to agree with Rick on that.  Rick may have
> other preferred registrar(s) (sorry, I don't remember which
> off-the-top-of-my-head - maybe he's even got a current web page on
> that).  There are many registrars, many good/excellent (I'm sure Rick,
> and possibly some others, could name a few to many or more), no shortage
> of so-so or worse registrars out there also.

Gandi.net continues to have a fine reputation, AFAIK.

I arrived at my present registrar IWantMyName.com, where my wife Deirdre
and I both now keep our domains, through personal contacts.  For many
years until just a few years back, I'd happily used a gentleman in
Texas (Iain Brown) who'd been a Tucows OpenSRS reseller registrar as a
minor side-line.  Even though Iain regretted operating his OpenSRS
operation because too many customers had proven to be high-maintenance
and so doing registry business was a lot of trouble for very little
money, Iain liked me because I never had sudden emergency needs 
(mostly because I keep my domains years away from expiration), and 
the only time he heard from me was about once a year when I sent him a
cheery brief note of appreciation.  So, even though he was trying to 
wind down his OpenSRS concession, I was I think the last customer who
needed to find a replacement registrar.

At the time, Deirdre had heard of new, technical-customer-friendly
registrar IWantMyName.com in Wellington, New Zealand, heard good things
about it, and asked our Wellington-based friend Daniel Spector whether
he'd heard of them.  He said 'Actually, yes.  The founder, Timo
Reitnauer, is a friend of mine and lives across the street from me.'

https://iwantmyname.com/about

So, anyway, that's where we landed, and why.  (In the process of
transferring my domains, there, I discovered that it's technically not a
registrar in its own right, but rather a reseller of German registrar
1API Gmbh's services, analogous to being a Tucows OpenSRS reseller.)


> Also sounds like Jim is willing to reimburse direct domain costs.
> Domain acquisition (covers first year) is typically around USD
> $12.00 or so (often then + fees/taxes) to about $15.50 (+fees/taxes?).
> probably not worth sweating the modest cost differences - quality
> is more important (and cost difference probably less than your next
> venue beverage at SF[-]LUG meeting - or certainly sandwich or such).
> I'll cover cost of one domain for SF[-]LUG (already so doing -
> presently SF-LUG.org), but not >=2nd domain (but could swap out
> in future if so agreed and so arranged in future).

For those who don't know, the prominence of intro discounts makes it a
bit difficult to compare pricing among registrars.  At many of the
cheapest registrars (the canonical examples being GoDaddy and
Namecheap), initial registration or transfer of a domain is heavily
discounted, and then goes up -- which of course means that, as is often
the case in markets, loyal-customer renewers in effect underwrite
disloyal-customer switchers.

Other factors besides price include the hassle factor and business
unreaonableness of the firm, or lack thereof.  But of course people 
who're aware only of price tags at accordingly, and therefore....
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-bicycles