Decide on a domain name for the website

[GBKS]

There have been several open discussions in Slack around which domain to use for the website, with various preferences but no conclusion. I'd like to review the options here again, make a suggestion, and ask for input.

Domains owned by community members (please comment if you have more):

• designingbitcoin.org
• designbitcoin.org
• bitcoindesign.net
• designforbitcoin.org
• bitcoin.design
• bitcoindesigners.org (used in the Square Crypto announcement and a current redirect to the Slack workspace)
• bitcoindesigners.com

Domain we can try to purchase (do you have more ideas?):

• bitcoindesign.org (anyone know who owns this?)
• bitcoindesign.com (costs $6,500)

My recommendation:

• Use bitcoin.design
• Redirect bitcoindesigners.org and bitcoindesigners.com to bitcoin.design

Either way we go, the domain we end up with will likely be owned by a community member. Probably not a huge risk factor, just something to be aware of and have a Plan B for. Maybe we pick a second domain that also links to the site, just in case our community devolves into chaos and we end up not being BFFs anymore.

What do you think we should do?

[BitcoinErrorLog]

bitcoin.design is beyond perfect!

[johnsBeharry]

imo can't be anything besides bitcoin.design we need to stress that its an "open source design community" that anyone can participate just so people don't think its some formal organisation but but ye that domain is perfect.

[danielnordh]

I generally would prefer a .org, but the obvious one is unfortunately not in our control at the moment.
My preference, in order;

bitcoindesign.org (we don't know who owns it)
bitcoin.design
designbitcoin.org

[Bosch-0]

bitcoin.design <3

[danielnordh]

One thing I think we should be very clear about is domain ownership of any of the ones we are considering.
We don't want to ever end up in a situation where there is a dispute about where to point the domain. Or financial incentives coming into play.

AFAIK there is no good decentralized ownership option for domains (need a 3-5 multisig!) but somehow we need to ensure the spirit of community ownership and zero personal claim to whatever we go with.

[GBKS]

A little bit of context is that there is a bunch of fighting going on around bitcoin.org (see here), and we all know what went down with bitcoin.com. To avoid the possibility of anything like this from happening with our domain of choice, it would be ideal to have some type of structure around it where no individual can have full control. Thinking about stuff like this when everything is going well can avoid issues during problematic times.

[GBKS]

OK, let me take a stab at proposing a way to resolve this (for now).

How about we create a statement that whoever holds the domain needs to publicly commit to? Something like this:

I, XYZ, legally own the domain ABC.DEF and make it available for unrestricted and exlusive use by the Bitcoin Design Community, which is made up of the members of the Slack workspace located at https://bitcoindesign.slack.com and contributors to the BitcoinDesign Github organization located at https://github.com/BitcoinDesign. The domain will be used as the primary domain for the website that hosts content created by the community. I will not transfer ownership of the domain, point it at different content, or make any other changes to its configuration without the consent of the Bitcoin Design Community.

Before I make any changes to the domain ownership or technical configuration, I will get approval from the Bitcoin Design Community. To request such a change, I need to create a pull request with a clear description and rationale for the change in the Guide repository of the BitcoinDesign github organization (https://github.com/BitcoinDesign/Guide). I then need to post the issue in the #bitcoin-design-guide channel on the Slack workspace, for all members of the Bitcoin Design community to see and respond to. The issue needs to be remain open for at least 30 days, and all concerns and comments need to have been addressed before a decision can be made. I can participate in discussing the request but I am not allowed to participate in the final resolution of this matter. This same process applies to members of the community for requests for me to make changes to the domain ownership or configuration.

Costs and other burdens I incur from maintaining domain ownership are my own responsibility.

The main thing is that the domain owner does not see themselves as having control over the domain. They need to act as representatives of the community and execute decisions the community makes. Their personal situation and motivations need to be 100% irrelevant to their actions.

I never write things like this and just made it up, so I'm sure it can be much better with your input. If you feel like this approach is generally correct, then we can figure out the details (also how the domain holder needs to commit to this).

[GBKS]

To keep this issue updated, Pedro has posted a statement about domain ownership, which is a great start.

In the long-term (millennia) we want a setup where no single person can independently control any part of the infrastructure of this community. Obviously there's always a limit to this, but we can get pretty close. I think the best idea is still to put these things into the hands of maintainers (which we need to finalize here #10). So maintainers would be admins and owners of all services we use, distributed across maintainers as much as possible. If somebody stops being a maintainer, they need to give up control.

Moving forward, I think we have two options. Go with bitcoin.design right away and then sort out the details (maybe with a specific timeline in mind). Or we use our backup domain bitcoindesigners.org and switch over once we are all clear.

I've been close to a lot of discussions on this issue, so I would prefer to stay out of the final decision on this one and leave it to the wider group to decide how we want to move forward. So what do you think?

[thebtccoach]

Hi guys, I'm late to the party so I assume one of you already picked up bitcoin.design which is awesome. If this is NOT the case, I see that btcdesign.guide is also available for less than $28
btc.design is also available but around $3,600

[thebtccoach]

PS. If it's useful I'd be happy to pick up btcdesign.guide and adhere to whatever ownership protocol we deem convenient.