4 ms·
There was a comment here that was seemingly downvoted or flagged into oblivion, but I think it raised a valid point about the domain name and TLD of sr.ht being
by cooperadymas 8y ago
There was a comment here that was seemingly downvoted or flagged into oblivion, but I think it raised a valid point about the domain name and TLD of sr.ht being a possible issue that could limit its potential growth.
As a paid subscriber and with all due respect to Drew, and as someone with a lot of experience with branding, I think it's a terrible name. It's not only not obvious how to pronounce it, but when you don't know how to pronounce it there's no real possibility of fumbling your way through it. It looks completely unpronounceable, until, of course, you add invisible vowels.
Worse, it's not particularly memorable.
All that said, developers tend to be more accepting (but not forgiving!) about weird names and unusual TLDs. So maybe it won't be an issue for sr.ht, no one can say with certainty. But if it were my project I would try to ensure I don't handicap myself from the start.
- sudofail 8y agoFor what it's worth, I've been a paid subscriber for a few months and never really thought of this. I actually like the name, since it is such a short TLD. Not saying you're wrong though. I'm not sure how I'd pronounce it in conversation, and that might be a drawback to future growth.
- chrisweekly 8y agoI can't recall where I came across it before, but I do remember the name being discussed and some principal / authority saying "sir hat" was the intended pronunciation.
- martinhath 8y agoProbably in the original announcement[0], or maybe in the HN thread [0]: https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general-availability.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general-availabilit...
- l2dy 8y agoIt's in the announcement blog post of sr.ht: https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general-availability.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general-availabilit... (pronounced “sir hat”, or any other way you want), also quoted in the LWN.net article.
- sametmax 8y agoHonestly, the first time I read it like "sh*t". And knowing my colleagues, this kind of nickname can stick for a long time. Edit: thinking about it, it could actually make it famous.
- ASalazarMX 8y ago"shirt", "short", "shart"... which could become a memorable nickname?
- haarts 8y agoI do not know what invisible vowels I could add to make me remember this.
- phoe-krk 8y ago"sir hat"
- ddevault 8y agoYeah, I agree it sucks. I like the short URLs, though. I own sourcehut.org and will likely be using it to find a happy medium soon.
- sudofail 8y agoIs that what sr.ht stood for? Source Hut? If so, that's pretty cool :)
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y agoThere's officially no official way of pronouncing sr.ht. "sir hat" is also common.
- sudofail 8y agoAh, okay. Well a good compromise might be to go towards Source Hut. I like the name, and sr.ht still works for it. You could also pick up src.ht, which would probably be clearer, and still a short TLD.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 8y agoAlways thought it stands for "Sir Hat", because of your HN username :).
- oftenwrong 8y agoThey should use a name that's straightforward to pronounce, like "PostgreSQL".
- martinhath 8y agoOr what about LWN or YCombinator? Both of those are pretty simple to memorize.
- EForEndeavour 8y agoPostgreSQL is pronounced "post gress."
- owlninja 8y agoA lot of these TLDs make me nervous because it feels like suddenly Haiti could want more control and start changing rules. Or am I wrong?