45 ms·

.org doesn't mean credible

252 points by ibraheemdev 5y ago

surround 5y ago
> There are no hard and fast rules that will readily determine whether a website is credible. I think that teaching people that they can simply look for .org in the URL and immediately accept a website as credible can do more harm than good. > Instead, we should be providing everyone with the critical thinking tools they need to evaluate and assess sources themselves. This kind of thinking is incredibly important. Many believe in only following one or two "credible" news sources instead of trying to get the point of view from a variety of outlets. Others like to block a list of websites which someone decided was fake news. There is no easy way to determine what is true and what is false. In fact, most of the time there is no definite "right" and "wrong" - instead, both sides of an issue will have important pieces to consider. In fact, there's hardly ever just two sides to an issue, rather, a wide range of opinions. I was not taught this in school. I was taught to trust .org websites.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  How on earth did your teacher think .org was trustworthy? A trouble with trusting news that's true instead of fake is it misses the point that even true news gives a false feeling even if all the facts are true. They use scary language, omitting inconvenient facts, subjective exaggerated sounding words, quoting real people stating false facts, etc. Those feelings have actual consequences on how people vote and what decisions they make. For example, the great Pacific garbage patch was shown dramatically on TV a so dense you could just about walk on it and led to people not wanting to put plastic bags in the landfill. They were so overwhelmed by the demonization of plastic, they didn't pay attention to the facts. That whole Trump thing was filled with it too. They didn't really lie but they made all his actions sound bad so people hated him.
  - Jordrok 5y ago
    You're right that media can be manipulative without explicitly lying, but let's be clear, Trump's actions alone were more than enough to make people hate him without any media manipulation whatsoever. All that hate was earned.
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      Not really. New rules were invented just to make him be wrong. Like those issues with the Mexico border and aggravating North Korea. Biden has recently aggravated North Korea too but people don't seem to be afraid he's starting a nuclear war like they were when Trump did it. Biden also hasn't opened the border with Mexico to allow visa-free entry yet people aren't calling him a racist for it. He certainly did some really bad things like mismanaging Covid, but most of the hate was about things he said, not things he did like invading Iraq or wiretapping his political opponents' headquarters like previous widely hated presidents have done. Some of the hate was even about his physical appearance - the color of his skin, his hairstyle, the shape of his hands, etc. That absolutely wasn't earned. It was just hateful people spreading hate.
      - Jordrok 5y ago
        Are you kidding me? Sure you can make it sound trivial if you give the weakest possible examples. Let's talk about the border: Trump literally campaigned on the slogan "I'll build a wall and have Mexico pay for it." And what did he do in reality? When attempts to make Mexico pay for it failed miserably, as predicted by anyone with common sense, he begged and bullied congress (to the point of a government shutdown, no less) to put aside American taxpayer dollars for it. When that too failed, he attempted to pilfer money from various other government departments like homeland security and defense. By comparison, Biden has shut down construction and returned that money for its original uses. And I'm not even sure what you're talking about with that "open borders" nonsense. Nobody has ever actually advocated for that other than the bogeymen from the fevered nightmares of Fox News commentators. You're buying into your own propaganda. As for North Korea, they were antagonized by Biden calling their nuclear program a "serious threat" to American and world security. What did Trump say again? Oh yeah, he called Kim Jong Un "Little Rocket Man" and said that North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen". I consider us all lucky that so much of Trump's administration turned out to be all talk and no action. And yes, Covid. How many hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead because he refused to acknowledge reality and continued to lie and undermine public caution towards the pandemic? What other moron could possibly turn something so simple, easy, and painless to do as wearing a mask in public into a full blown culture war? Now we have grown adults whining and crying like petulant toddlers when asked to put on a fucking mask. Yes, now I'm starting to lose my temper and ramble, but fuck it. That's how angry I get when I see people try to minimize the monstrous idiocy of the Trump presidency as just being the big bad news media out to get poor Trump. I could go on and on like this, but instead maybe I'll just call him a fat, orange, tiny handed imbecile with the world's most absurd combover - not because I hate him for these things (honestly, I couldn't care less about his appearance) - but because it relieves a little bit of the anger caused by him constantly running the country into the ground while claiming that he's making it great.
gnicholas 5y ago
In other news, grey text on a light grey background is terrible to read (especially with such a light font weight).
- dogecoinbase 5y ago
  is this a criticism of the linked site, or HN? ... and to stay on topic, .org may not be credible, but the indistinguishable-at-a-glace .ong is absolutely vetted. So keep an eye our for that ;)
  - SamBam 5y ago
    The linked site, obviously. It handily fails accessibility guidelines, far more-so than HN.
  - the_pwner224 5y ago
    The gray text is intentionally used for this purpose on HN.
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      This is arguably still an accessibility concern because there's no easy way to make the text readable. Perhaps hovering over it could make it show in black? I've tried highlighting it, but that doesn't work very well because my highlight color is light blue by default (I think I could change it but wouldn't do so just for this purpose).
      - cfjgvjh 5y ago
        I'm on Firefox and it has a pretty deep blue for highlight color. Maybe it's an accessibility concern of the browser as opposed to HN? I don't think making the text lighter interferes with screen readers for example.
        gnicholas 5y ago
        Yes, but people who have normal-ish vision don't have or know how to use dedicated screen readers. I could figure out how to have my browser or OS read aloud, but I generally don't want to have things read out loud to me. I just want to be able to read them visually. I think my highlight color is set at the OS level, at least on my Mac.
morpheuskafka 5y ago
> The common explanation is that only non-profits, professional associations, and other organizations are able to register a .org domain name. Even if that were true, how would it indicate any credibility? Being a nonprofit (a) is defined differently in every country and (b) in the US, just means that the organization advances some sort of social purpose (may or may not be one you agree with) and does not accrue profit on behalf of its members. It in no way means they are trustworthy nor that they are qualified to speak on the issue at hand.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Agreed. There are plenty of organizations that have gotten 501(c)3 not-for-profit status that are, shall we say, of questionable credibility.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > in the US, just means that the organization advances some sort of social purpose No, it doesn’t even mean that, unless “social” is defined away to meaninglessness, since a nonprofit can serve virtually any imaginable human purpose; it.can’t return a profit, but it can exist to drive on for a group of firms (trade associations are a valid class of tax-exempt nonprofits.) Some categories of nonprofits, particularly donation-deductible charities, are defined by social purpose, but the category as a whole is not.
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  One of the previous bidders for .org wanted to limit it to only the US definition of "non profit" Which meant that the Red Cross did not qualify - that application quickly got kicked out I seem to recall
crazypython 5y ago
".ngo" requires validation of an organization's status as a Non-Governmental organization. It is administered by the same registry as .org.
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  What’s to verify, do they require a corporation with a charter and shareholders?
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Kiwanis Club is a non-governmental organization. So is the Assemblies of God churches. And Exxon.
  - csnweb 5y ago
    Please see my comment to the parent. You will need to prove you are charitable. They have a list of seven points you need to fulfill.
- csnweb 5y ago
  You actually need to provide some document proving you are charitable. This is the criteria catalogue: Focused on acting in the public interest: Whether in support of education or health, the environment or human rights, members of the community work for the good of humankind and/or the preservation of the planet and do not promote discrimination or bigotry. Non-profit making/non-profit-focused entities: While many NGOs and ONGs engage in commercial activities or generate revenue in support of their missions, members of the community do not recognize profits or retain earnings. Limited government influence: Recognizing that many NGO and ONG organizations have important interactions with government, not least for reasons of funding (which may include receipt of some government funding in support of their programs) members of the community decide their own policies, direct their own activities and are independent of direct government or political control. Independent actors: Members of the community should not be political parties nor should be a part of any government. Participation in the work of a NGO/ONG is voluntary. Active Organizations: Members of the community are actively pursuing their missions on a regular basis. Structured: Members of the community, whether large or small, operate in a structured manner (e.g., under bylaws, codes of conduct, organizational standards, or other governance structures.) Lawful: Members of the .NGO and .ONG community act with integrity within the bounds of law.
dimal 5y ago
Not sure what this site is doing to screw up scrolling but jeez... it seems like my $4000 MacBook Pro should be able to handle scrolling a static webpage. But nope, this is jittery as hell, in both Safari and Chrome.
- walrus01 5y ago
  time for a new domain name about how janky CSS and excessive javascript doesn't mean credible. It looks fine for me but I think that's because ublock origin is doing its job.
- aembleton 5y ago
  Strange. Firefox on my Android phone is having no issues Is it running some Javascript triggered by the scroll event? I've blocked that with a ublock rule.
superkuh 5y ago
The dot org organization itself isn't even credible. They tried to destroy the domain and cash out.
- walrus01 5y ago
  It's a real mess all around: https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org&channel=fs https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org...
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Regardless of whether you care about the leak of possibly private information, it's always a good idea to shorten and clean URLs before pasting them, like so: https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org (There is some sparse discussion that the gs_lcp parameter may contain an encoded form of your physical location. "When in doubt, leave it out" is a good policy to follow for such things.)
    - walrus01 5y ago
      very good point, edited...
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  That's ICAN's (ICANT) fault they should haver selected a more credible organisation to run .org.
fungiblecog 5y ago
Who would actually believe a domain name means anything?
- detaro 5y ago
  If you had no clue about how domains are allocated, why wouldn't you believe it? "These domains are given to group X" sounds totally believable - and is indeed the case for some TLDs?
  - toast0 5y ago
    .com is for domains that fit into a single segment!
- scubbo 5y ago
  Do you navigate to this site by IP address?
- ibraheemdev 5y ago
  .edu and .gov mean something.
  - quesera 5y ago
    There are some legacy registrations for .edu that are held by individuals for their own use. I am unaware of any similar (ab)use of .gov or .mil, however. And .org never ever meant anything at all.
    - detaro 5y ago
      A well-known glaring exception with .edu is Academia.edu, which is a commercial paper repository/"social network".
      - lwf 5y ago
        Wow, I didn't realise it was this old: > The URL had been registered back in 1999, before 2001 regulations restricted the “.edu” designation to accredited higher educational institutions. “[D]espite its misleading top level domain,” noted Kathleen Fitzpatrick (2015), head of scholarly communication at the Modern Language Association, “Academia.edu is not an educationally-affiliated organization, but a dot-com.” Like other prior domain filings, Academia.edu was grandfathered in, granting the startup a time-sealed patina of nonprofit credibility https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305117696523 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305117696523
walrus01 5y ago
I agree with the point of 'doesn't mean credible', but the traditional TLDs of .com/.net/.org are also much better recognized as an actual TLD. If I start a new taco truck company and put "burrito.services" or "burrito.catering" or "burrito.ai" in a huge font on the side of the trucks, a fairly large number of people aren't going to immediately recognize that as a web site address. On the other hand, if I'm lucky enough to get the domain burrito.net , most people will recognize that as something they can type into a web browser address bar.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  > If I start a new taco truck company and put "burrito.services" or "burrito.catering" or "burrito.ai" in a huge font on the side of the trucks, a fairly large number of people aren't going to immediately recognize that as a web site address. Well, unless you put "http(s)://" in front of it.
  - fireattack 5y ago
    Interestingly burrito.catering used to be a thing it looks: https://web.archive.org/web/20180804010349/http://burrito.catering/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180804010349/http://burrito.ca...
  - walrus01 5y ago
    Certainly, though the trend for printing vehicles, business cards, letterheads, outdoor advertising signs and such seems to be to omit the "http(s)://" or "www"... Since in real world use almost nobody is actually typing the http:// http:// into the browser anymore, as might have been necessary when we were running Netscape Navigator in 1999.
    - surround 5y ago
      > As early as 1996 browsers were already inserting the http:// http:// and www. for users automatically (rendering any advertisement which still contains them truly ridiculous). https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-history-of-the-url/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-history-of-the-url/
camehere3saydis 5y ago
If the author of this site happens to be reading this - can you please add the URL in my bio to your list of sketchy .org sites?
falcolas 5y ago
Always remember, 4chan is a .org .
- walrus01 5y ago
  goatse dot org is a real website too, but thankfully it just has text which says "hello.jpg" instead of the actual goatse
  - devenblake 5y ago
    I wonder if the site admin would be willing to sell to a fan?..
  - toast0 5y ago
    Everybody knows that type of content is associated with the christmas islands. Not .org.
Tenobrus 5y ago
But on the other hand a .org file would probably rank pretty highly on the [file extension trustworthiness scale](https://xkcd.com/1301/ https://xkcd.com/1301/)
RandomWorker 5y ago
Super interesting fact here.. >.COM >This domain is intended for commercial entities, that is companies. This domain has grown very large and there is concern about the administrative load and system performance if the current growth pattern is continued.
jedimastert 5y ago
I have a distinct memory of a high school class: We were being taught about the internet. The teacher made a weirdly specific rant about how wikipedia was unsafe. Two slides later and we were told that org domains were more trustable than com. I pointed out that wikipedia was an org domain. I was sent to the principal's office. Fun times.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Similar memory. Librarian went on a rant about the evils of Wikipedia and instead directed us to these random websites. Wikipedia at least has some level of review.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    On the other hand, there’s been at least one case where unsourced information on Wikipedia was cribbed for published articles and then the published article was used as a citation for the Information on Wikipedia
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ I've definitely run into a few cases where this loop exists already, the most annoying one being the age of the Susquehanna River (whose current cite for age is a publication which explicitly cites Wikipedia).
      - bobmaxup 5y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Circular_reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Circular_reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_... There are also some bots that help auto tag articles with these issues
    - femto 5y ago
      The opposite happened to me. I wrote an article, which 7 years later was plagiarised on Amazon. My article got taken down on the basis that it plagiarised the Amazon book. Fortunately the publication dates made it pretty clear what had happened and it got fixed [1]. I never bothered to take it further, so the plagurist's book is still available and has been used as a citation in other Wikipedia articles [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Network#Accusations_of_Plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jindalee_Operational_Rada... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=Joseph+Babatunde+Fagoyinbo+site:wikipedia.org https://www.google.com/search?q=Joseph+Babatunde+Fagoyinbo+s...
don-code 5y ago
There was a time that some Microsoft software was free for evaluation for college students, but in fact, anyone with a .edu domain name was able to sign up. While I took advantage of this as a high school student, I assume faculty and non-teaching staff, as well as alumni, could have done likewise. At this point, TLDs matter about as much as your area code. They ceased being useful in the mid-2000s.
mgarfias 5y ago
I’ve “owned” a .org since 1999. It’s never meant anything.
- nannal 5y ago
  I own govassure.org and use it for phishing engagements, it was easy to get org as it was com.
jancsika 5y ago
The author makes some good points. But since they are published on an `.org` site I must reserve judgment. Therefore, I am forced to fall back to my default position that `.org` sites are inherently credible. With that in mind, I object to all the points the author makes. In conclusion, we should cut off the oxygen to all astronauts currently in hibernation.
- campital 5y ago
  If you object to all the author's points, do you also object to the fact that .org domains are not always reputable? If so, then this website must be reputable, and therefore all of its points are true. But, unfortunately, the website itself asserts that not all .org domains are reputable. Wait... RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
userbinator 5y ago
There is much irony in hosting this on a .org... On the other hand, I still have an almost instinctive aversion to all the sites with new TLDs that I come across in search results, because they almost always seem to contain SEO spam or similarly vapid content. Likewise, .ws and .us used to be the TLD of choice for cracks, warez, and all the "fun" stuff. Either way, I think all TLDs do have an implicit bias associated with them. For me, .com .org and .net are a neutral connotation. They don't mean "credible", but also don't "stick out like a sore thumb" unlike some of the other newer ones.
- walrus01 5y ago
  > On the other hand, I still have an almost instinctive aversion to all the sites with new TLDs that I come across in search results, because they almost always seem to contain SEO spam or similarly vapid content. for SEO stuffers, spams, scams and phishes, a lot of these new TLDs are popular because they're used in a disposable fashion. Many of them have first year promotional pricing of $2 to $6 to register the domain (as compared to $9-10 for a .com), but the price goes up to $25/year for all subsequent years. People using the domain names like a throw away paper towel, registering dozens or hundreds of them, only care about the first year cost, because there's no way they're going to keep using the same one beyond 12 months.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  am holding out hopes to grab foo.vapid
HeavenFox 5y ago
One of my pet peeves is that Coursera uses .org domain. A YC-backed billion-dollar-valuation public company.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  They probably couldn’t get an .edu domain.
btucker 5y ago
Carnegie Mellon had a rule (mid-2000s) that you could only host .orgs from the static IPs you could register on your dorm Ethernet. I launched openpodcast.org & bibme.org as a result of that. I always thought it was a senseless rule.
- riffic 5y ago
  how would they enforce that?
ipython 5y ago
There are very few well known tlds that have real restrictions on applicants, so why not just generalize and say “the internet doesn’t mean credible”? I guess it’s hard for me to empathize since I’ve lived through the 90s and own a dot org myself.
wombatpm 5y ago
Didn’t we learn this at the dawn of the internet? Why is it slashdot.org and not slashdot.com? Because .org addresses were $10 and .com were $40 at the time
- mgarfias 5y ago
  in my case, the .com was owned by a computer company in tijuana (no joke).
ROARosen 5y ago
I find the same abundant misrepresentation about SSL. SSL is important but a valid SSL certificate doesn't mean a site is safe. An invalid (or nonexistent) SSL/TLS certificate doesn't mean a site is illegitimate. A site without a user facing login really doesn't need SSL. And SSL is pointless on said site if it's for instance a Let's Encrypt. An example of misleading info (highlighted): https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-domain-spoofing/#:~:text=Make%20sure%20there's%20an%20SSL%20certificate https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-domain-spoof...
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  "And SSL is pointless on said site if it's for instance a Let's Encrypt." That isn't pointless SSL. Let's Encrypt isn't going to protect you from nation states, but cyber criminals aren't going to be invested or necessarily sophisticated enough to get Let's Encrypt's CA keys. Also, if you are worried someone will take over your Let's Encrypt automation and generate new certificates, they probably could use the same RCE to get at your private keys or directly sniff traffic from the compromised system. If you qualified this statement with "if the business is large cap", everyone would agree but then again that's why BigCo uses traditional CAs or roll their own.
- bruce511 5y ago
  There's this common misconception that sans user input a site is fine without https. Unfortunately this is not the case. Site security serves not only the purpose of protecting user input, but also ensuring that the data you are receiving has not been altered, ammended or replaced. At the low level it stops an ISP injecting their own ads or tracking, at the high level it prevents the injection of malicious code downstream from the site itself. Things like link-replacement, javascript injection, altered text, and so on make even read-only style sites untrustworthy over plain http.
  - Qwertious 5y ago
    http://davisr.me http://davisr.me
  - 411111111111111 5y ago
voceboy521 5y ago
this is so dumb. how is this news
Danski0 5y ago
Is this article old? Haven't heard anyone say or believe that .org is anything special in 10years. Who is saying this? Same books that claims smoking is good?
- sunshineforever 5y ago
  I agree. Im pretty sure I remember a teacher saying this in like 2007. If you look at the provided examples of .org miseducation, they seem to be quite old.
- necovek 5y ago
  To be honest, I wonder more how did anyone ever get this idea? Looking at whois records for my personal .org domains, some of them have been registered since 2003 (I also have a .net from 2002): I was a student back then! I guess the fact that I was heavily involved in open source (where every single project used .org domain if available) never made me think they were in any more "reputable" than eg. .com. So, how did anyone ever get the notion that they were restricted to non-profits? I know that "choosing your domain name" guides at the time mentioned how .org is a good candidate for non-profits, but how did that evolve into "only registered non-profits can get a .org domain"?
  - npongratz 5y ago
    Interestingly, Wikipedia's entry claims (without citation!) that .org "was originally intended for non-profit organizations or organizations of a non-commercial character that did not meet the requirements for other gTLDs." [0] I believe RFC 920 [1] was the guiding document when .org was established in 1985. It cites no restrictions on .org second level registrations, merely that "ORG = Organization, any other domains meeting the second level requirements." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org#History [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920
c3534l 5y ago
My counterpoint whenever a teacher said this in school: 4chan.org
mattowen_uk 5y ago
IIRC, back in the day the idea was that .org's couldn't host commercial services, or run ads. Never really enforced though, so yeah, pointless. Also, I own a .org , and I'm not sure I'm credible at all, so quod erat demonstrandum, I guess.
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  > couldn't host commercial services, or run ads. Correct is was intended for non-profits, while I don't know that was ever enforced. However when .org was created nobody was thinking about ads. They appeared maybe ten years later.
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
Coming up soon in this series: - Ben Shapiro was not the secret 7th member of Monty Python - wildebeest did not solve Fermat's Last Theorem - Joey from New Kids on the Block is not the real author of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565)
- antod 5y ago
  Yeah right, what's next? The author of the site isn't actually a ninja?
  - st_goliath 5y ago
    Up next: just like .org domains, you can just buy a lab coat and a clip board.
    - chki 5y ago
      https://xkcd.com/699/ https://xkcd.com/699/
- lolinder 5y ago
  You joke, but I was told this myth about .org multiple times over my education by multiple teachers, including in college. It might be terribly obvious to you, but there are hundreds of thousands of teachers who teach this wrong.
  - lucideer 5y ago
    True, but I think "org, specifically, is not credible" is the wrong counter to people teaching that "org, specifically, is credible". The appropriate counter is: "learn to think critically"; replacing one narrow blindly-followed fallacy with another isn't progress. Credibility cannot be inferred from tlds.
  - hoten 5y ago
    I agree, but felt like confirming it anecdotally. I asked my two sisters, in their 20s (not in tech): they both had this misconception from school. A friend (not in tech) did too, but only until he tried registering a domain of his own and saw he could get .org. My mother (also not tech savvy) trusts .gov more than .edu or .org, but didn't realize that anyone can purchase the latter ones. I asked her why she trusted .gov over the others, she paused and laughed as she said "well the government wouldn't lie to you!" :)
tjbiddle 5y ago
Back when I was 12 or so, I remember arguing with my "Computer Teacher" about various TLDs. I had a similar point that ".com" doesn't need to be a commercial entity. She continued to berate me in front of the class. I got detention and was told that all my .com domains were illegal. Ah - the educational system at it's finest.
- HenryBemis 5y ago
  I came up with the below around 20 years ago when I was first exposed to tech-teachers (outside Uni) and auditors (work) (I blame it on reading too much Dilbert)(I am aware that the 1,2 are common, I thought of 3,4 at the time)(I wouldn't be surprised if 3 is common)(but 4 is definitely mine)(I honestly believe I came up with 3,4 - it was 20 years ago so apologies if I remember that wrong). 1) Those who can, do. 2) Those you can't do, manage. (partially "Peter Principle" imho) 3) Those who can't (even) manage, teach. 4) Those who can' (even) teach, audit.
m00dy 5y ago
I now see a lot of crypto projects are now using .org domain.
closeneough 5y ago
Why should I believe this site?
logifail 5y ago
> "Many textbooks, online research guides, and other resources claim that a .org domain name is an indicator of credibility" In other news: content author fails to provide sources for claims.
- joshrw 5y ago
  They actually do a bit further down the page: http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.html http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.htm...
- hoten 5y ago
  The author does. http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.html http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.htm...
amelius 5y ago
ICANN brings in millions and they don't even verify domain holders? Their mission statement: > ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, the verification is basically an annual email that registrars send reminding domain owners to update their contact information and for which no actual follow up is performed.
gadders 5y ago
I remember when people criticised Slashdot for having a .org address when they were bought by Andover.net.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
Duh. ICANN’t is a disgraceful scam, as is the canned collection of TLDs. The end of a domain name should be ANY STRING, registerable through any registrar… with the e caption of mil, edu, and gov (because they’re still enforced). Let’s say you’re Bob Williams; registering bob.williams should be a routine transaction.
Mauricebranagh 5y ago
"The common explanation is that only non-profits, Professional associations, and other organizations are able to register a .org domain name." NO .org is not that at all - I used to work for a registry who bid for the .org
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
myhikesorg 5y ago
You can be <anything>.org but it doesn't mean people will find your website, or use it, or tell other people to use it, or even trust it in the first place. Same goes for <anything>.com, <anything>.net, etc. .org is a great way for low-income websites to stay on the internet. I run a tiny organization, so I use .org.
jccalhoun 5y ago
People are asking who believes this and I can tell you: my college students. Every semester I talk about researching and when I ask them how they can tell if a web site is credible at least one will say if it is a .org or .edu. Then I show them http://www.dhmo.org/ http://www.dhmo.org/ and a .edu hosted anti-science web site from a religious university to prove it isn't true. Then on the test they still say you can tell if a site is credible because it is a .org or .edu...
- the_only_law 5y ago
  > .edu hosted anti-science web site from a religious university to prove it isn't true. Got the link to this one, I’m curious on the specific topics they argue against and if I know the university.
  - jccalhoun 5y ago
    The one I use is basically trying to prove their religious text is correct even though science says that animals mentioned in the religious book were not native to that area.
- zqfm 5y ago
  I'm in my 30s and finally going to college and can confirm that many of my fellow students (most in their teens or early 20s) believe that .org domains are credible. I've pointed out that anyone can buy one for $10 so hopefully some have taken that to heart, but I wonder where are they getting this from?
remix2000 5y ago
Sure it doesn’t, as claims that a reputable site like thepiratebay.org might be “sketchy” are… not very credible. :P Restricting access to .org to just registered non-profits would be just pointless, because there are some notable parties that may not ever receive official recognition, e.g. human right activism in Belarus. Unless .org would be restricted to US-based organizations only, that would make a whole lot more sense.
- Semiapies 5y ago
  But it lists Pirate Bay twice--it must be so!
chaozznl 5y ago
Why, on a website about being credible, would you not use a free SSL certificate so you can serve the page via HTTPS?
- marwen 5y ago
  To prove a point, since the website is also a dot org.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  They have SSL from Let's Encrypt if you switch to https[1] but their server is not configured to do SSL only for whatever reason. 1. https://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/ https://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/
annoyingnoob 5y ago
Its on the internet, you need to question its credibility from the start. The rest is just details. The internet is the wild west and you need to look out for yourself at all times.
- CivBase 5y ago
  I don't think this practice should be limited to the internet. Question what you watch on TV. Question what you read in newspapers. Question what you hear from political leaders, activists, pundits, economists, teachers, and even scientists. Think critically about what you see and hear, regardless of the source. Look for evidence and second opinions from multiple sources with a history of credibility. There are many individuals and organizations out there who benefit from your support and none of them are incorruptible.
throwaway09223 5y ago
"The use of ARPA as a Top Level Domain was only temporary, until its hosts selected some other domain. " Someone tell that to in-addr.arpa, lol. It's certainly still around https://www.iana.org/domains/arpa https://www.iana.org/domains/arpa The author really should've checked later RFCs.
- uKGgZfqqNZtf7Za 5y ago
  That is just further proof that .org doesn't mean credible.
kissgyorgy 5y ago
Technical people know this, non-technical people will click Continue on huge red pages warning for phishing. Not sure who is the target audience for this website.
jaza 5y ago
Any .org.au domain has to be a registered Australian not-for-profit (there are currently 11 allowed types). Similarly, any .com.au or .net.au domain has to be a registered Australian business. I assume various other countries are similarly strict about legitimacy of domain ownership, I've never checked. And yes, I know, these TLDs have nothing to do with .org / .com / .net, as such, except that they look similar. So, for .org.x domains for certain x at least, it does mean credible.

252 points by ibraheemdev 5y ago

> There are no hard and fast rules that will readily determine whether a website is credible. I think that teaching people that they can simply look for .org in the URL and immediately accept a website as credible can do more harm than good. > Instead, we should be providing everyone with the critical thinking tools they need to evaluate and assess sources themselves. This kind of thinking is incredibly important. Many believe in only following one or two "credible" news sources instead of trying to get the point of view from a variety of outlets. Others like to block a list of websites which someone decided was fake news. There is no easy way to determine what is true and what is false. In fact, most of the time there is no definite "right" and "wrong" - instead, both sides of an issue will have important pieces to consider. In fact, there's hardly ever just two sides to an issue, rather, a wide range of opinions. I was not taught this in school. I was taught to trust .org websites.

exporectomy 5y ago
How on earth did your teacher think .org was trustworthy? A trouble with trusting news that's true instead of fake is it misses the point that even true news gives a false feeling even if all the facts are true. They use scary language, omitting inconvenient facts, subjective exaggerated sounding words, quoting real people stating false facts, etc. Those feelings have actual consequences on how people vote and what decisions they make. For example, the great Pacific garbage patch was shown dramatically on TV a so dense you could just about walk on it and led to people not wanting to put plastic bags in the landfill. They were so overwhelmed by the demonization of plastic, they didn't pay attention to the facts. That whole Trump thing was filled with it too. They didn't really lie but they made all his actions sound bad so people hated him.
- Jordrok 5y ago
  You're right that media can be manipulative without explicitly lying, but let's be clear, Trump's actions alone were more than enough to make people hate him without any media manipulation whatsoever. All that hate was earned.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    Not really. New rules were invented just to make him be wrong. Like those issues with the Mexico border and aggravating North Korea. Biden has recently aggravated North Korea too but people don't seem to be afraid he's starting a nuclear war like they were when Trump did it. Biden also hasn't opened the border with Mexico to allow visa-free entry yet people aren't calling him a racist for it. He certainly did some really bad things like mismanaging Covid, but most of the hate was about things he said, not things he did like invading Iraq or wiretapping his political opponents' headquarters like previous widely hated presidents have done. Some of the hate was even about his physical appearance - the color of his skin, his hairstyle, the shape of his hands, etc. That absolutely wasn't earned. It was just hateful people spreading hate.
    - Jordrok 5y ago
      Are you kidding me? Sure you can make it sound trivial if you give the weakest possible examples. Let's talk about the border: Trump literally campaigned on the slogan "I'll build a wall and have Mexico pay for it." And what did he do in reality? When attempts to make Mexico pay for it failed miserably, as predicted by anyone with common sense, he begged and bullied congress (to the point of a government shutdown, no less) to put aside American taxpayer dollars for it. When that too failed, he attempted to pilfer money from various other government departments like homeland security and defense. By comparison, Biden has shut down construction and returned that money for its original uses. And I'm not even sure what you're talking about with that "open borders" nonsense. Nobody has ever actually advocated for that other than the bogeymen from the fevered nightmares of Fox News commentators. You're buying into your own propaganda. As for North Korea, they were antagonized by Biden calling their nuclear program a "serious threat" to American and world security. What did Trump say again? Oh yeah, he called Kim Jong Un "Little Rocket Man" and said that North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen". I consider us all lucky that so much of Trump's administration turned out to be all talk and no action. And yes, Covid. How many hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead because he refused to acknowledge reality and continued to lie and undermine public caution towards the pandemic? What other moron could possibly turn something so simple, easy, and painless to do as wearing a mask in public into a full blown culture war? Now we have grown adults whining and crying like petulant toddlers when asked to put on a fucking mask. Yes, now I'm starting to lose my temper and ramble, but fuck it. That's how angry I get when I see people try to minimize the monstrous idiocy of the Trump presidency as just being the big bad news media out to get poor Trump. I could go on and on like this, but instead maybe I'll just call him a fat, orange, tiny handed imbecile with the world's most absurd combover - not because I hate him for these things (honestly, I couldn't care less about his appearance) - but because it relieves a little bit of the anger caused by him constantly running the country into the ground while claiming that he's making it great.

gnicholas 5y ago

In other news, grey text on a light grey background is terrible to read (especially with such a light font weight).

dogecoinbase 5y ago
is this a criticism of the linked site, or HN? ... and to stay on topic, .org may not be credible, but the indistinguishable-at-a-glace .ong is absolutely vetted. So keep an eye our for that ;)
- SamBam 5y ago
  The linked site, obviously. It handily fails accessibility guidelines, far more-so than HN.
- the_pwner224 5y ago
  The gray text is intentionally used for this purpose on HN.
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    This is arguably still an accessibility concern because there's no easy way to make the text readable. Perhaps hovering over it could make it show in black? I've tried highlighting it, but that doesn't work very well because my highlight color is light blue by default (I think I could change it but wouldn't do so just for this purpose).
    - cfjgvjh 5y ago
      I'm on Firefox and it has a pretty deep blue for highlight color. Maybe it's an accessibility concern of the browser as opposed to HN? I don't think making the text lighter interferes with screen readers for example.
      - gnicholas 5y ago
        Yes, but people who have normal-ish vision don't have or know how to use dedicated screen readers. I could figure out how to have my browser or OS read aloud, but I generally don't want to have things read out loud to me. I just want to be able to read them visually. I think my highlight color is set at the OS level, at least on my Mac.

morpheuskafka 5y ago

> The common explanation is that only non-profits, professional associations, and other organizations are able to register a .org domain name. Even if that were true, how would it indicate any credibility? Being a nonprofit (a) is defined differently in every country and (b) in the US, just means that the organization advances some sort of social purpose (may or may not be one you agree with) and does not accrue profit on behalf of its members. It in no way means they are trustworthy nor that they are qualified to speak on the issue at hand.

cratermoon 5y ago
Agreed. There are plenty of organizations that have gotten 501(c)3 not-for-profit status that are, shall we say, of questionable credibility.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> in the US, just means that the organization advances some sort of social purpose No, it doesn’t even mean that, unless “social” is defined away to meaninglessness, since a nonprofit can serve virtually any imaginable human purpose; it.can’t return a profit, but it can exist to drive on for a group of firms (trade associations are a valid class of tax-exempt nonprofits.) Some categories of nonprofits, particularly donation-deductible charities, are defined by social purpose, but the category as a whole is not.
Mauricebranagh 5y ago
One of the previous bidders for .org wanted to limit it to only the US definition of "non profit" Which meant that the Red Cross did not qualify - that application quickly got kicked out I seem to recall

crazypython 5y ago

".ngo" requires validation of an organization's status as a Non-Governmental organization. It is administered by the same registry as .org.

erik_seaberg 5y ago
What’s to verify, do they require a corporation with a charter and shareholders?
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Kiwanis Club is a non-governmental organization. So is the Assemblies of God churches. And Exxon.
- csnweb 5y ago
  Please see my comment to the parent. You will need to prove you are charitable. They have a list of seven points you need to fulfill.
csnweb 5y ago
You actually need to provide some document proving you are charitable. This is the criteria catalogue: Focused on acting in the public interest: Whether in support of education or health, the environment or human rights, members of the community work for the good of humankind and/or the preservation of the planet and do not promote discrimination or bigotry. Non-profit making/non-profit-focused entities: While many NGOs and ONGs engage in commercial activities or generate revenue in support of their missions, members of the community do not recognize profits or retain earnings. Limited government influence: Recognizing that many NGO and ONG organizations have important interactions with government, not least for reasons of funding (which may include receipt of some government funding in support of their programs) members of the community decide their own policies, direct their own activities and are independent of direct government or political control. Independent actors: Members of the community should not be political parties nor should be a part of any government. Participation in the work of a NGO/ONG is voluntary. Active Organizations: Members of the community are actively pursuing their missions on a regular basis. Structured: Members of the community, whether large or small, operate in a structured manner (e.g., under bylaws, codes of conduct, organizational standards, or other governance structures.) Lawful: Members of the .NGO and .ONG community act with integrity within the bounds of law.

dimal 5y ago

Not sure what this site is doing to screw up scrolling but jeez... it seems like my $4000 MacBook Pro should be able to handle scrolling a static webpage. But nope, this is jittery as hell, in both Safari and Chrome.

walrus01 5y ago
time for a new domain name about how janky CSS and excessive javascript doesn't mean credible. It looks fine for me but I think that's because ublock origin is doing its job.
aembleton 5y ago
Strange. Firefox on my Android phone is having no issues Is it running some Javascript triggered by the scroll event? I've blocked that with a ublock rule.

superkuh 5y ago

The dot org organization itself isn't even credible. They tried to destroy the domain and cash out.

walrus01 5y ago
It's a real mess all around: https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org&channel=fs https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org...
- userbinator 5y ago
  Regardless of whether you care about the leak of possibly private information, it's always a good idea to shorten and clean URLs before pasting them, like so: https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org https://www.google.com/search?q=abry+partners+donuts+dot+org (There is some sparse discussion that the gs_lcp parameter may contain an encoded form of your physical location. "When in doubt, leave it out" is a good policy to follow for such things.)
  - walrus01 5y ago
    very good point, edited...
Mauricebranagh 5y ago
That's ICAN's (ICANT) fault they should haver selected a more credible organisation to run .org.

fungiblecog 5y ago

Who would actually believe a domain name means anything?

detaro 5y ago
If you had no clue about how domains are allocated, why wouldn't you believe it? "These domains are given to group X" sounds totally believable - and is indeed the case for some TLDs?
- toast0 5y ago
  .com is for domains that fit into a single segment!
scubbo 5y ago
Do you navigate to this site by IP address?
ibraheemdev 5y ago
.edu and .gov mean something.
- quesera 5y ago
  There are some legacy registrations for .edu that are held by individuals for their own use. I am unaware of any similar (ab)use of .gov or .mil, however. And .org never ever meant anything at all.
  - detaro 5y ago
    A well-known glaring exception with .edu is Academia.edu, which is a commercial paper repository/"social network".
    - lwf 5y ago
      Wow, I didn't realise it was this old: > The URL had been registered back in 1999, before 2001 regulations restricted the “.edu” designation to accredited higher educational institutions. “[D]espite its misleading top level domain,” noted Kathleen Fitzpatrick (2015), head of scholarly communication at the Modern Language Association, “Academia.edu is not an educationally-affiliated organization, but a dot-com.” Like other prior domain filings, Academia.edu was grandfathered in, granting the startup a time-sealed patina of nonprofit credibility https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305117696523 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305117696523

walrus01 5y ago

I agree with the point of 'doesn't mean credible', but the traditional TLDs of .com/.net/.org are also much better recognized as an actual TLD. If I start a new taco truck company and put "burrito.services" or "burrito.catering" or "burrito.ai" in a huge font on the side of the trucks, a fairly large number of people aren't going to immediately recognize that as a web site address. On the other hand, if I'm lucky enough to get the domain burrito.net , most people will recognize that as something they can type into a web browser address bar.

sidpatil 5y ago
> If I start a new taco truck company and put "burrito.services" or "burrito.catering" or "burrito.ai" in a huge font on the side of the trucks, a fairly large number of people aren't going to immediately recognize that as a web site address. Well, unless you put "http(s)://" in front of it.
- fireattack 5y ago
  Interestingly burrito.catering used to be a thing it looks: https://web.archive.org/web/20180804010349/http://burrito.catering/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180804010349/http://burrito.ca...
- walrus01 5y ago
  Certainly, though the trend for printing vehicles, business cards, letterheads, outdoor advertising signs and such seems to be to omit the "http(s)://" or "www"... Since in real world use almost nobody is actually typing the http:// http:// into the browser anymore, as might have been necessary when we were running Netscape Navigator in 1999.
  - surround 5y ago
    > As early as 1996 browsers were already inserting the http:// http:// and www. for users automatically (rendering any advertisement which still contains them truly ridiculous). https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-history-of-the-url/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-history-of-the-url/

camehere3saydis 5y ago

If the author of this site happens to be reading this - can you please add the URL in my bio to your list of sketchy .org sites?

falcolas 5y ago

Always remember, 4chan is a .org .

walrus01 5y ago
goatse dot org is a real website too, but thankfully it just has text which says "hello.jpg" instead of the actual goatse
- devenblake 5y ago
  I wonder if the site admin would be willing to sell to a fan?..
- toast0 5y ago
  Everybody knows that type of content is associated with the christmas islands. Not .org.

Tenobrus 5y ago

But on the other hand a .org file would probably rank pretty highly on the [file extension trustworthiness scale](https://xkcd.com/1301/ https://xkcd.com/1301/)

RandomWorker 5y ago

Super interesting fact here.. >.COM >This domain is intended for commercial entities, that is companies. This domain has grown very large and there is concern about the administrative load and system performance if the current growth pattern is continued.

jedimastert 5y ago

I have a distinct memory of a high school class: We were being taught about the internet. The teacher made a weirdly specific rant about how wikipedia was unsafe. Two slides later and we were told that org domains were more trustable than com. I pointed out that wikipedia was an org domain. I was sent to the principal's office. Fun times.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Similar memory. Librarian went on a rant about the evils of Wikipedia and instead directed us to these random websites. Wikipedia at least has some level of review.
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
  On the other hand, there’s been at least one case where unsourced information on Wikipedia was cribbed for published articles and then the published article was used as a citation for the Information on Wikipedia
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ I've definitely run into a few cases where this loop exists already, the most annoying one being the age of the Susquehanna River (whose current cite for age is a publication which explicitly cites Wikipedia).
    - bobmaxup 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Circular_reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Circular_reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_... There are also some bots that help auto tag articles with these issues
  - femto 5y ago
    The opposite happened to me. I wrote an article, which 7 years later was plagiarised on Amazon. My article got taken down on the basis that it plagiarised the Amazon book. Fortunately the publication dates made it pretty clear what had happened and it got fixed [1]. I never bothered to take it further, so the plagurist's book is still available and has been used as a citation in other Wikipedia articles [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Network#Accusations_of_Plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jindalee_Operational_Rada... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=Joseph+Babatunde+Fagoyinbo+site:wikipedia.org https://www.google.com/search?q=Joseph+Babatunde+Fagoyinbo+s...

don-code 5y ago

There was a time that some Microsoft software was free for evaluation for college students, but in fact, anyone with a .edu domain name was able to sign up. While I took advantage of this as a high school student, I assume faculty and non-teaching staff, as well as alumni, could have done likewise. At this point, TLDs matter about as much as your area code. They ceased being useful in the mid-2000s.

mgarfias 5y ago

I’ve “owned” a .org since 1999. It’s never meant anything.

nannal 5y ago
I own govassure.org and use it for phishing engagements, it was easy to get org as it was com.

jancsika 5y ago

The author makes some good points. But since they are published on an `.org` site I must reserve judgment. Therefore, I am forced to fall back to my default position that `.org` sites are inherently credible. With that in mind, I object to all the points the author makes. In conclusion, we should cut off the oxygen to all astronauts currently in hibernation.

campital 5y ago
If you object to all the author's points, do you also object to the fact that .org domains are not always reputable? If so, then this website must be reputable, and therefore all of its points are true. But, unfortunately, the website itself asserts that not all .org domains are reputable. Wait... RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded

userbinator 5y ago

There is much irony in hosting this on a .org... On the other hand, I still have an almost instinctive aversion to all the sites with new TLDs that I come across in search results, because they almost always seem to contain SEO spam or similarly vapid content. Likewise, .ws and .us used to be the TLD of choice for cracks, warez, and all the "fun" stuff. Either way, I think all TLDs do have an implicit bias associated with them. For me, .com .org and .net are a neutral connotation. They don't mean "credible", but also don't "stick out like a sore thumb" unlike some of the other newer ones.

walrus01 5y ago
> On the other hand, I still have an almost instinctive aversion to all the sites with new TLDs that I come across in search results, because they almost always seem to contain SEO spam or similarly vapid content. for SEO stuffers, spams, scams and phishes, a lot of these new TLDs are popular because they're used in a disposable fashion. Many of them have first year promotional pricing of $2 to $6 to register the domain (as compared to $9-10 for a .com), but the price goes up to $25/year for all subsequent years. People using the domain names like a throw away paper towel, registering dozens or hundreds of them, only care about the first year cost, because there's no way they're going to keep using the same one beyond 12 months.
rsj_hn 5y ago
am holding out hopes to grab foo.vapid

HeavenFox 5y ago

One of my pet peeves is that Coursera uses .org domain. A YC-backed billion-dollar-valuation public company.

mr_toad 5y ago
They probably couldn’t get an .edu domain.

btucker 5y ago

Carnegie Mellon had a rule (mid-2000s) that you could only host .orgs from the static IPs you could register on your dorm Ethernet. I launched openpodcast.org & bibme.org as a result of that. I always thought it was a senseless rule.

riffic 5y ago
how would they enforce that?

ipython 5y ago

There are very few well known tlds that have real restrictions on applicants, so why not just generalize and say “the internet doesn’t mean credible”? I guess it’s hard for me to empathize since I’ve lived through the 90s and own a dot org myself.

wombatpm 5y ago

Didn’t we learn this at the dawn of the internet? Why is it slashdot.org and not slashdot.com? Because .org addresses were $10 and .com were $40 at the time

mgarfias 5y ago
in my case, the .com was owned by a computer company in tijuana (no joke).

ROARosen 5y ago

I find the same abundant misrepresentation about SSL. SSL is important but a valid SSL certificate doesn't mean a site is safe. An invalid (or nonexistent) SSL/TLS certificate doesn't mean a site is illegitimate. A site without a user facing login really doesn't need SSL. And SSL is pointless on said site if it's for instance a Let's Encrypt. An example of misleading info (highlighted): https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-domain-spoofing/#:~:text=Make%20sure%20there's%20an%20SSL%20certificate https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-domain-spoof...

birdyrooster 5y ago
"And SSL is pointless on said site if it's for instance a Let's Encrypt." That isn't pointless SSL. Let's Encrypt isn't going to protect you from nation states, but cyber criminals aren't going to be invested or necessarily sophisticated enough to get Let's Encrypt's CA keys. Also, if you are worried someone will take over your Let's Encrypt automation and generate new certificates, they probably could use the same RCE to get at your private keys or directly sniff traffic from the compromised system. If you qualified this statement with "if the business is large cap", everyone would agree but then again that's why BigCo uses traditional CAs or roll their own.
bruce511 5y ago
There's this common misconception that sans user input a site is fine without https. Unfortunately this is not the case. Site security serves not only the purpose of protecting user input, but also ensuring that the data you are receiving has not been altered, ammended or replaced. At the low level it stops an ISP injecting their own ads or tracking, at the high level it prevents the injection of malicious code downstream from the site itself. Things like link-replacement, javascript injection, altered text, and so on make even read-only style sites untrustworthy over plain http.
- Qwertious 5y ago
  http://davisr.me http://davisr.me
- 411111111111111 5y ago

voceboy521 5y ago

this is so dumb. how is this news

Danski0 5y ago

Is this article old? Haven't heard anyone say or believe that .org is anything special in 10years. Who is saying this? Same books that claims smoking is good?

sunshineforever 5y ago
I agree. Im pretty sure I remember a teacher saying this in like 2007. If you look at the provided examples of .org miseducation, they seem to be quite old.
necovek 5y ago
To be honest, I wonder more how did anyone ever get this idea? Looking at whois records for my personal .org domains, some of them have been registered since 2003 (I also have a .net from 2002): I was a student back then! I guess the fact that I was heavily involved in open source (where every single project used .org domain if available) never made me think they were in any more "reputable" than eg. .com. So, how did anyone ever get the notion that they were restricted to non-profits? I know that "choosing your domain name" guides at the time mentioned how .org is a good candidate for non-profits, but how did that evolve into "only registered non-profits can get a .org domain"?
- npongratz 5y ago
  Interestingly, Wikipedia's entry claims (without citation!) that .org "was originally intended for non-profit organizations or organizations of a non-commercial character that did not meet the requirements for other gTLDs." [0] I believe RFC 920 [1] was the guiding document when .org was established in 1985. It cites no restrictions on .org second level registrations, merely that "ORG = Organization, any other domains meeting the second level requirements." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org#History [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920

c3534l 5y ago

My counterpoint whenever a teacher said this in school: 4chan.org

mattowen_uk 5y ago

IIRC, back in the day the idea was that .org's couldn't host commercial services, or run ads. Never really enforced though, so yeah, pointless. Also, I own a .org , and I'm not sure I'm credible at all, so quod erat demonstrandum, I guess.

johannes1234321 5y ago
> couldn't host commercial services, or run ads. Correct is was intended for non-profits, while I don't know that was ever enforced. However when .org was created nobody was thinking about ads. They appeared maybe ten years later.

Doctor_Fegg 5y ago

Coming up soon in this series: - Ben Shapiro was not the secret 7th member of Monty Python - wildebeest did not solve Fermat's Last Theorem - Joey from New Kids on the Block is not the real author of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565)

antod 5y ago
Yeah right, what's next? The author of the site isn't actually a ninja?
- st_goliath 5y ago
  Up next: just like .org domains, you can just buy a lab coat and a clip board.
  - chki 5y ago
    https://xkcd.com/699/ https://xkcd.com/699/
lolinder 5y ago
You joke, but I was told this myth about .org multiple times over my education by multiple teachers, including in college. It might be terribly obvious to you, but there are hundreds of thousands of teachers who teach this wrong.
- lucideer 5y ago
  True, but I think "org, specifically, is not credible" is the wrong counter to people teaching that "org, specifically, is credible". The appropriate counter is: "learn to think critically"; replacing one narrow blindly-followed fallacy with another isn't progress. Credibility cannot be inferred from tlds.
- hoten 5y ago
  I agree, but felt like confirming it anecdotally. I asked my two sisters, in their 20s (not in tech): they both had this misconception from school. A friend (not in tech) did too, but only until he tried registering a domain of his own and saw he could get .org. My mother (also not tech savvy) trusts .gov more than .edu or .org, but didn't realize that anyone can purchase the latter ones. I asked her why she trusted .gov over the others, she paused and laughed as she said "well the government wouldn't lie to you!" :)

tjbiddle 5y ago

Back when I was 12 or so, I remember arguing with my "Computer Teacher" about various TLDs. I had a similar point that ".com" doesn't need to be a commercial entity. She continued to berate me in front of the class. I got detention and was told that all my .com domains were illegal. Ah - the educational system at it's finest.

HenryBemis 5y ago
I came up with the below around 20 years ago when I was first exposed to tech-teachers (outside Uni) and auditors (work) (I blame it on reading too much Dilbert)(I am aware that the 1,2 are common, I thought of 3,4 at the time)(I wouldn't be surprised if 3 is common)(but 4 is definitely mine)(I honestly believe I came up with 3,4 - it was 20 years ago so apologies if I remember that wrong). 1) Those who can, do. 2) Those you can't do, manage. (partially "Peter Principle" imho) 3) Those who can't (even) manage, teach. 4) Those who can' (even) teach, audit.

m00dy 5y ago

I now see a lot of crypto projects are now using .org domain.

closeneough 5y ago

Why should I believe this site?

logifail 5y ago

> "Many textbooks, online research guides, and other resources claim that a .org domain name is an indicator of credibility" In other news: content author fails to provide sources for claims.

joshrw 5y ago
They actually do a bit further down the page: http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.html http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.htm...
hoten 5y ago
The author does. http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.html http://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/misguidedinstruction.htm...

amelius 5y ago

ICANN brings in millions and they don't even verify domain holders? Their mission statement: > ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet.

sokoloff 5y ago
As far as I can tell, the verification is basically an annual email that registrars send reminding domain owners to update their contact information and for which no actual follow up is performed.

gadders 5y ago

I remember when people criticised Slashdot for having a .org address when they were bought by Andover.net.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

Duh. ICANN’t is a disgraceful scam, as is the canned collection of TLDs. The end of a domain name should be ANY STRING, registerable through any registrar… with the e caption of mil, edu, and gov (because they’re still enforced). Let’s say you’re Bob Williams; registering bob.williams should be a routine transaction.

Mauricebranagh 5y ago

"The common explanation is that only non-profits, Professional associations, and other organizations are able to register a .org domain name." NO .org is not that at all - I used to work for a registry who bid for the .org

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

myhikesorg 5y ago

You can be <anything>.org but it doesn't mean people will find your website, or use it, or tell other people to use it, or even trust it in the first place. Same goes for <anything>.com, <anything>.net, etc. .org is a great way for low-income websites to stay on the internet. I run a tiny organization, so I use .org.

jccalhoun 5y ago

People are asking who believes this and I can tell you: my college students. Every semester I talk about researching and when I ask them how they can tell if a web site is credible at least one will say if it is a .org or .edu. Then I show them http://www.dhmo.org/ http://www.dhmo.org/ and a .edu hosted anti-science web site from a religious university to prove it isn't true. Then on the test they still say you can tell if a site is credible because it is a .org or .edu...

the_only_law 5y ago
> .edu hosted anti-science web site from a religious university to prove it isn't true. Got the link to this one, I’m curious on the specific topics they argue against and if I know the university.
- jccalhoun 5y ago
  The one I use is basically trying to prove their religious text is correct even though science says that animals mentioned in the religious book were not native to that area.
zqfm 5y ago
I'm in my 30s and finally going to college and can confirm that many of my fellow students (most in their teens or early 20s) believe that .org domains are credible. I've pointed out that anyone can buy one for $10 so hopefully some have taken that to heart, but I wonder where are they getting this from?

remix2000 5y ago

Sure it doesn’t, as claims that a reputable site like thepiratebay.org might be “sketchy” are… not very credible. :P Restricting access to .org to just registered non-profits would be just pointless, because there are some notable parties that may not ever receive official recognition, e.g. human right activism in Belarus. Unless .org would be restricted to US-based organizations only, that would make a whole lot more sense.

Semiapies 5y ago
But it lists Pirate Bay twice--it must be so!

chaozznl 5y ago

Why, on a website about being credible, would you not use a free SSL certificate so you can serve the page via HTTPS?

marwen 5y ago
To prove a point, since the website is also a dot org.
MiddleEndian 5y ago
They have SSL from Let's Encrypt if you switch to https[1] but their server is not configured to do SSL only for whatever reason. 1. https://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/ https://dotorgdoesntmeancredible.org/

annoyingnoob 5y ago

Its on the internet, you need to question its credibility from the start. The rest is just details. The internet is the wild west and you need to look out for yourself at all times.

CivBase 5y ago
I don't think this practice should be limited to the internet. Question what you watch on TV. Question what you read in newspapers. Question what you hear from political leaders, activists, pundits, economists, teachers, and even scientists. Think critically about what you see and hear, regardless of the source. Look for evidence and second opinions from multiple sources with a history of credibility. There are many individuals and organizations out there who benefit from your support and none of them are incorruptible.

throwaway09223 5y ago

"The use of ARPA as a Top Level Domain was only temporary, until its hosts selected some other domain. " Someone tell that to in-addr.arpa, lol. It's certainly still around https://www.iana.org/domains/arpa https://www.iana.org/domains/arpa The author really should've checked later RFCs.

uKGgZfqqNZtf7Za 5y ago
That is just further proof that .org doesn't mean credible.

kissgyorgy 5y ago

Technical people know this, non-technical people will click Continue on huge red pages warning for phishing. Not sure who is the target audience for this website.

jaza 5y ago

Any .org.au domain has to be a registered Australian not-for-profit (there are currently 11 allowed types). Similarly, any .com.au or .net.au domain has to be a registered Australian business. I assume various other countries are similarly strict about legitimacy of domain ownership, I've never checked. And yes, I know, these TLDs have nothing to do with .org / .com / .net, as such, except that they look similar. So, for .org.x domains for certain x at least, it does mean credible.