Warning: You might not agree with everything I say in this post. Please feel free to tell me why I'm wrong in the comments.
Earlier today I came across a blog that, based on the tone of the posts and the recent blog creation date, appears to be written as part of a continuing education class requirement. One of the posts listed fifteen education websites. Each website was given a score of 0-100 based on a set of criteria. One part of the criteria was .org v. .org domains. Websites with .org domains were automatically given ten points while websites with .com domains were penalized ten points. Unfortunately, that teacher's blog post reflects a practice that I too often hear and see a lot of teachers telling their students to use. So I responded to the post with the comment that determining the validity of a website's content based on whether or not it uses .org is not a good practice. It's not a good practice because anyone can register a .org domain. If you want to test this for yourself head over to Go Daddy and see how quickly you can register "your name".org.
What is important to teach students is to recognize bias and recognize flawed reasoning displayed on websites. It is also important to teach students how to find the contact information for the author's of a website or blog. Then if you still feel that domain registry is an important criteria for determining validity, teach your students how to run a WHOIS domain registry search.
Where does .org v. .com rate in your criteria for determining the value of a website's or blog's content?
Footnotes:
1. I discovered the blog post I referenced above through a Google Alert I have set up for "Free Technology for Teachers." I purposely did not link to that person's blog because I did not want to bring undue negative attention to it. If the author I'm referencing contacts me with permission, I will link to it.
2. Free Technology for Teachers was given a relatively low score based on using a .com domain, having distracting advertising, and navigation difficulty. These are issues I was aware of before I redesigned the blog layout 8 days ago. If you have suggestions for making the layout better, please let me know because as Gary Vaynerchuk says, "I'm not talented enough to see what I've done wrong."
Monday, November 16, 2009
Why .Org v. .Com is Irrelevant
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15 comments:
I agree with you. The domain has nothing to do with the quality of the site. What that person is saying is that every site on Blogger is not as good because it has a .com extension. Very silly, irrelevant, and abstract.
I don't care what the extension of a web site is. I look at the content, author, and in some cases the references.
BTW - your layout is fine. I haven't had any problems navigating the site. I have ads on mine too.
.org and .com should not be part of the process of justifying the quality of content. Period. You are right. The ability of anyone to sign up a domain name with .org or .com (something that is perfectly okay and I support) automatically presents a question for every address. Assuming .org are more reliable than .com for information is silly. Just look at the popular http://www.martinlutherking.org/ example.
Thanks for your comment Dave.
A couple of examples to support what you're saying are DavidWarlick.com and NovemberLearning.com. I don't know any educators who would discount what those two giants of education say because they use .com domains.
I would say the .com vs .org argument is somewhat valid. In the thinking that before you view a site one would presume a .com is more related to the "promoting to sell" where as a .org would not have that same intent to "make a profit". At least from my point of view and obviously that is before I even view the site, just name recognition.
We need to teach students (and ourselves) to evaluate websites based on the content within them, not the domain or presence of advertising. While a domain extension or the presence of advertising may give readers information as to the overarching purpose of the site, it does not directly relate to quality. Further, many "for profit" sites give away helpful tools and information sources FOR FREE. (See Free by Chris Anderson for more on this phenomenon!)
There is value in teaching kids that they can specifically search .gov and .edu sites. I agree, .org and .com aren't valid distinctions anymore. Also, when I teach this to kids, I warn them that one "red flag" doesn't really mean anything, rather, 3-4 does.
This is going to sound made up but it's not. I purposely bought my domain as .org so that I could address this specific situation with my students, knowing that it would come up.
"When evaluating sites, what should we look for?"
"Well if it's .org then it's better than .com."
"Actually, my personal website is .org and the only reason is because I pay $1 more pear year."
"Oh."
I totally agree with you. I tell my students that site with .org could be an organization of one crazy person...
Mr. Gibson said it better and funnier but I also like to point out to students that even if a .org website is a non profit organization everyone has their bias, even if we agree with their bias. You always have to think critically about the content.
Totally agree. My website http://tenkely.org has a .org simply because .com was more expensive at the time. Has nothing to do with the quality of content, if I could have I would have gone with .com because it is easier for my students to remember.
These are the same types of absolutes that teachers and media specialists use when they tell students that the information found on wikipedia is not trustworthy. This is an ancient paradigm. Students need to evaluate everything they see and hear based on better criteria than 'my teacher told me so'.
I think the .com vs .org discussion is valid, but I don't agree with how this teacher used it. I wouldn't say that a website is any less of a site because it's .com or any more of a site because it's .org. I think students should be taught that, in general, this is what these extensions mean, but don't be fooled into thinking that that's the way it automatically is. It's kind of like English grammar: "This is the way it is, except if it's this, this or this and sometimes this."
As far as the layout of page...that's why I use Google Reader. I rarely visit the actual sites.
This post is right on... and I have been in one too many classrooms and libraries where this is taught, which is a VERY 1994 rule about the Internet. As I explain to my students: any idiot can buy a domain with most TLD... heck I own several.
Knowledge giving Article! I appreciate you. I completely agree with you. If we talk about current scenario then it is must be update. I enjoyed reading. I would like to visit more for more queries.
I just bought a .us domain- I know that I'll be passed over by some because I'm neither a .com or a .org. A few years ago, I would've done the same thing. At that time, it seemed as though most any domain that wasn't a .com or .org was infested w/ads (popups) or something equally as annoying or worse.
I chose .us because I thought if the .com & .org weren't available, I'd chose to be RTOA.US (Reading Teachers Online Arsenal- us; as in that's 'us' in the picture). Right now I'm only using /wp1 for my blog- I'm sure that'll really get some followers!
There's even a place http://domai.nr/ where if you can't get the name you want, try to search for a domain that completes your name- like http://edte.ch/
The guy that wrote that article, needs to reevaluate what's going on TODAY and do a changeup.
By the way, your site's great. I have no problem finding anything- ads schmads!
~~~ sharnon007 ~~~
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