Farewell typographi.ca

That shit is WACK. Stay strong, brother.

Er...what's wrong with this as a permanent domain?

I'm curious about what Canadian-centric typography site will take root at the old typographi.ca domain.

Sorry you lost your site's domain name Stephen. This story seems completely bizarre from the outside and I'm sure this whole experience was one big headache. I'm sure your next move/relaunch will be a good one.

I just went to the site. It made me sick. seriously. I am Canadian and the web site embarassas me. They can take away your name, but not your soul brother. This still is the best place.

Quite frankly, if Canadia's *that* nervous about losing its culture to the Guys Down South, then they probably don't have all thet vibrant of a culture to begin with. Fascist measures like this just stink of desperation--it's as if the French Academy had teeth.

Er…what’s wrong with this as a permanent domain?

A valid question, Su. I just really don't like it. And I hate to see folks mistakenly refer to us as Typographicom.

Typographicom isn't so bad. I know that it isn't your name, but it has a certain zeitgeist to it. This is a website, after all. It makes you sound like you are a collection of all things typographic (in the modern, contemporary sense). And Typographica has a history all of its own…

Although Typographicom does sound gimicky, at the same time.

Sad news. Thankfully, Typographica lives on, even if it's lost the original domain name it started out with.

Maybe we need to start a fund drive to buy the typographica.com domain, the next best thing.

Hey Ricardo. I asked the sellers about typographica.com and the price is far too high. It's coo, we've already acquired a new domain and we'll announce it shortly.

typographi.ca.us.gov?

hhp

typographica.BIZ

:P

Those unmitigated hosers!

If the Canadians want to distinguish themselves from us more clearly, they can start by making their coinage in a different range of sizes. I'm sick of Canadian non-change making its way into my pocket. :-P

Long live Typographi.com!

> they can start by making their coinage
> in a different range of sizes.

Yeah, that would totally be enough, since money (and the "commercial" in John's love, ".com") is the essence of life, eh? After all, it says "in God we trust" right on it...

Long live Typographica, as long as it remains devoid of obsessive materialism.

hhp

Dude, I was making a joke.

Then -especially considering your historical stance on such matters- please use the semicolon.

hhp

Oh, for cryin' out loud. I'm tired of screening your comments on this one, Hranter. Lay off the broad politics, please.

Dude, I was making a joke.* I know damn well that serious comments about the core issues are verboten. Kidding around about fonts is a much better use of time.

* Well, now I am.

hhp

How embarrassing.

Am I to understand that e.g. I or another Canadian as official owner of the domain wouldn't have been good enough for them?

Sorry, no semicolons in my emoticons. For some reason I've always found the whole idea of winking rather vulgar.

Actually, our primary registrant was/is a Canadian citizen. He faxed CIRA a copy of his passport and ID. That wasn't enough for CIRA; they wanted, apparently, the majority of the users of the site to be Canadian, or for the site to contain content specific to Canadian culture, from what I can understand.

I don't see how this content isn't relevent to Canadian culture, since North American design draws from pretty much the same resources and philosophies. Maybe you needed to have the words "maple syrup," "moose," and "mountie" in your meta tags.

Cira is a hoser.

You know, not for nothing, but typographi.ca never did spend much time talking about hockey. Just saying.

wait a minute… you had a site "owned" and registered by a Canadian, and this agency was still able to pull the plug? And they pulled it because they didn't find the content useful, or Canadian enough?

And I heard that the crack down on free speech was going a little overboard in Canada's southern-neighboring nation… ;-)

If the Canadian registrant's name had been stuck in the
masthead instead of yours and JLT's, would the site still have been axed? Maybe they took the time to actually read the website, and found out about this little residency prank…

I'm saddened by how this whole situation turned out. I'm very proud to be canadian, however, like other countries sometimes decisions are made by complete morons.

Apparently I misunderstood the nature of the web. I was always under the impression that websites were for everyone to view. Fortunately there's CIRA, that knows it's important for other countries to not see Canadians make valuable cultural contributions to the world. They only want Canadians to see that.

Very important.

typographi.ca is dead!
Long live Typographica(com)!

It's strange. I think in Italy such thing would not be possible. But maybe it's just a question of waiting a new era of Fascism.
And I feel pretty safe about that, if this should came from our so-called "right-wing". The latest news about our President Berlusconi is that he wore a bandana for a short time to hide his new hair implant. How are we cool right now? (sigh!)

It's a shame about the domain, but it seems to me that this is all just a matter of one potential loophole having not worked out. Residence requirements for country-level domains aren't anything new, and it seems to follow logically that if you have residence requirements, you also don't let residents register domains in trust for non-residents, because if you do that, you don't have residency requirements anymore.

I agree that .ca is particularly good for making words out of domain names (I own "mati.ca") but that's not what it's /for/, and it seems to be a bit of a stretch to turn "the loophole didn't work out" into Stalinism.

But requiring the content to be
Grand Purely Canadian is ludicrous.

hhp

For a few of you (*ahem* DZD), I should point out that the CIRA does not actually represent anyone. Nada. Zilch. I do not have any fascist leanings that I am aware of.

That said, however, CIRA is a hoser.

Side note: if you originally registered this domain with UBC and transferred it to CIRA prior to November 8, 2000, you are covered by a grandfather clause that states you are "deemed to satisfy the Canadian Presence Requirements for Registrants" - unless, in the meantime, the domain has been transferred to another registrar or person (Section 1.2 of the CIRA General Rules).

Section 2.1.k.ii says you can register a .ca domain if you are "An institution, whether or not incorporated, that is not established or conducted for profit or does not form part of, or is not administered or directly or indirectly controlled by, a body that is established or conducted for profit, in which is held and maintained a collection of documents and other materials that is open to the public or to researchers;" and is located in Canada. There is no reference in this paragraph to the "80% of members must be Canadian residents" clause, so it is not valid in this case.

Hell, if "typographi.ca" were a trademark or a trademarked official mark (not my words, folks), you would be allowed to register a .ca domain name. As long as it's registered in Canada, anyways.

But I am not a lawyer. Some of you out there may decide I am an idiot, since these options have undoubtedly already been looked into. Delete this post at will.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for the site!

Typographicom just makes me think of Transformers. More Than Meets The Eye.

You're onto us, Jordan.

Prepare to strike
There'll be no place to run
When you're caught within the grip
Of evil Typographicom

i'm going to catch hell for this, but i think i'm going to have to side with our registrar.

before i start. 1) it's unfortunate that canadian-owned google ads/random web-crap have supplanted your old site. 2) the CIRA process is unfair. (If I as a Canadian was the sole owner of a .ca domain, they could still pull me offline to conduct a 'review'!)

However, what everyone here is saying is that residency requirements for domain ownership should be abolished. i'm not sure that's the right reaction. ownership restrictions make domain names useful. you know that you'll be hitting an educational institution if you visit whatever.edu. you know that it's the US gub'mint when you visit whatever.gov. country-level domains with no residency requirements rapidly become useless. .TO, for instance, has become a last-resort for people whose legitimate .com domain has been snapped up.

the reason companies, organizations and individuals are creeping into country domains to which they have no ties is occasionally for a clever name (typographi.ca), but more often because their .com is being occupied by cybersquatters and domain-name speculators (see the present owners of typographica.com). if more was done to clear out this riff-raff, the desire for people to use domain names to which they are not really suited would likely fade.

Your insolence shall be your downfall, Prime...

I'm with you Optimus. The authorities should refocus energy on limiting the ability to squat.

Yeah, it's awesome that Amazon.ca could afford to incorporate in Canada. That's awesome. And that a certain not-to-be-named Canadian bank has recently moved their server farm and CS staff to New Delhi. Stick it to the poor guys at Typographica!

Quick note: www.melbourneit.com.au now owns the previously marvelous domain typographi.ca - oh, swell... sell it to the bloody Australians? Just great, that is.

Where'd you see that, TMRDD? This whois says the owner is in Montreal.

Hello from Vancouver, Canada.

First time visitor to Typograhi.com. Wonderful site! Thanks to all concerned for your time and efforts from typography appreciator and fontaholic.

Interesting and, sometimes, strong discussion regarding the change from ".ca" to ".com". Too bad? Perhaps. World changing? Not really. Is the site still great? I suspect so. Other than that, how's your day?

With warm regards,
Leigh

As a Canadian Graphic Artist, I am proud to be showcasing my work from a Canadian stand point. It's in my opinion as well that if a .ca suffix is on your sites name, then you should be representing the country in question.

All advertising aside, the web has been a great outlet for artists and other such entities to showcase themselves on a grand scale for other countries and individuals to see. There has to be some order within all the chaos that floats about within cyberspace.

I'm sorry for your sites loss, and I realize how much a pain this is, but unfortunately not you or I matter on this account, and like many other things in life, this decision has been made by someone with just a touch of power.

I know this isn't the end to your site and I apoligize for the CIRA decision. Good luck with the .com suffix and I wish you well in the future. Merry Xmas!

One proud Canuck,
Sinzen

Sinzen,

Did you get a chance to see what sort of organization is currently representing Canada at our old domain?

All joking aside, I appreciate your remarks and agree on the whole. We wish you a merry Christmas as well.

The site currently occupying (and I use the term 'occupy' very loosely in this case) the typographica.org address is an attrociously uninspired replacement, verging on domain squatting, and simply underscores the fact that CIRA has their collective bureaucratic head up their ass (pardon my Francophonism).

CIRA did the right thing.
Why even create .ca if it's not for Canadians? -- or businesses registered in Canada, and consequently paying taxes there.
And then, if you're going to have .ca, you need regulations to define Canadianness, and these should be policed, with no exceptions for artisitic merit.

(BTW, I'm no big fan of nationalism, but the "country suffixes" do serve a purpose in promoting local culture against global uniformity, and local business against trans-nationals)

But wouldn't it be nice if, as Optimus terms it, the "riff-raff" were cleaned up, and also companies like Netidentity.
"shinn.com", which would be my preferred URL, is owned by them: "Netidentity owns over 15,000 popular surname-based domain names and allows anyone to use them for email and website addresses". How kind.

I suppose I could get Shinn.ca, but like many Canadian businesses (eg Veer) whose main market is the US, I went for the .com URL (shinntype.com). Actually, I had it before .ca came on the scene, and decided there was no point in paying for the additional URL.

I also give my prices in US dollars. Perhaps it would be different if the Canadian dollar were worth more than the US dollar...

> promoting local culture
> against global uniformity

Which it seems you're not helping out either though...

And it's certainly not the currency being worth less (in global public perception), it's the culture. Is Japan 100 times less significant than the US?

The bottom line is that you simply can't have much individual identity when your best friend is the world's behemoth. You either have to be less of a friend, or accept being subservient. And whining will only make perceptions worse.

hhp

It seems that CIRA understands their situation and has appropriately registered CIRASUCKS.CA

Please use this web address for any furthur .CA registar information you may require.

I've also just noticed that CANADA.US is already taken. Oh well. :)

The guidelines for registering a .ca domain were right out there for you to read. If you didn't bother to read them -- and make sure you understood everything -- before registering the domain, or if you chose to simply ignore the guidelines altogether, you really don't deserve any sympathy.

Sorry, but it was really your own fault.

Should a Californian be allowed to put New York license plate on his car because he wants to display the statue of liberty? Of course not.

If you can't be "clever" and run the domain name into the suffix, why not just put the entire domain name in the correct slot? Or suck it up and go with something else?

Telly, please read the original article and all the comments. We have a large editorial board; the site represents work from authors all over the world; the individual who registered the site is indeed a Canadian citizen. CIRA completely ignored this because our content was not "Canadian" enough. Unfortunately, this measurability of what is and what is not Canadian is not addressed anywhere in the CIRA agreement, then or now, and in fact there is absolutely no mention of the necessity that a site must be somehow Canadian in character in that document.

Copies of the Canadian passport and drivers license of the person who registered this site were sent to CIRA three times. They never told us exactly why the site was taken down.

all this proto-national'ism' about a suffix seems completely small minded. What we need is more language and less uptightness. i could care less about who registers .pt domain names, and i don't have to go and read the rules about portugueseness, maybe the people at cira should try John Perry Barlow instead. there's this caracter in the last wim wenders film, that says (and correct me if my memory fails me): my country is people, i can't imagine nothing wiser than that. the internet as no countries. anyway, loved the Helvetica meditations piece.

all my best

What's most funny of course is that some Canadians are naive enough to believe that rabidly limiting usage of the ".ca" will somehow stop Canada's precipitous slide into American non-description. If you really care about being Canadian, I fear you need to be a teeny bit more drastic than this. But of course that would be Bad For Business...

hhp

I don't get what the problem was with the .ca and why my governemnt took exception to it, there are many US sites on .ca domain names just like there are many Canadian sites on .us and other country domains. It makes no sense but as many have said, something is always better than nothing.

Now isn't that just so Canadian, the more I meet, the less I want to go there. Why are Canadians so insular, petty and then smug?

So link farm portal today, spam nation tomorrow and then we can block them from the internet. You are so off the radar.

It's not easy having a big fat cyclops as your only neighbor.

hhp

It's melting.

hhp

right, well, and Canada is trying to play behemooth, sending up warships into Danish territory to ensure friendly relations with your eastern neighboor :)

I love the Hans Island dispute, it's hillarious! two pacifist countries playing superpowers, haha

anyway, seeing what replaced typographica.org i can only conclude that the rules must have, quite a glitch somewhere around.

Countries are free to administer their top-level domains as they see fit. Just because .tv decided to open up to the highest bidder doesn't mean others have to as well. Many countries hang on to their two-letter ISO codes very jealously. There is so little value in selling domains that keeping a large selection dark for future use is actually a reasonable use of the resource.

An argument can be made that the CIRA did not do this stuff in a very reasonable manner, but they were chartered by the government to bring the administration of .ca back into line with the original guidelines. If they happen to read these guidelines the way the devil reads the bible, I am not surprised a bit. So it goes. A new broom often sweeps very clean, indeed.

Certainly, the CIRA is going to take a dim view of a domain that primarily exists because it happens to be a word that ends in "ca". I mean, really. There is nothing else about this (excellent) site that seems to satisfy the requirements that have always been there for use of a .ca domain. If your mom was handed these details and then asked to interpret the current guidelines to see if the site satisfied any of the requirements, you can bet she would toss the site on on its ass in a Montreal second.

I'm sure we could all find many, many non-Canadian governmental responses that are just as annoying. Oh wait; a governmental agency that, as an aggregate, is unwilling to realize the work involved in switching domains, DNS &etc? Qu'elle Surprise!

I also point y'all toward the direction of the (now, quite old) ".edu" story. Turns out that this is now only for US educational entities, though this is contrary to the original intent of that particular TLD. How about that.

Some good thoughts, clvrmnky, but I refer you back to my original point. Have you looked at typographica.org? Is there anything about that site that satisfies CIRA's requirements? If the organization is going to make decisions based on the site's content, why is it that an Amazon affiliate link farm is allowed and genuine, informed content is not?

Have you looked at typographi.ca? Is there anything about that site that satisfies CIRA's requirements?

Well, yeah. It's a parked site owned by a Canadian hosting/domain company. Probably the domain company that won the bid to administer the day-to-day ops of .ca sites. It is obviously up for grabs by any real entity that can claim the right and pay the "10 dollars".

I'm assuming that no one here is seriously claiming that the current typographi.ca is actually a real site? Because it is clearly a parked ad site by the company allowed to administer the .ca domain.

The content there has nothing to do with what is being discussed here. As I suggested in my original comment, .ca sites have the same basic value to the CRIA whether they are a parked site or a real site. What matters is that the CRIA is chartered (and I mean that word in all the ways that the interpretation of Canadian common law suggests) with maintaining the .ca domain. They have done so, even if it means in this case that they have handed it off to a domain company who will rent it to the next interested party that satisfies the requirements set out in that charter.

Or, to put it another way, this actually may have been more of an issue if they had let typographi.ca stay until it was challenged by some other group claiming to have more of a right under current Canadian law. Certainly, a case could be made by a current owner if the CRIA did not act in a timely manner under the law in good faith before a dispute was filed.

I suspect the CRIA is saving itself all sorts of heartbreak by cleaning house now, instead of waiting until the site came into dispute. The CRIA does not want to be an arbiter (or worse) a defendant in some law suit over the interpretation of the law.

This is business as usual on the internets. There are plenty of TLDs out there to use, and one could do worse than .org. (I'm actually surprised that typographica.org was available).

Sweet! I really needed more clip art.
http://typographi.ca/index.php?c=4
NOW my design projects will look professional.

this is an absolute disgrace. "Top searches: Graffiti fonts - Japanese calligraphy - Flower tattoos" come on now.

I knew we should just have annexed them.