WordPress.com

1. agrypnia
   Member
   Jan 25, 2009, 1:09 PM

   I think that the justification given by WordPress about permanently removing deleted URL's from the domain space of WordPress is at best flimsy and at worst nonsensical.

   What if this was paralleled in the real world? Imagine if someone lived in a house then it was pulled down for some reason and when someone else wanted to build there he would be stopped by a law that said "No! When someone pulls down a house in this address then no one is allowed to build anything here for all eternity!" Or what if we applied this to a flat rental scenario? "If the current resident terminates his residency here then this flat must remain empty for all eternity!"

   I am sure that a great number of people are very frustrated when they discover that their favourite url name cannot be used because someone made a blog 5 years ago with the same name, wrote a single post and then forgot about it or deleted the whole blog.Why should WP users be subjected to having to create ugly letter-number-dashes URLs because of a policy that hardly anyone can find reason behind it other than the WP staff? How long before people turn away from WordPress precisely for this reason?

   At the very least the option should exist to send an email to someone who has an inactive blog for so many years or who had deleted his blog ages ago and politely ask for his consent in releasing the url for someone else.If he says no then so be it, leave it at that. But where is the harm in releasing the URL if he does say yes?

   I think it's about time WP sets up a formal poll for this issue so that all users can say what they really think about this instead of having to rely on forum posts like this one which soon get drowned in the sea of forum topics and dissapear from view.

2. jane
   Member
   Jan 25, 2009, 7:07 PM

   Since the WordPress.com domain is owned by Automattic, your example is not relevant.

   URLs are first come, first serve, just as they are in the top-level domain world. There are many many domains out there that do not have content associated with them because the owner has chosen to not use a specific URL anymore. In any case, the ownership of the WordPress.com domain is not up for grabs. If you want complete freedom to choose your URL without being restricted by Automattic's policy, you may wish to purchase your own top-level domain and map it to your wordpress.com blog so it will have the URL you want. Alternately, you could buy a top-level domain and host it yourself somewhere else and use the open source downloadable version of WordPress available at WordPress.org.

   Ultimately, I understand your frustration, and in some ways I agree with your point of view, but this is a business policy, not a situation that a user vote would change.

3. justjennifer
   Member
   Jan 25, 2009, 7:40 PM

   There are two different subjects here: deleted blogs and inactive blogs.

   I still find the reasons for not recycling deleted blogs quite valid. http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/07/recycling-blog-names/
   (and pardon me for saying that the new "Knowledgebase" has again let me down)

   Inactive blogs: Perhaps you've come across an inactive blog name that you want to use. If there is a comment form or contact form or email address on the blog, why not try writing the blog owner and see if they are willing to transfer it to you. What have you got to lose?

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.