Are drupal domain sales acceptable content?

I pointed that out on IRC earlier but I think everyone is asleep. :) I would have to say no, especially because of potential trademark issues. Plus, we don't allow putting up any other for sale ads so why make an exception for domains.

Michelle

Why ebay and not a domain brokerage site?

It would be good if the drupal forums had extra forums for misc things. A support only forum seems a bit dry. Most normal forums have places were people can chat about anything or in the above case a place where one can say hey I got a drupal name domain Im getting rid of anyone want it. Drupal.org should also have a blog, forums are so yesterday and out dated. Most people prefer blogs these days.

I have unpublished this for now. As far as blogs go, use a blog, we have this software called 'Drupal' you know which makes excellent websites.

I agree this shouldn't be allowed. Drupal.org should not become the marketplace for products unless it benefits drupal.org in some way. If the domain was being sold and the proceeds/part of the proceeds were going to d.o or the d.a my tune may be different.

If this is allowed, I think it would unintentionally condone cybersquatting domains for resale where the use of drupal in the domain name is concerened.

I don't think so.

It is an interesting question, I'm kind of surprised it was unpublished.

We have the hosting forums which were changed 1 or 2 years ago to reduce the spam-magent they had become. They are now for asking questions about hosting companies and not meant to be about advertising for specific hosting companies.

We have the paid services forum, which is for advertising job needs but not for advertising yourself as a service provider. (which went through a similar, useful -> spam -> useful transition as the hosting forum).

We do allow advertisements in the announcements forums for a variety of Drupal related products (which are also appropriate on groups.drupal.org) for example Do it with Drupal and of course there are dozens of books that are advertised in the announcements forum (and even promoted to the front page, usually).

So, I'm OK with this one instance being unpublished because the announcement itself is hardly newsworthy. But I don't feel good about any sort of policy or trend toward "drupal.org is not a place to announce things for sale" even if we have to be careful about what products/announcements we do allow. I feel we should let the comments on the post act as the review rather than a specific policy. If someone simply explained in a comment "this domain is dumb" that would go further, IMO, than censorship.

reopening for further discussion based on greggles comment.

@WorldFallz - I agree with you that there is a line here that makes this specific for sale domain unacceptable while other "for sale" posts (like those I mentioned) are acceptable and beneficial. It would be nice to have a bit more of a sense of what the differences are, though.

I want to make this crystal clear: selling stuff is OK and I won't republish that post until it's cleared by the Drupal trademark holder.

Sounds good to me. FTR, I didn't want to re-open this specific issue but get some clarity on what makes a "for sale" post acceptable unacceptable.

It seems clear: things that are clearly relevant to Drupal.org's visitors and that comply with any project related legal policies should stay. Those that aren't or don't comply, don't stay.

Yeah, here's my vote for a strict "no sale" policy apart from explicit Drupal stuff.

This does not IMO conflict with the fact that we have reviews of books on the site.

I agree with Gerhard.

Perhaps a forum for these things isn't a bad way forward. At the very least it would keep them from being thrown into news and annoucements. If a forum is used, I'd suggest a GIANT caveat emptor as well as a notice that drupal.org and perhaps the D.A isn't in any way accepting responsibility for a sale gone bad.

If you want to do that, I suggest getting Crell's thoughts...

Michelle

I don't believe a dedicated forum for these posts is the way to go.

Personally, I'm not extremely bothered by these posts, but I also don't see what they really have to do with Drupal since once you get a domain, you can change the website to whatever the new owner wants.

If we say 'no' to them, we just need to document them. If we keep them, I propose just 'stuffing' them into Paid Services.

The only bother from me is from the perspective that, similar to the paid services forum, and for that matter the hosting forum, when something goes bad they come back to drupal.org to vent about so and so ripping them off, blah blah bah. It's a matter of time before the same thing happens with one of these domain / website sales.

If we allow it, we in some way condone it. The unsuspecting purchaser who get's ripped off feels justified in bad mouthing on drupal.org even though drupal really had nothing to do with the situation beyond .... allowing the post.

Sure they aren't ripping drupal directly but those rants/vents/arguments look terrible on the drupal.org forums and adversely impact the legit business being done in those forums.

Perhaps the percentage of these rants/vents is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. If that percentage grows it can leave a bad taste in the mouths of people looking to do any legit business with any of the outfits/individuals offering services in any of the forums.

Seems there is a consensus that we don't want this, I've unpublished that node.

Maybe somebody wants to contact user http://drupal.org/user/560250 and explain.

I sent a message to the user.

Hello, Linuk.

I am writing you to report that posts about domain names being sold (even if the domain name contains "drupal") are not the kind of posts that users like to see on Drupal.org.
Your post has been unpublished (http://drupal.org/node/595938). Please don't create another similar post.

Best regards,
kiamlaluno
Drupal.org site maintainer
Drupal.org user administrator

Okay, so is there anything left to do on this issue? Looks like the decision was made that we don't want to allow selling non-Drupal stuff.

Doesn't seem like there is anything left to do. Based on #26 consensus was met, and #27 the user was contacted.

marking fixed

does this information need documenting anywhere on drupal.org, or is this issue enough in that regard?