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From: msb@sq.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: The Canadian Domain: Introduction to CA
Message-ID: <1987Nov25.131317.26029@sq.uucp>
Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 13:13:17 EST
Article-I.D.: sq.1987Nov25.131317.26029
Posted: Wed Nov 25 13:13:17 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 02:53:34 EST
References: <1987Nov23.095020.13055@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1152@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Distribution: can
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto
Lines: 25
Checksum: 34877
Summary: Make that Ca.

Here's a late thought on the matter of the domain name.  I "understand,
with reluctance" -- I would say great reluctance -- why we can't have
the normal abbreviation Can, or even the other standard Cdn, and must
have something that looks like California instead.

But CASE is not significant in domain names.  If we spell it "Ca", it
looks a lot LESS like California.  (It does look like calcium, but I don't
think that will confuse anyone.)  The form "ca" would also be acceptable in
this respect, but less so, since it looks like "CA" transformed to lower case.

Can we establish the precedent that the name will, as a matter of style,
normally be spelled as "Ca"?

By the way, to Brad's suggestion:
> Instead of ON and PQ and AB what's wrong with "Ontario" and "Quebec" and
> "Alberta?"   Computers are very good at arranging aliases. ...

I respond that anything that keeps down the length of mail headers these days
is probably good.  Especially when the header is of a mailing list message
sent to numerous people!  Anyway, I'd *rather* see short and well-known
abbreviations used when the context is so standardized.  Just as /bin is
better than /binary, .ON.Ca is better than .Ontario.Canada.

Mark Brader, Toronto			"Don't be silly -- send it to Canada"
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com			     -- British postal worker