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SBAY.ORG Domain Park One of sbay.org's primary purposes is to act as a "domain park", an informal organization of communications hobbyists where individuals can set up their own networked hosts, e-mail sites or subdomains under the domain names of "sbay.org" or "sbay.com". We serve sites mainly in Silicon Valley and the South Bay Area of Northern California. Participation requires sufficient technical expertise to run a site. Though many have started with some research and learned as they went. On this Page Internet Subdomain Registration Internet Host Registration Experimental Wireless Network Connectivity UUCP Host Registration and Connectivity Other Relevant Pages SBAY Wireless Network SBAY.ORG Policies

Please note that sbay.org is not a top-level domain registrar. sbay.org's domain park services are only for subdomains and various kinds of hosts within the sbay.org and sbay.com domains. Since we've been asked a few times, we want to make it clear that if you have a request regarding any other domain, whether in .org, .com, .net or elsewhere, you are on your own. Do-it-yourself subdomains are the traditional definition of a "domain park", regardless of some recent improper uses by inexperienced domain registrars.

Details about sbay.org's domain park services are as follows:

Internet Subdomain Registration

Since there are annual fees for registering domains in .com, .org and .net, some individuals prefer to join a domain park to avoid the costs. The registration burden is mostly lower, though the expectations of responsibility are higher because sbay.org's coordinators retain an overall responsibility for these domains to the outside world. So subdomains of sbay.org or sbay.com are available to people who meet these requirements:

• The coordinators of sbay.org must have met you. (Exceptions may be made for individuals with records of significant contribution to Internet technical and community projects.)
• Subdomain and host names are allocated first-come first-served so the name must not already be taken within sbay.org, sbay.com or sbay.net. The sbay.org coordinators reserve the option to subjectively reject any name, but will provide a reason for such a decision.
• For the subdomain's primary nameserver, you must have at least one static-IP host reachable from the public Internet with full-time land-line connectivity of at least 128Kbps (xDSL, cable modem or better.) You must be willing and able to administer on an ongoing basis for upcoming years.
• You must accept responsibility for the activities of hosts in your subdomain and represent the whole subdomain to sbay.org's coordinators, even if you delegate hosts or subdomains to other people.
• You must be able to administer the services (web, e-mail, news, etc.) which your hosts perform.
• You must be willing and able to answer reasonable questions and complaints which sbay.org might receive about hosts in your subdomain. We will not allow outsiders to ask questions which invade your privacy. But we expect prompt assistance with fixing anything which inconveniences an sbay.org volunteer or any reports related to spam, open mail/news relays, denials of service, intrusions, and other security matters.
• sbay.org policies apply to sbay.org subdomains.

Failure to maintain these conditions may result in revokation of your subdomain registration.

You may provide secondary nameservers, or sbay.org's nameservers will handle that for immediate subdomains. However you are responsible for all nameservers for any subdomains you delegate from your subdomain.

Note that subdomains and host names in the sbay.net domain are only available for participants in sbay.org's SBAY Wireless Network.

Internet Host Registration

Sometimes a participant wants a host name in sbay.org or sbay.com without the additional responsibilities and resources required to maintain a whole subdomain. That can be accomodated under the following conditions:

• Your host must have a static IP address, reachable from the public Internet.
• Subdomain and host names are allocated first-come first-served so the name must not already be taken within sbay.org, sbay.com or sbay.net. The sbay.org coordinators reserve the option to subjectively reject any name, but will provide a reason for such a decision.
• You must accept responsibility for the activities of your host and represent it to sbay.org's coordinators.
• You must be able to administer the services (web, e-mail, news, etc.) which your host performs.
• You must be willing and able to answer reasonable questions and complaints which sbay.org might receive about your host. We will not allow outsiders to ask questions which invade your privacy. But we expect prompt assistance with fixing anything which inconveniences an sbay.org volunteer or any reports related to spam, open mail/news relays, denials of service, intrusions, and other security matters.
• sbay.org policies apply to sbay.org Internet hosts.

Failure to maintain these conditions may result in revokation of your host registration.

Host names can be upgraded to subdomains. However, this should not be attempted until the operator is confident that a subdomain can be maintained reliably for years to come.

Note that subdomains and host names in the sbay.net domain are only available for participants in sbay.org's SBAY Wireless Network.

Experimental Wireless Network Connectivity

See the SBAY Wireless Network page.

UUCP Host Registration and Connectivity

UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol) was originally how civilians accessed e-mail and netnews before the Internet was opened up to the public in 1987. And it remained popular until around 1995-1996 when Internet services became inexpensive enough that most individuals opted for it instead.

At one time, sbay.org volunteers provided UUCP connectivity to 50 sites with a user population estimated near 10,000, mostly concentrated on a handful of large bulletin board systems (BBSs).

Today, UUCP is just a small niche in sbay.org. The main application in new UUCP sites today is for dial-up IP users to collect and send e-mail in batch mode via UUCP over IP. As long as we have volunteers willing to provide the service, sbay.org will continue to accept requests for UUCP connectivity. It is subject to the following conditions:

• UUCP-over-modem connectivity is subject to availability of a volunteer within local-calling range from you.
• You must fill out a UUCP map to register a UUCP host. (sbay.org uses the pathalias software to automate generation of DNS mail-exchanger records for your host. UUCP maps are the input file format for pathalias. We intend to replace UUCP maps with XML in the future.)
• You are responsible to pick up your mail according to the schedule you arrange with the volunteer who provides your connectivity. You must notify your provider and/or sbay.org's coordinators of any downtime longer than 3 days. If we have to shut down your feed because you abondoned it without notifying anyone (which means you left your mail piled up on a volunteer's disk), we guarantee any request to re-enter sbay.org later will be significantly delayed or denied.
• UUCP host names are allocated first-come first-served so the name must not already be taken within sbay.org, sbay.com or sbay.net. The sbay.org coordinators reserve the option to subjectively reject any name, but will provide a reason for such a decision.
• You must accept responsibility for the activities of your UUCP host and represent it to sbay.org's coordinators.
• You must be able to administer the services (e-mail, news, etc.) which your UUCP host performs.
• You must be willing and able to answer reasonable questions and complaints which sbay.org might receive about your UUCP host. We will not allow outsiders to ask questions which invade your privacy. But we expect prompt assistance with fixing anything which inconveniences an sbay.org volunteer or any reports related to spam, denials of service, intrusions, and other security matters.
• sbay.org policies apply to sbay.org UUCP hosts.

Failure to maintain these conditions may result in revokation of your UUCP host registration.

UUCP host names can be upgraded to Internet host names.

Last updated: July 09, 2006