What does the ML in Lemmy ML stand for?

@mateomaui@reddthat.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ml

It’s Mali. Period.

Just because someone registers a domain to host a website from Mali doesn’t mean they represent Mali. Tonga sells domains to anyone with the .to extension, which are used by many torrent sites because Tonga doesn’t care much about respecting piracy laws elsewhere.

You’re reading way too much into it.

Scrubbles

I’ve always hated that about DNS, I think it should have been more governed. For example with .gov, well .gov from the first point.

.gov shouldn’t be anything really except for like UN or something. It shouldn’t imply US.
US should be .us.gov, or Australia au.gov.
Ohio then should be ohio.us.gov
Akron of course akron.ohio.us.gov
and then logically all things like if you wanted to email the treasurer of Akron, Ohio it would be treasurer@akron.ohio.us.gov.

instead we have crazy domains like akronohio.gov. I mean, just the wild west of domains out here. It could have been so organized, people

@devilstrip@midwest.social

Given my username, I was naturally very surprised as I read through your example. (Totally agree btw, but that would make too much sense)

Scrubbles

Wait really? I swear I didn’t read your username I just randomly picked Akron!

@devilstrip@midwest.social

Wild! So devilstrip is what people from Akron call the grass between the road and the sidewalk.

Scrubbles

Never knew! That’s so so weird and funny!

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Why isn’t there another domain that they could have used so it doesn’t look like they’re from Mali?

@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca

Price.

The more common the tld (.com and .net for example are often double the price of many others) the more expensive it is to keep that domain registered.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Why is it top level if it’s so rare?

@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca

Top level as in it’s the top/beginning of the domain. (reading right to left separated by periods)

Domains have different parts: subdomain.rootzonedomain.topleveldomain

So using the example: google.com

Google owns the ‘google’ portion of the domain, called the root zone domain. They pay VeriSign Global Registry Services (the owner of the ‘com’ top level domain) to keep the fully qualified domain name ‘google.com’ registered to google inc. Google can then add anything they want to the beginning of the domain such as keep.google.com. These are called sub-domains. They could be part of and used by the company itself or even rented out by google the same way google pays VeriSign for their ‘com’ registration.

For example: No-ip is a service that will freely rent subdomains of their no-ip.com domain, mainly so you can easily reach your self-hosted services without needing to remember your home IP. You could host lemmy.no-ip.com if you wanted to.

The owners of sought after tlds like ‘com’ and ‘net’ set the prices higher than some others as there is more demand. Because of this many self-hosters amd smaller companies just use cheaper tlds like ‘ml’. The extra cost isn’t really worth it.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Great explanation. Thank you.

Scrubbles

there is no “rarity” with domain names. They are simply for sale. You can go buy any domain you want if it’s not taken (and unless it’s .gov or .mil, I believe those are restricted)

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Got it.

chandz05

“top level” just refers to that part of a website address. Think of it like a home address. “Road” or “Lane” etc would be the top level domain, then the road name would be the next level, and then the house number would specify exactly where on that particular road you want to go.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Got it.

@mateomaui@reddthat.com

Why do you care? What does it matter? Who gives a shit?

@favrion@lemmy.ml

If I’m asking, then it must mean that I am expressing interest in the topic, am I not?

@favrion@lemmy.ml

I do.

Twelph

Mind if I ask why? I don’t like their political views, but this seems like a non-issue to me unless I’m not understanding something. They’ve never made any claims about living in Mali, and it’s a popular and accepted trend of using domains that are convenient and cheap no matter their location. The only exceptions I believe are .gov and .edu.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Because it’s representing a foreign country. I have a better grasp of it now, but I didn’t understand why they did that.

Cauê

It is a cheap tld.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

What does TLD stand for?

JoshCodes

Top Level Domain, it’s like .com or .net

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Top level? I’ve only seen it here, so it’s more like buried at the bottom.

Scrubbles

Top is the highest level, again like .com, .net, then it moves down to lemmy.

ml->lemmy.
com->amazon.
com->google->mail

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Makes sense.

@phoenix591@lemmy.phoenix591.com

dns lookups ( what turns lemmy.ml into an address your computer can connect to) actually go right to left. first the root servers are asked, then they say go ask the ml servers and g, then they ask the lemmy.ml servers.

in practice, usually unless otherwise configured your isp’s name servers are asked first; if someone else has recently asked for the same site it remembers what the answer was and just gives the same to you.

~ $ dig lemmy.ml @a.root-servers.net

; &lt;&lt;>> DiG 9.18.17 &lt;&lt;>> lemmy.ml @a.root-servers.net
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER&lt;&lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 194
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 8
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;lemmy.ml.                      IN      A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
ml.                     172800  IN      NS      a.nic.ml.
ml.                     172800  IN      NS      b.nic.ml.
ml.                     172800  IN      NS      d.nic.ml.
ml.                     172800  IN      NS      c.nic.ml.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
a.nic.ml.               172800  IN      A       196.10.220.136
b.nic.ml.               172800  IN      A       165.90.218.166
b.nic.ml.               172800  IN      AAAA    2c0f:f900:2:3::2
d.nic.ml.               172800  IN      A       196.216.168.37
d.nic.ml.               172800  IN      AAAA    2001:43f8:120::37
c.nic.ml.               172800  IN      A       204.61.216.144
c.nic.ml.               172800  IN      AAAA    2001:500:14:6144:ad::1

dig lemmy.ml @a.nic.ml

; &lt;&lt;>> DiG 9.18.17 &lt;&lt;>> lemmy.ml @a.nic.ml
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER&lt;&lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 9343
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: 00164cf2465aee8df39824f664cda390738de0ec34953975 (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;lemmy.ml.                      IN      A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
lemmy.ml.               7200    IN      NS      ns04.freenom.com.
lemmy.ml.               7200    IN      NS      ns02.freenom.com.
lemmy.ml.               7200    IN      NS      ns03.freenom.com.
lemmy.ml.               7200    IN      NS      ns01.freenom.com.

dig lemmy.ml @ns04.freenom.com

; &lt;&lt;>> DiG 9.18.17 &lt;&lt;>> lemmy.ml @ns04.freenom.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER&lt;&lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 49838
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;lemmy.ml.                      IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
lemmy.ml.               3600    IN      A       54.36.178.108

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
lemmy.ml.               300     IN      NS      ns01.freenom.com.
lemmy.ml.               300     IN      NS      ns02.freenom.com.
lemmy.ml.               300     IN      NS      ns03.freenom.com.
lemmy.ml.               300     IN      NS      ns04.freenom.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns01.freenom.com.       7200    IN      A       54.171.131.39
ns02.freenom.com.       7200    IN      A       52.19.156.76
ns03.freenom.com.       7200    IN      A       104.155.27.112
ns04.freenom.com.       7200    IN      A       104.155.29.241

@favrion@lemmy.ml

This is very confusing.

@phoenix591@lemmy.phoenix591.com

anything in particular I can clear up?

blow by blow: first the request for an A record ( ipv4 address) for lemmy.ml is sent to a.root-servers.net ( one of several core name servers to the entire internet)

they don’t reply with an A record, but instead a few NS ( nameserver) records for .ml and then in the additional section also give use the ipv4 and ipv6 addresses to those .ml name servers

so we go ask those .ml servers again for an A record for lemmy.ml, they still don’t give us that A record, but instead say these ns.freenom.com name servers are responsible.

we ask one of them and they finally give us that A record: lemmy.ml is 54.36.178.108 so your computer knows to connect to 54.36.178.108 when you ask for lemmy.ml.

its the first and last two columns that are important. the second column is just how many seconds that information should be considered good for before asking again to make sure it hasn’t changed

@favrion@lemmy.ml

🫤 Okay. Thanks.

@sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz

In case you weren’t joking, Top Level Domain. So, .com, .edu, .ml, .tv, .org, etc.

Silverseren

It’s the Mali top level domain. The devs were just originally looking for a cheap domain to use.

Though I would expect they purposefully looked for one that let them have a dual-meaning, since the .ml also stands for Marxist-Leninist, as the devs are big Russia, China, and North Korea supporters.

livus

And by “cheap” we mean literally free in some cases.

Mali’s government was letting Freenom manage it. So it was a free domain name like .tk, with all the problems that entails with misuse.

Tagging you @favrion because no one seems to have mentioned this, and I think it answers your question.

@TrickDacy@lemmy.world

Source?

frevaljee

https://lemmy.ml/post/1167199?scrollToComments=true

@favrion@lemmy.ml

How do you know this?

Narrrz

huh, til. I always thought it was “matrix labs”

unpopular

It means whatever you want it to mean. Go wild!

EmotionalSupportLancet [undecided]

Mali was chosen because the dev team has a lot of communists and ML is often used as a shorthand for Marxism-Leninism. Tangentially related: If you ever see a communists who is strangely enthusiastic about MultiLevelMarketing they are probably talking about Marxism-Leninism-Maoism when they say MLM.

Sorry it took so long for somebody to answer.

@captainlezbian@lemmy.world

deleted by creator

@favrion@lemmy.ml

deleted by creator

sadreality

Tankie spotted

Alto

“The deaths of millions wasn’t bad guys”

Actually delusional

@favrion@lemmy.ml

I got mixed up with Taoism. My bad.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

Overpopulation crisis averted.

@favrion@lemmy.ml

I’m from the United States.

@remer@lemmy.ml

You should brush up on your history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

What does the ML in Lemmy ML stand for?

What does the ML in Lemmy ML stand for?

Lemmy Administration