Town/City Community Websites

axer

Hey y'all,

Has anyone come across any other city/town websites like athlone.ie and castlebar.ie in Ireland? i.e. a comprehensive website for the city/town. Is castlebar.ie and athlone.ie the best or has anyone here come across anything better?

Thanks,
Noel.

edit: I know there is dublin.ie but that is in a different league finance-wise than any other city/town.

bucks

We have one here in Templemore, www.templemore.ie

Also two other local towns, www.roscrea.ie , www.thurles.ie

WhatsGoingOn

axer wrote:

Hey y'all,

Has anyone come across any other city/town websites like athlone.ie and castlebar.ie in Ireland? i.e. a comprehensive website for the city/town. Is castlebar.ie and athlone.ie the best or has anyone here come across anything better?

Thanks,
Noel.

edit: I know there is dublin.ie but that is in a different league finance-wise than any other city/town.

Here are a few more, not sure how good or bad they are
www.celbridge.ie
www.castlecomer.ie
www.gortonline.com

sirpsycho

www.balbriggan.net

axer

WhatsGoingOn wrote:

www.castlecomer.ie

This one seems to be the best of them along with athlone.ie and castlebar.ie. Their doesn't seem to be a whole lot of town websites where the town councils and chambers of commerce have invested properly.

squibs

There are some non-council related ones too. I'm involved in this one:

http://www.mallowtown.com

and getting this one started:

http://www.cityofcork.com

richardo

http://www.enniskerry.ie

fintan

Im not sure if this is what your looking for but there is also www.neighbours.ie

cianuro

Doesn'tt he IEDR forbid registering a placename? Can someone point me in the direction of more information on this as I aould be interested in setting up something similar for my town.

mneylon

Placenames are not forbidden. They are restricted.

Basically what that means is that if you wanted to register $sometown.ie you would need to get the written permission of the local authorities - county council / city council / corporation
For example:

domain: enniskerry.ie
descr: Wicklow County Council
descr: Statutory Body
descr: Discretionary Name

or
domain: cork.ie
descr: Cork City Council
descr: Statutory Body
descr: State Agency Name

cianuro

Thanks Blacknight. Much appreciated.
So all I need to do is contact my local county council and request that I create the site?

The domain I want is already registered but redirects to a county council landing page. What do you suggest?

What sort of documentation do I need from them? How is the domain transferred (If it is at all).
Dave

mneylon

Your best bet would be to approach the local council (or whatever) and explain what you wanted to do. It would then be a matter of them updating the DNS for the domain to point to where you were going to use it - presuming that they were to grant you permission to do so....

There's a lot of "ifs" I'm afraid

cianuro

Thanks a lot for that. I'll get onto them so.
It wont be a for profit thing anyway. My Town just doesn't have a decent website

Thanks again.

axer

cianuro wrote:

Thanks a lot for that. I'll get onto them so.
It wont be a for profit thing anyway. My Town just doesn't have a decent website

Thanks again.

I wouldn't get my hopes up though.

You should contact organisations like the local Chamber of Commerce etc for backing.

Good Luck.

cianuro

Thanks, I'll do that.
Sorry for hijacking the thread.

richardo

To summarise what Blacknight and Axer have said, placenames [.ie] are under the control of the local county council.

If you wish to use one, you will have to get a letter of recommendation from some local recognised body such as a Chamber of Commerce or a local Traders Association. So you will have to convince your local body that the site is legit and worthy of support.

Even then, they will not release the domain to your control, but will point it to your site from their DNS [and will probably retain the MX records, so you can't create e-mail addresses]. This gives them the power to remove the site from the Net if you suddenly decide to promote p0rn

The whole idea is to ensure that regional websites are of reasonable standard and reflect well on the community.

The alternative is to go down the .com/.net [etc] route, but it is very unlikely that townname.com will be available so you would have to modify it by adding something to the name [townname-web.com or whatever]

GoneShootin

mitchelstown.ie is currently owned by those feckers in Galtee Meats (part of the Mitchelstown Cheese brand). What success would someone doing a portal site for Mitchelstown would have in getting the domain from them I wonder....

richardo

Technically, that should have been registered by the County Council but obviously the IEDR made an exception to their own rules. Another example of this is "avoca.ie".

The chances of getting a name back, once it is established are virtually nil. However, seeing as Mitchelstown.ie is not actually in use, you might have a case for appeal with the IEDR? :rolleyes: I presume the relevent council would have to do this...

The rule as stated by the IEDR http://www.domainregistry.ie/NamingPolicy.php is as follows:

3.6: The proposed domain name must not contravene the geographical name regulation. This regulation requires that no domain name may consist of Irish geographical name(s), word(s) or description(s), or a combination of such, followed by .ie, which in the view of the Registry would be likely to be misleading if registered in the name of the applicant, or if registered would be likely to infer or to imply that the applicant had exclusive or certain rights emanating from such a domain name.

These names, which can most often be defined as names that appear on official maps, are only registered to relevant local authorities. The Registry will not be involved in arrangements between local authorities and third parties regarding the use of the domain name. Quasi-geographical names that do not appear on official maps, such as Leeside, Bayside, Liffey Valley etc. are usually acceptable domain name applications from non-local authority applicants. Applications comprising corporate names, Trade Marks etc. and which include a (real) geographical name are usually compelled to include the "product" name in the domain name. For example, Westmeath Mountaineering Products would be obliged to include "mountaineering", or a derivation, at a minimum, in their domain name.