Say goodbye to nedbatchelder.com

Friday 17 February 2006 — This is close to 19 years old. Be careful.

Through a series of missteps, this domain name is due to expire on Sunday, and I cannot seem to get in touch with the current registrar. I’ve initiated a transfer to another registrar, but the status is set to Locked, so I don’t think it will succeed. I fear the worst. One of the reasons the domain is expiring is that I did not receive the usual “your domain is about to expire” emails from the registrar. Their “forgot password” link doesn’t seem to do anything. Wish me luck. If anyone’s got any ideas about how to rescue a beloved domain name from the horrors of incompetent registrars and malicious squatters, please chime in.

Comments

Will Rickards 10:10 AM on 17 Feb 2006

You probably need to contact Scott who I think -is- jumpdomain. They recently started phone support so you can contact him at 1-800-661-1963 which is the hosting support number.

Also I had my domain for a long time so this page applied to me a while ago when I had to renew. Make sure you have an account on the new system. I had to set one up I think.
https://domains.jumpdomain.com/index.cgi?page=old_users.tmpl

Ned Batchelder 10:30 AM on 17 Feb 2006

Will, thanks for pointing out that number. But calling it gets a message: "The number you have dialied is temporarily unavailable."

Say goodbye Gracie...

Clint 11:15 AM on 17 Feb 2006

Crap. This is scary. I read your site every day. Can you appeal to a registrar upstream? What is the exact time of expiration? Maybe some of your avid readers could attempt to grab it for you immediately upon expiration?

Mike 11:30 AM on 17 Feb 2006

"Maybe some of your avid readers could attempt to grab it for you immediately upon expiration?"

That sounds like fun. Count me in if you need help. I love your site.

Ned Batchelder 11:58 AM on 17 Feb 2006

Looks like other people have had really bad experiences with Jumpdomain: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/12/1729201&tid=95&tid=4

Bruno 2:23 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Arrgghhhh.. Nooooo ! Please don't die !
Save everything you can, and open your website anywhere else, I'll follow.
Buy "nedbatcheldercantdie.com", for example, and keep on providing so many excellent articles.

Manuzhai 2:56 PM on 17 Feb 2006

I too love your site.

If worse comes to worst, I've just set up ned.manuzhai.nl to point to your host, so I guess you could use that (but then any dyndns-like thingie would do for that).

Steve Holden 3:07 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Just in case it does any good I've back-ordered the domain at GoDaddy. If it comes to me I'll pass it on to you for a reasonable fee (IIRC I paid about twenty bucks for the backorder, and there may be another ten or twenty bucks for a new registration).

Then make sure you switch to GoDaddy - they are a great registrar with good systems and human availability on the telephone when required.

Michael Chermside 3:18 PM on 17 Feb 2006

I'm sure Steve Holden was only meaning well when he ordered the domain for you at GoDaddy, but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes it DIFFICULT to sort out the issue. Now there are multiple people, all requesting this domain at the same time... and some of them aren't Ned! It would probably have been a better idea to suggest that NED use GoDaddy instead.

Ned Batchelder 3:27 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Everyone: thanks for your concern and help. I'm trying to contact eNom (the actual registrar) to resolve the issue.

The hosting isn't at risk, and the site isn't going away. I just need to get the domain name sorted out.

Jeff Atwood 5:22 PM on 17 Feb 2006

This sucks!

The same thing happened to a popular forum I frequent, and the "new registrar" basically holds the domain hostage, requiring $$ to release it to you.

As I recall it was a couple hundred bucks at the time.

Karl Guertin 6:00 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Sorry to hear about this. I lost grayrest.com to a stinking squatter.

xath 6:04 PM on 17 Feb 2006

i hope that there are no other nedbatchelders out there looking to latch on quickly. Can you immediately reapply with another service?

Paul Boddie 6:54 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Sorry to hear about the domain! With no offense intended towards people doing their honest best in the domain registration business, I'd say that the way the business is structured and underregulated has given rise to probably one of the most blatantly unethical but still legal types of commerce in the realm of computing. If you can somehow take it off some domain hostage list, we'd all appreciate knowing how you did it.

Barry 7:07 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Ned, I believe that there's some grace period from the expiry date for you to re-register as original owner I think. I can't remember where I saw this, but I think it might be 14 days and even though it has 'expired' you can still renew.

Barry.

Calvin Spealman 7:23 PM on 17 Feb 2006

If the domain does expire, I am pretty sure there is a grace period of 45 days, during which it can still be renewed, so there is still plenty of time to work this out. Fight for it, Ned! We don't want you to go away.

Steve Holden 7:57 PM on 17 Feb 2006

Ned:

Once you tell me you have an order in for the domain on expiry I'll be happy to remove my order if you so ask me. I backordered it as insurance, and despite Michael Chermside's assertions, if it comes to a fight I think the more people you have on your side bidding for it the more likely it will be you can ultimately retain control.

As to how likely it is that someone else would want the domain we can only speculate, can't we? Better safe that sorry would seem to be the cautious approach.

Kevin 10:21 AM on 18 Feb 2006

I've already passed this information onto Ned however thought others who've been or could find themselves in a similar situation might find the following of interest: http://smartfast.com/enews/ea_cybersquatting.html.

We're all hopeful that this matter will be resolved with perhaps nothing more than a brief interruption in domain name services.