So if you’ve been browsing Flagship Moly’s List of Flagship Us, you may have noticed that the public-university-website-naming-process in our fine US of A is chaos. Actually, there is no process; these places just choose whatever frigging name they want tack an .edu on the end. I mean, really: www.tm.minn.edu ? Or www.olemiss.edu !?

Here’s an idea: to get to your/your loved one’s/relative’s/stalkee’s university’s website, you should only need to know the university’s name. No googling - just type in a standardized, easily derivable name and voila you’re there. This means a total overhaul: strict systematization and codification. So read the following, and if you like what you see, tell your congressperson.

- The Editor

I. State-system websites are of the form: www.postalcode.edu

a. Examples: www.wi.edu, www.mn.edu
b. Pro: only 2 letters: saves the world from carpal tunnel
c. Pro: if the entire state name was used, there would be confusion with the flagship site for 4-letter state names (see part II below)

i. Examples: www.iowa.edu, www.ohio.edu???

d. Con: not everyone can remember the postal abbrev. for the state they want (esp. all of those 'm' ones)

i. Counter-con: then again, most people also can't remember how to spell Massachusetts (yeah, I had to look that up)
ii. Counter-con: and most people should learn their postal abbreviations anyway

II. Flagship websites are of the form: www.first4lettersofstatename.edu

a. Examples: www.wisc.edu, www.minn.edu
b. But what about North Carolina and North Dakota? For all states w/ two words, the first one of which is either a cardinal direction or the word "New," the first letter of the first word and the first three letters of the second word will be used.

i. Examples: www.ncar.edu, www.nmex.edu

c. But what about Rhode Island? Well, since it's so special (and also small) RI can vote about whether it wants to be www.risl.edu or www.rhod.edu.
d. Pro: Flagships should be put on a pedestal. Therefore, they get their own, distinct site name from the system.
e. Con: Flagships are part of the system though, after all. This site should be recognizably part of the system site.

III. "Little school" websites are of the form www.first4lettersoflittleschoolname.postalcode.edu

a. Examples: www.eauc.wi.edu, www.chic.il.edu
b. Pro: The little schools are subordinated to the system server.
c. Con: This could be sort of a mess, especially if 2 little schools start with the same four letters.

i. I don't know if this actually ever happens, and I'm not doing the research to find out.

d. Con: Moly hates all of those this.that.edu things.

i. Counter-con: she's just going to have to deal. It's the best option.

I. State-system websites as www.fullstatename.edu.

a. Yeah I think that this was sufficiently refuted in I (c) and I (d) above.

II. Flagships as www.postalcode.flag

a. Variation on this: flagships as www.first4lettersofstatename.flag, and state-systems as www.first4lettersofstatename.edu
b. Pro: State-system and flagship sites more clearly related, but still separate
c. Pro: Flagship even more clearly denoted as a flagship because of .flag suffix
d. Con: even with rising tuitions, the flagships don't have the money to buy a whole new .flag suffix. Plus, what's with this freakish four-letter suffix? People aren't going to like that...

I. Private school websites as www.schoolname.priv

a. Examples: www.beloit.priv, www.harvard.priv
b. What does schoolname mean? They can put whatever they want there, as long as someone else hasn't already registered it. They're privates; they can do whatever the hell they want.
c. Pro: you can tell with a glance the difference between public & private
d. Con: .priv sounds really really lame. That whole 4-letter suffix thing again, too

i. Counter-con: Well, we want to inflict as much pain as possible on those private school freaks, don't we?
ii. Also: if we want to make it even more painful, we can require that student e-mail addresses be like: lsaunders@std.chadbourne.priv

e. Disclaimer: I don't actually hate private schools. Really.