The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to .mm. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

.bu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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As the article correctly states, there was once an ISO 3166-1 code BU for Burma. But the topic of the article is the top-level domain .bu, which could have been derived from the ISO 3166-1 code - this apparently never happened, however. At the talk page, user Zundark wrote in 2006: "It's a bit strange to have an article on a ccTLD that never existed, but I decided against listing it for deletion as the ISO 3166-1 code BU existed for a few years after the DNS was introduced - so .bu did briefly have the potential of being assigned, and maybe merits an article because of that." I think that the mere "potential of being assigned" isn't quite enough for an article, if it can't be shown that there were at least plans of introducing a .bu domain. This makes the article different from the other five under "Retired / deleted" in the ccTLD navbox: .cs, .um, .yu and .zr were actually in use, .dd was at least used internally at the universities of Jena and Dresden. In contrast, .bu is a completely hypothetical TLD. Note: As an admin in the German Wikipedia, I deleted the .bu article there as the outcome of a deletion request, that's what made me aware of the issue. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:23, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge/RedirectDelete per nom, there isn't much else to say about .bu besides "there was once an iso code for it, but it was never put to use". Merge that info into an appropriate article and redirect .bu to it. I'm afraid it's a bit out of my area to know where to merge it to though I'm sure somebody knows.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 00:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure there's anything to merge, as the article gives no evidence that it was even considered to create a .bu domain based on the ISO 3166-1 code BU - all we know for sure is that there was an ISO 3166-1 code and that ccTLDs are usually based on these codes. But the ISO code BU and the hypothetical .bu TLD are not the same thing. In the German Wikipedia's deletion discussion, a user even went to the length of sending an enquiry to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and their answer (quoted there, in English) was basically that they have no information on .bu whatsoever. Gestumblindi (talk) 01:24, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You've convinced me. As I said this is a bit out of my knowledge area; thanks for pointing out the difference between an ISO code for a TLD and the TLD itself, I was conflating the two. Accordingly, I've decided deleting would be the best option.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 02:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to .mm. Since .bu never existed, and there's no evidence that Burma ever requested its assignment, I agree with Gestumblindi that it cannot merit an article. But I think that people are likely to search for .bu (e.g., because there are inaccurate TLD lists that include it), so it's best to redirect it to .mm, which mentions in its first paragraph that .bu never existed. --Zundark (talk) 14:43, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good solution to me. By the way, for the sake of completeness: Today, a user over in the German Wikipedia added some links to the (technically closed) deletion discussion, pointing to a mildly amusing, but, I think, irrelevant event in 2007: Apparently, there's a "micronation" called "Independent Long Island" run by a single person who declared himself its "Governor pro tempore". In 2007, after the disappearence of the .mm TLD from the global DNS, he "re-baptized the country of Myanmar with the new name of Burma", created a .bu domain on his personal root server, which of course is of no consequence for the real DNS, and declared war on Myanmar. A non-notable story, I think - an article for "Independent Long Island" was even deleted from the Micronations Wiki. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:42, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to .mm per Zundark. Doesn't seem to be notable but could be a useful redirect. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 06:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.