[BALUG-Admin] So, joker.com, then?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Paoli (michael.paoli@berkeley.edu):

> But alas, many registrars (e.g.
> NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com) will drag their feet and take
> the maximum time they can contractually get away with (which is
> I think 72 hours?   I forget precisely how long.
> May also vary somewhat by TLD).

That's my recollection, too.

IWantMyName (actually CentralNic) at this point, 4.5 hours in, still
shows PENDINGTRANSFER.  Detailed view shows "STEP 6 / 7".  I.e., the
incumbent registrar forking it over is the last thing needed.

I'm expecting release some time in the A.M., just as a hunch.  But if
they pull a NetSol, that'd be petty of them but harmess.

Already in my account is berkeleylug.com, for which I'm Admininstrative
Contact.  I note to my pleasure (as this ticks off a "must do" for my
own domains) that "Renew" is possible at any time.  Hitting "Renew"
places a one-year renewal into the shopping cart; although there's no
way to say you want n > 1 years added, though I guess you can go through
the renewal for one year, pay, then repeat cycle as many times as
desired(?).  (I've occasionally kept domains as much as 3 years out from
expiration, but never more than that.  Perhaps I might want to if price
increases were imminent.)

Late edit:  I see you address the "multiple years extension" thing
later.

> And, somewhere at your losing registrar, at their higher levels of
> customer service and/or technical support - if they exist 8-O -
> they probably have some means of being able to extend domains,
> by positive integral number of years (up to whatever the maximum
> is, which may also vary by TLD) ... but alas, seems they quite lack the
> competence to reasonably well and easily do that - even via support
> request or the like (not a great sign).  Sounds rather like lower-level
> folks (and they may lack the higher), "pushing buttons" - selecting
> among probably the only menu options they've given to such folks -
> in order to at least roughly/grossly (but not well at all) attempt to
> implement what they think the customer wants.

That's part of it -- and we've all seen this at support organisations
suffering from the race to the bottom _including_ outsourcing to
whatever nominally English-speaking country offers the lowest-paid
serfs:  Indeed, those techs are empowered only to do certain rote tasks,
but, in the worst examples, they are also told to stick to "script"
answers only -- often told they'll be fired if they improvise.

The handling of my support ticket seemed like a classic:  He recited a
rote "script" about the reasons why automated renewals works for one
year only, even though I'd asked about _manual_ extension, because it
was the closest match.  It's also telling that, when I rejected that
answer, saying it was nowhere near an answer to my request, I got utter
silence -- because the trail of rote answers had run out.


> Or Joker.com
> https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=system:registrars#jokercom
> being grossly incapable of even updating a single IPv4 glue record.

Out of curiosity, has this been re-checked?  When I discovered that to
my indignation, it was a long time ago.  Probably about 20 years ago.

[NetSol:]

> Anyway, did that on a single one-shot basis ...  and I think I did
> that by phone - in any case, never asked for my card data to be added
> on to the (not my) account, etc. ... yet, alas, they stuck it on there
> and enabled auto-renew on it.  Oh, and the kicker ... they wouldn't
> let me take it off of there!  They'd only let the registrant remove my
> credit card from the billing or automatic renewal on the account!
> Ugh!

Cheryl Morris, my mother-in-law, got vampirised by "Register.com", which
IIRC is the same bunch of pirates, and what you describe was among the
several outrages that I got her away from by transferring her
(remaining) domain to... irony alert...  IWantMyName.

Deirdre also has hers at the latter.  I see more moves to Gandi in the
near future, assuming I am not unpleasantly surprised (thought Deirdre
will need to make up her own mind).

> I don't see an option for multiple years though ... and ... no, it
> won't let me add that exact same item multiple times to the shopping
> cart ... ah, yes, ... click wee bit further on shopping cart towards
> checkout ... and can select integral number of years, so could extend
> that one by anywhere from 1 to 8 years.

More than good enough.

> So ... already sounding helluva lot easier than your losing registrar?  :-)

So far, so good.