AutoHotkey Community

Why don't we use autohotkey.info as a domain? We have this one, thanks to T00M.

Yes it contains "autohotkey" but i think .info isn't a nice domain for a community...

on my domain hoster i read if .com and .net is used ppl choose .info or .org

i guess this domains would be best for you
autohotkey.com
autohotkey.net
autohotkey.org
autohotkey.info

this domains not look very professional to me
ahkscript.org
ahkcommunity.org

anyway not easy find good domain couse most in used and maybe very hard to get

+1 I sorta agree with T00M

autohotkeyL.com OR autohotkey2.com

Dear all,

I am very impressed to see all this engagement to retain the spirit of AHK and risking this huge step. Kudos to tank! The direction into a foundation hits the spirit of AHK perfectly.

Some words about domains. Generally, the shorter a domain name, the better. Since the abbreviation AHK has become very popular, it could be used as domain name. (I.e. ahk.org could be interesting, and it seems to be available.) I would avoid any domain name which is directly competing against autohotkey.com.

My time is currently very limited, but I am willing to donate some money into the foundation to support the upkeep of the infrastructure. If you need support / advise regarding building the foundation let me know.

Best,
IsNull

ahk.org
+1

+.... It's OVER 9000!!! >:D

T00M wrote:this domains not look very professional to me
ahkscript.org
ahkcommunity.org

http://www.autoitscript.com works just fine for them.

IsNull wrote:Since the abbreviation AHK has become very popular, it could be used as domain name. (I.e. ahk.org could be interesting, and it seems to be available.) I would avoid any domain name which is directly competing against autohotkey.com.

If/When Lexikos makes this the official site for his future releases, then it will actually be autohotkey.com competing against this site, not the other way around.

That aside, any perceived competition is by necessity; it's in the best interest of AHK. It does us all no good to turn off potential users by resigning them to a first impression with a difficult forum and waning forum support. Increasing the visbility of this site increases the chances of not losing those users.

I like ahk.org

If/When Lexikos makes this the official site for his future releases, then it will actually be autohotkey.com competing against this site, not the other way around.

Autohotkey.com could still direct link to the current AHK Installer.

I'd like to elaborate on the issue with direct competition of autohotkey.com and why I think we should have a different domain. The following assumes that the reader has basic understanding what page ranks in google are influenced by. The following is based on my assumptions and expectations, so handel it as such.

• My first point is that a "com" top level domain is extremely powerful and prefered by prominent search engines. Thus searches containing the keyword "autohotkey" will yield the prefered domain, at least for the first few results.
• Secondly, autohotkey.com has a long history and thus is very solid linked by other very prominent domains. It will take a good amount of time to catch up. However, catching up will be very hard if the new page has not enough users which create interesting new topics / content and thus generate links to the new page.
• Assuming that most of the existing users will switch to the "rebellion" page, it might be possible in time to create a good page ranking to compete with autohotkey.com. Now, new users will be completely confused and will choose one of the provided links by random.

Choosing a different domain, we might be able to catch a good portion of new members; All who search for "ahk" instead of "autohotkey", thus we can build up a larger user base faster. After we have a big user base and good pagerank / reputation, the rest will workout automatically.

Reaction of autohotkey.com

This obviously all breaks down on (re)actions of Poly and how the user development on the two pages is. (Maybe Poly will donate the autohotkey.com domain to the new fondation, you never know.) However, we have to assume worst case scenarios, such as that the autohotkey.com site will not have a significant user drop (by active marketing the autohotkey brand) and the new site will not have as many new users as we would like. Like I said, in active competing against an elaborated power like autohotkey.com, we need better arguments than "bad admin", especially since autohotkey will be identified as the official page.


Differing strategy - worst case strategy

In such a scenario I fear we can not simply "replace" autohotkey.com against his will. What we need is a different product, or at least an enhanced one. For example, we could focus on ahk2 (probably even rebrand it) to get a good start. I am not saying that this is an optimal solution, but depending on the performance of authotkey.com and the actions of its holder the only way to success. At least, we could combine the break caused by a switch to AHKv2 with this community split. Then, AHK1.1 would no longer be maintained and the focus of the community will point to the new AHK v2 home...
As you can see, this goes into company/marketing strategies.

Those are my thoughts, I am very interested to hear your positions and feelings about it.

I agree with the worst case strategy. As I wrote on the "future direction" topic, I think that the rebrand option is the best for a long term scenario. A complete cut with the past, a new name, a foundation and a community to rebuild from the ground.

We will erase permanently all the chaos originated from the multiple versions and the community will be no more fragmented. This will also avoid the search engines problem you pointed out.

It's a moot point discussing about a final split, as long as Lexikos as the main developer at the moment has made no commitment on how he sees the future of AutoHotkey ...

Hoppfrosch, I think everyone agrees that Lexikos would be the best fit to lead the community, yet he has no interest in doing so. I can understand this decision very good, all this politics and bad blood is not really something you want to have in your hobby.

That being said, I just pointed out possible scenarios and reactions assuming the split happened.

Forming a foundation is a good first step, and it would be perfect if autohotkey.com would be an essential part of it. That might resolve a lot of issues, like the fact that Poly is paying for everything and this could then be done over the foundation...

IsNull wrote:Hoppfrosch, I think everyone agrees that Lexikos would be the best fit to lead the community, yet he has no interest in doing so. I can understand this decision very good, all this politics and bad blood is not really something you want to have in your hobby.

For sure. I understand Lexikos due to the reasons you mentioned - but I didn't expect Lexikos to lead the community. What I meant is: the sheperd (Lexikos) has to tell the dogs (current mods and admins), where he wants the sheeps (new community) to be leaded to. Without any guiding words from the sheperd, the dogs will potentially lead the sheeps (and themselves) in the abyss - unless they have the best will. The sheperd has not to do the work himself ...

I haven't seen any comments yet, that Lexikos is willing to accept rebranding of AutoHotkey or giving up AHK 1.1 development (but I've also seen no protest) - maybe I've simply overseen it ... That's why I called it a moot discussion on possibly rebranding AutoHotkey...

Lexikos can't give us a estimated time of an official release for ahkv_2.

It could be weeks, months or years. Lexikos won't commit to a time table. With no commit then there is no guarantee of an official release.

How could we even attempt a forum to support a scripting language that has not even been released?

DataLife wrote:How could we even attempt a forum to support a scripting language that has not even been released?

^This.

+1

... let him have fun with development... v2 is release, it just that some concept can change in next days, it will be ready when he think that he will not need to create a v3...
Do not scatter your energy ! (not too much^^) Perhaps he don't say anyhting because he works on (ex)AHK like a demon...

I wanted things as IsNull said, but just check the vote, community don't want and we will need a lot of time to rebrand. It seems compromise is to pick the less effort but be free without Poly... Choice the best alternative, and give time to time to cook a super apps...

I can in fact prevent a direct link from autohotkey.com. so if and when Lexikos feels strongly enough to state such a thing is desired. I will. I can in fact prevent a download from anywhere except the current domain and or even from a specific page. It isnt a terribly huge amount of work either an hour or so at best.

But honestly, newer and better will make its mark as well.

I should have my personal house catastrophe worked out soon and may be able to resume my effort as soon as this weekend

DataLife wrote:How could we even attempt a forum to support a scripting language that has not even been released?

+1

Pulover wrote:How could we even attempt a forum to support a scripting language that has not even been released?

Well, we could simply make current AutoHotkey v2 official

I use AutoHotkey_H v2 for more than a year now:
- I ported most of my "everyday libraries"
- I ported most important programs at work
- when I write new code I always use v2
- Autohotkey.dll v2 also available

And it works perfectly so far, its faster and simpler to code, probably this forum is the right trigger for time to change

Of course lexikos would need to support that and make clear whether any script-breaking changes are on current to-do list.
If so, we would need to wait for them to be implemented, probably its possible to provide a rough time line for script-breaking changes, lexikos?