Domain expired Social Coop down

So after some frantic investigations it turns out the domain is still being managed by Enric Duran who I am led to believe facilitated its purchase and stewardship as part of one of the Fair Coop group of co-ops (have to be a registered co-op to buy a .coop domain).

Given that Principle Six is now our fiscal sponsor it feels more appropriate that they also hold the domain.

Wondering how/if this could happen @Graham or anyone else?

Guess ideally it could be set up in a way where Social Coop had access to admin / renew the domain so we don't have to pester Principle Six to do that stuff for us.

The domain is currently registered with Gandi. Based on my experiences elsewhere I think its somewhat likely to be easier to transfer it to another Gandi account, which could grease the wheels for a smooth domain transfer.

Thanks to all for rapid sleuthing and response! Definitely need to avoid this type of scenario in the future.

Hi. Thanks for tagging me here. Platform 6 Development Cooperative would be happy to look after this domain registration on behalf of social.coop. I run a reseller account with Gandi where the domain can be moved to.

My suggestion, in order to minimise the amount of work that Enric needs to do on this, is that he changes the admin contact for the domain to me, details below. As I understand it, as the admin contact I should then be able to initiate the change of ownership (the owner/registrant contact for the domain), which is a little more involved.

Details:

The tech cooperative that I work for should be the admin contact for the domain:

Name: Mitchell Coxan Creative Communications LLP

Type: Company

Email: graham@mc3.coop

Address:

Street address: 58 Varley Road

Postal code: HD7 5HL

City: Huddersfield

Country: United Kingdom

Phone: +44.1484846231

I should also say that Enric and I have met - online at least - in relation to Faircoop (I run one of the cooperatively validated nodes on the Faircoin blockchain), so happy for him to contact me directly with any questions.

Thanks @Darren @Graham for your response and willingness to help with this.

I am a member of the community working group ops team, but we wanted to facilitate the next steps too with the tech group and @Noah. I think we are ok with Graham and with P6 to manage the domain registration. Thanks @Graham . What do we need to do next? Can someone connect with Enric and see how we can get those admin contact settings changed as Graham explains?

Just chiming in here that I see no problem with this, provided that Graham doesn't mind if a couple of us have calendar reminders set for roughly 11 months to ping him about renewal :D

Let me know if I can support. Let's definitely make sure to get this settled this time.

Appears that everyone whos expressed an opinion has agreed that the domain should be transferred to Platform 6 / Graham.

Theres been some discussions in both the general and tech group matrix rooms about control, security and chain of custody transparency of the domain name management.

I was already thinking it would be nice to get some clarification on the relationship between Platform 6 and Mitchell Coxan Creative Communications LLP (MC3), did a but of digging myself and found that MC3 is one of the two founding members (both co-ops) of Platform 6.

It appears that whats being proposed is MC3 will be holding the domain on the behalf of Platform 6, on behalf of Social Coop.

Personally I'm OK with this, and don't want to labour the process, but feel, for the sake of due diligence, would be good to get confirmation of the situation from @Graham and then, following our bylaws we'd maybe need a proposal/vote here? Although also I guess a clear decision from the tech working group may be sufficient.

I think it would be good to have that clear decision for action in place that we could point Enric towards

Happy to clarify/confirm: My understanding is that Platform 6 Development Cooperative would be the registrant/owner of the domain, on behalf of social.coop, because Platform 6 is a suitable legal entity that would be recognised by the registry as a legitimate registrant of a .coop domain name. MC3 is a founder member of Platform 6, and also operates a Gandi reseller account (MC3 is a tech co-op and as such manage domains on behalf of a number of clients). I'm a founder partner at MC3 (which is structured as a limited liability partnership or LLP), and I'm a director of Platform 6 (which is a LLC).

To facilitate the proposed change of registrant/owner of the domain from Enric's co-op to Platform 6, and to remove the burden of handling this from Enric, I've proposed that Enric changes the admin contact for the domain, as I understand that this would then make the domain accessible to me in my Gandi account, enabling me to manage the change of registrant and any liaison with the registry.

Once the registrant record has been successfully changed I believe that it would also be feasible and perhaps helpful to modify the other contact records for the domain (each domain has four contacts - registrant, admin, tech, and billing). With Platform 6 as the registrant it might then make sense for social.coop to be the tech contact, MC3 to continue as the admin contact, with Platform 6 as the billing contact. I'd need to look into the details of how Gandi works with contacts, but this type of approach may enable social.coop to access and as needed amend DNS records.

If any further info is needed, just let me know.

Thanks @Darren, I think some kind of quick input from community members would be a ideal because we want to be participatory and make it easy to express our thoughts on this. Members are always free to express their thoughts at any time and in this thread and maybe a poll would be a good quick way to engage members in this if they want too.

Would you or the tech team be okay with starting a poll here summarizing what course of action the tech team endorses followed by a multiple choice poll in which members can add options and suggestions for other courses of action. For example, the poll could ask:

What do you think is the ideal way to handle our domain registration?

Options:

Let's do the domain registration and transfer process the tech team has suggested to do with Graham and with our financial/legal host which is platform 6 and MC3.

I am not sure, abstain.

Allow other options.

What does everyone think? Is a poll like this a good idea and is it good to send out to everyone? Any other suggestions? Is this asking too much input/participation from members? 47 people have seen this thread so far but only a few have interacted. Is a proposal/vote also needed?

If people think there are some options to choose between and want to put it to a poll, seems fine to me.

... only here, I don't see any other proposals. We didn't formally ask for proposals for action, but there has been a fair bit of discussion about it already and nothing else has emerged as far as I can see.

(Given I think the status quo is not really an option)

Maybe if you think a poll is a good idea still, perhaps make a call for more proposals so there would actually be something to choose between? If some emerge, then those could be put to a vote.

@Graham

The method of having multiple contacts for different purposes is a really effective approach. :D

Nice to see. :D

Also good to see the transparency. "With many eyes, all bugs are shallow." :D

@Jonathan Bean @Darren I'm not sure I think it's necessary to get community approval for this, but if you want to go ahead and do it, that's fine. It's not really a policy decision, and it's a clear extension of our use of P6 as our fiscal sponsor.

@Nick Sellen @Nathan Schneider @Darren , Right, it is not really a policy decision and a full community vote would be unnecessary and there has been enough deliberation with the tech group. I think most people would just be confused about why haven't already done this anyway. Also it is not unreverseable so anyone who thinks it is a bad idea or has a better solution can propose it anytime.

https://social.coop/terms - Bylaws for reference

I guess now we have a decision and we need someone to connect @Graham to Enric or whoever is managing his account? Who knows how to reach Enric?

Yeah guess I was unnecessarily labouring the process 🤭. I'll send Enric a link here and hopefully he'll do the transfer.

@Graham we are still trying to organise the domain transfer with Enric. Are you on Telegram?

Looks like it’s that time of year again, I imagine Enric has yet to transfer the domain name to us.

We are discussing this in the Matrix rooms -- unfortunately the domain has indeed expired again as we failed to make progress on https://git.coop/social.coop/tech/operations/-/issues/11. We will track making sure this can't happen again using that ticket.

In the meantime, I am struggling to determine if Faircoop/Enric is still holding the domain or it made it to Platform 6 at some point in time. I will try to keep this thread posted with news, but unfortunately given the domain is owned in a EU timezone in either case it seems it'll be at least a few more hours until we can make progress on this.

As reported on https://git.coop/social.coop/tech/operations/-/issues/11:

We were able to pay for the domain renewal with a different Gandi account -- this is a Gandi feature that Mayel found.

Now, let's try to use this experience to get the domain transfer done, or at least privilege delegation within Gandi to accounts owned by the TWG.

MANY THANKS to everyone who resolved this so promptly! And yes, if there's anything that regular members can do to support this, just ask!

Thanks to those who solved this. I don't know why this has plagued us for so long. @Graham @Leo Sammallahti can you report on the situation from the P6 side?

I see the “social.coop” domain name as our most important asset and the one most at risk. How can we ensure that we finally make this move and transfer the domain name — with P6 or another legally recognized cooperative as the listed Registrant. @Graham, @Nathan Schneider, how can I help more directly here? (12 years of experience on cira.ca board — Registry platform for .CA, .IE, .NZ, others…)

It is my view currently that given the imminent transition whereby innovation.coop will be managing the fiscal hosting service for social.coop and others, it makes sense for innovation.coop to be the legal entity to hold the registration for the social.coop domain. Out of interest my innovation.coop colleague Shaun Fensom was a key part of the team that enabled the .coop TLD to come into being). Let's add it to the to-do list and ensure that the registration is shifted to alleviate Enric from the annual annoyance of having to sort out renewal.

I just refreshed the Telegram chat with @Graham and Enric. Can we prioritize this process? I really don't want this issue to happen again. @Andrew Escobar (Andres) is absolutely right about what a critical lapse this is.

I’ve been added to the Telegram chat. Let’s wait for a resolution to social‍.coop’s fiscal host (presumably to innovation‍.coop) and then transfer the domain and update the registrant details accordingly.

Not to throw a wrench in the gears, but it seems like this should be written up as a proposal for coop members to vote on? Especially since it is an important asset?

@Ed Summers Is this an easily reversible decision? Could we do it and then put it to a vote after?

@Ed Summers As I have mentioned elsewhere, when the time comes, I will create (or support the writeup of) a well documented consensus proposal, with all the relevant information within the proposal itself — so that members (new or experienced) can make an informed decision.

(My thoughts on next steps are below.)

Ahoy! Thank you so much for dealing with this, all. It's so nice to see this being discussed when it's not a critical/urgent issue for a change! :D

For posterity:

1. Which Telegram room is this? Could members of the TWG/CWG be in it?

2. Who will be the official contacts for domain ownership topics going forward, if we know this?

Ed's suggestion sounds good to me and could be run in parallel with making progress on the transfer if it is already taking place; we could make the vote be about the end state we want to achieve longer term (be it having the domain name be with a new trusted party chosen by the FWG for example, or social.coop incorporating in some way so it can hold its own domain names eventually).

@Flancian @Ed Summers

1. I can add a member of TWG/CWG. Please let me know. I have not pushed this forward within the Telegram group as I believe we should either (1.) wait for a proper transition or a co-operative arrangement between P6 and Innovation‍.coop; or (2.) act with some urgency and create a proposal specific to the ownership of the social‍.coop domain name.

2. The Registrant would be “Innovation Cooperative Limited”.

Cross posting from the broader thread (Open Collective Host & Platform 6) but here are what I believe should be our next steps:

1. A member of P6 (perhaps @Andrew Escobar (Andres) or @Graham) will provide social‍.coop members with an update on the transition or co-operative arrangement between P6 and Innovation‍.coop — but we are waiting on those details (proposal: sense check).

2. Innovation‍.coop and P6 will take their necessary steps.

3. Innovation‍.coop may already be our fiscal host or P6 may continue to be our fiscal — it all depends on the transition or co-operative arrangement — but social‍.coop members can then chose to validate this continued relationship (proposal: consensus). The proposal can specifically mention Innovation‍.coop as the new Registrant of our our social‍.coop domain and any additional domains.

4. We can then update the domain records for “Innovation Cooperative Limited” to become the Registrant of our social‍.coop domain.

@Graham, @Flancian, @Nathan Schneider: I now think that we should push this forward with option (2.) above: act with some urgency and create a proposal specific to the ownership of the “social‍.coop” domain name.

The Registrant of the “social‍.coop” domain would be changed to “Innovation Cooperative Limited”.

(I would suggest Admin be listed as Innovation and Technical be listed as a generic or group address for the TWG; no individual should assume the legal liability of being listed as Admin.)

Are there other details that should be included in the proposal? The Registrar used (continue to use Gandi.net or transfer to Domains.coop or Hover.com for example)? Specific initial access details or general delegation to TWG?

@Andrew Escobar (Andres) thanks for continuing work on this. I am not even sure we need a proposal, getting control over the domain is something that should have been done all along. But we should do a proposal to ensure everyone knows about the fiscal host shift.

Meanwhile, can I help you get in touch with Enric? Or is @Graham on it? Let's proceed with getting the domain. I would advocate moving to domains.coop to support the co-op movement.

@Nathan Schneider I am in a shared telegram chat with you, Enric, and Graham. (We can also add @Flancian or another TWG member.)

I’m not sure we’re ready for a consensus proposal for fiscal host transition (legal details and next steps not finalized) which is why I suggest a proposal specific to the domain Registrant only.

Hmm. This seems a bit strange. Could we just transfer the domain to P6 for now, and then have it move over to Innovation when that transition happens? It just seems strange to once again move the domain to a third party.

A bit of info here: while the technical detail of the relationship between P6 and innovation.coop is still being worked through, in practice on a day to day basis the people with their hands on the tiller for the two organisations are the same for both orgs. In terms of the registration of the domain name, this in my view is the hardest bit to make happen because we remain reliant on Enric's participation and support, and right now it doesn't seem like he is engaging with the Telegram thread, where I have posted details of how to change the registrant record for the domain , and have not heard anything back that I'm aware of. Do we have any other line of communication with him?

@Darren, any insight on how we can contact Enric Duran beyond just Telegram?

@Andrew Escobar (Andres) One thought is I could reach out to Domains.coop and try to get control of the domain that way.

I just tried to open a ticket. Let's see if they can help.

@Nathan Schneider While domains.coop is a subsidiary and the team is the same, we should contact identity.coop which is the .COOP Registry. We can hopefully proceed with an informal process that leads to the domain name being transferred. We ideally avoid a formal dispute resolution process ($1500 to WIPO as selected by identity.coop; a significant effort on my part).

@Andrew Escobar (Andres) hey there. Not sure. They are semi-public online so likely would be able to track down other ways to contact them.

Just checked and theres no contact emails listed with the domain registration.

@Andrew Escobar (Andres) I know people at domains.coop - there is a Chinese wall between them and the registry operation, and I agree that this is an avenue to pursue. There's a compelling case.

@Graham Sounds good. Please do reach out to them. I just wrote to Gandi with the following:

Dear Gandi,

I am representing Social.coop, a project of the UK-based cooperative Platform6. Our domain name was registered with you by an early participant in our group, Enric Duran, but we have been unable to get in touch with him and are concerned about losing access to the domain. Can you assist us in regaining access to the domain administration?

Thank you, Nathan

@Nathan Schneider That’s a good start. I don’t think the TWG submitted expense receipts for these, but might be worth attaching those to the ticket with Gandi, and letting them know we’ve paid to renew the domain two years in a row!

I’ve also reached out to the .COOP Registry about this.

I reached out directly to the .COOP Registry (DotCooperation LLC, identity.coop), who reached out to Gandi, who were not at all helpful:

[…] if they [social.coop] really cannot prove a link with the current owner, it doesn’t matter if the organisation [fair.coop] is defunct or not. We [Ghandi] will not be able to help them [social.coop] get access to a domain name over which they don’t have any rights.

@Nathan Schneider Any updates from your end with Gandi? @Graham Should we try and reach Enric through other channels?

I will continue to work with the .COOP Registry on a resolution. We can hopefully resolve this through an informal process that leads to the domain name being transferred (level 3 under the .coop dispute policy) but that may require formal dispute resolution process (requires $1500 to WIPO as selected by identity.coop; a significant effort on my part; and sufficient records and documentation from the early days of social.coop about the registration of our domain name).

This is a systemic issue, we had the same in CDS - solution: have a non dominant person being „The Queen“ in a long term crucial owner role without acting in a political way out of the power position. To my knowledge there is no workaround.

Andrew Escobar (Andres) · Finance Working Group (via Loomio) schrieb am Mo. 18. Dez. 2023 um 21:21:



AEF

Andrew Escobar (Andres) · Finance Working Group hat kommentiert in: Domain expired Social Coop down ( https://www.loomio.com/d/Jf5Wi4Ph/comment/3033064?utm_campaign=new_comment&utm_medium=email )

I reached out directly to the .COOP Registry (DotCooperation LLC, identity.coop) ( http://www.identity.coop/ ), who reached out to Gandi, who were not at all helpful:

[…] if they [social.coop ( http://social.coop )] really cannot prove a link with the current owner, it doesn’t matter if the organisation [fair.coop ( http://fair.coop )] is defunct or not. We [Ghandi] will not be able to help them [social.coop ( http://social.coop )] get access to a domain name over which they don’t have any rights.

@Nathan Schneider Any updates from your end with Gandi? @Graham Should we try and reach Enric through other channels?

I will continue to work with the .COOP Registry on a resolution. We can hopefully resolve this through an informal process that leads to the domain name being transferred (level 3 under the .coop dispute policy ( https://identity.coop/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/coop-Dispute-Policy-Jan-2020.pdf )) but that may require formal dispute resolution process (requires $1500 to WIPO ( https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/guide/ ) as selected by identity.coop ( https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/guide/ ); a significant effort on my part; and sufficient records and documentation from the early days of social.coop ( http://social.coop ) about the registration of our domain name).

Links

( https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/guide/ )
WIPO Guide to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) ( https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/guide/ )
WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, El Centro de Arbitraje y de Mediación de la OMPI, Le Centre d'arbitrage et de médiation de l'OMPI

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And I am in contact with the people I know within the .coop registry operation, and they have suggested a possible approach. I need to follow that up, which will now be in the New Year. If I get anywhere I'll feed back here of course.

@Graham We may have overlapped our efforts with .COOP in December, but that is fine… Platform 6 or Innovation would ultimately be the named Registrant and your involvement is crucial and appreciated.

Can we perhaps merge our email threads to .COOP? My email while navigating this issue:

andrewe [symbol] social [punctuation] coop

Many years ago, Enric forked our software, and we gave him and FairCoop a lot of time and software support. I can try reaching out, although I don't necessarily expect it to work. What specifically should I ask him to do, the easier and more concrete the better?

I have not been able to get in touch with Enric. The CIC, the co-op that the domain is registered under, appears to no longer have a website. I will try reaching out to others I know from those days.

I just wrote to an old contact of mine there.

An important update to this thread that I should have added months ago… 🎉

After significant time spent working through .COOP registry (DotCooperation) and their informal dispute resolution process, we now have direct control of our social.coop domain name as of March 28, 2024: https://client.rdap.org/?type=domain&object=social.coop