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domainist

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domainist /doh-mayn'ist/ /adj./ 1. [USENET, by pointed analogy with "sexist", "racist", etc.] Someone who judges people by the domain of their email addresses; esp. someone who dismisses anyone who posts from a public internet provider. "What do you expect from an article posted from aol.com?" 2. Said of an Internet address (as opposed to a bang path) because the part to the right of the `@' specifies a nested series of `domains'; for example, esr@snark.thyrsus.com specifies the machine called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus within the top-level domain called com. See also big-endian, sense 2.

The meaning of this term has drifted. At one time sense 2 was primary. In elder days it was also used of a site, mailer, or routing program which knew how to handle domainist addresses; or of a person (esp. a site admin) who preferred domain addressing, supported a domainist mailer, or proselytized for domainist addressing and disdained bang paths. These senses are now (1996) obsolete, as effectively all sites have converted.

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