Check this URL: http://www.ekantipur.com  and below is what you get?
The Nepal's top media domain name is expired and directed to godaddy.com page. I feel it's shame.

What you guys think?

Last hour  मा   renew  गरेछ 

Domain Whois - EKANTIPUR.COM - Summary
Domain Name:	EKANTIPUR.COM
Registration Status:	Registered
Name Servers:	DNS3.WLINK.COM.NP KRISHNA.WLINK.COM.NP RAM.WLINK.COM.NP
Domain Status:	clientDeleteProhibited clientRenewProhibited clientTransferProhibited clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date:	10-Mar-2012
Creation Date:	01-Apr-2005
Expiration Date:	01-Apr-2012
Registrar
Registrar:	GODADDY.COM, LLC
Whois Server:	com.whois-servers.net
Referral URL:	http://registrar.godaddy.com
Server Information
IP:	174.120.89.170
Visit Website:	http://www.ekantipur.com
Domain Whois Details (Full)
Whois Server Version 2.0 Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information. Domain Name: EKANTIPUR.COM Registrar: GODADDY.COM, LLC Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com Name Server: DNS3.WLINK.COM.NP Name Server: KRISHNA.WLINK.COM.NP Name Server: RAM.WLINK.COM.NP Status: clientDeleteProhibited Status: clientRenewProhibited Status: clientTransferProhibited Status: clientUpdateProhibited Updated Date: 10-mar-2012 Creation Date: 01-apr-2005 Expiration Date: 01-apr-2012 >>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 02 Apr 2012 05:40:27 UTC <<<

 open wtffff man..

and u just took a screenshot?

u shudav bought the damn domain and stuck it to them for $50k. lol. 

WTF... This Is Absurd;;;;; # 1 publishing company and happening this...BS

Why is it a shame?

TLD providers don't necessarily inform registration contacts of the upcoming renewals. One can set up a job/script to check and report on the status, if they own multiple domains. Alternatively, they can sign up for 'auto-renewal', or just mark on their calendar if they own handful of domains. Chances of someone missing the renewal is pretty common; that's when TLD hijackers come in! But, before these things go back on sale, they're usually held off for some days. Looking at the screenshot posted by @open, it's clear that the domain wasn't available for purchase by third party *just yet*. It says, "pending renewal or deletion"

Clearly, 'Deletion' needs to happen prior to being 'Available'.  

PS: I'm not associated w/ ekantipur, and don't know who manages their TLD's. Just a note, based on my observation. :-)

~@~ 

@ sajha
I dont knw bout other TLD providers but bout Go Daddy, they do inform for domain renew 2-3 months ahead.  I knw this things coz i am a go daddy customer since 2009.

I could understand if they were changing DNS registrars, there might be some propagation delay and they should plan it well ahead. They are still with GoDaddy.

So this seems like sheer negligence on their part.

whois snip --
Created on: 01-Apr-05
Expires on: 01-Apr-13
Last Updated on: 02-Apr-12

They renewed it for a year on Apr 2. Hopefully this doesnt repeat next year!! 

 SL, if it repeats, just buy the domain :) should teach them a lesson!

"Nepalese media are not adequate on what they do, and it reflects in every aspect, be it publishing false news , plagiarism , or be it in IT ."

Okay, but that's not the news! The adequacy issue is way beyond *media*, and we know that.

Afaik, ekantipur.com is merely a 'news and articles' site. If Visa, MasterCard and Amazon WWWs can go down for whatever reasons (DoS?, yes you can deter that with enough resource allocation), the scope of services offered by ekantipur is doubtfully on par with those web giants. It's evident that the site redirection to godaddy was a temporary outage, which was seemingly fixed at the last minute. If the domain was out there for sale, and was acquired by someone else, then I'd chuckle with ya'll; just not sold on calling last minute domain renewal a 'shame' or an 'unprofessional conduct'. 

2-3 months of advanced notification may be a good thing for site owners managing 1, 2 or a handful of domains. When the count increases to dozens, then hundreds, with different registrations expiring at different times of the year, things don't work the way you and I would think. Perhaps kantipur owns many more TLD's, and this one happened to slip by..

The reason I'm playing the devil's advocate here is because, my team (of 4 people) manages over a hundred TLD registrations, and the count is increasing. Crazy it might sound, but we're up for acquiring any name that sounds similar to us (well, the company!). Even though we have scripted reminders that bug the hell out of us, we push that task until the last minute, because there are many more time-critical production issues we need to prioritize over TLD renewals. While we haven't missed any (at least in the recent years), chances are, they can be.. and I feel for them. 

Everyone else is entitled to their opinion; but I'd think twice before shame-shaming them/others.

~@~

 Out of those hundreds of domains, which ones fall under the top ten visited sites in Nepal (according to Alexa)? Right. Only one. And they let that slip. lol. 

@cacophonix, you mean out of Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, etc?

umm... maybe Alexa's lying to me.

~@~

@sajhaa, they do have notifications 2-3 months ahead. I'm a service provider and I deal with at least 3 registrars and they all manage to send me renewal notice ahead of time.
First of all Nepal's web service providers like Yomari, dreams&ideas,etc .. these guys are bunch of losers and thugs who sells pirated movies, sells stolen third-party scripts to their customers and so and so. Imagine, if these are the guys handling or providing services for news network or sites like ekantipur, what can you expect? These drunk bastards wouldn't even care but act last minute of craziness.

So, I've more than 1 hundred domains and I handle them in time. Your concept of not being able to manage them because of different renewal time in a year is quite unbelievable.

As someone wrote, this is extreme example of negligence.

but I don't care, I never read their site :D 

 I was simply providing a rebuttal to your logic. 

You said your team of four manages hundreds of domains. Out of those hundreds, if one of them was a top profile site like ekantipur.com, which alexa shows to be in the top ten domains that people in nepal visit (here's a link for you) and you 'accidentally' let your most successful domain slip out of existence, you either are not paying enough attention to that domain, in which case the slightly modified proverb - a fool and his domain are soon parted - applies, OR you dont yet realize the potential of such a high value domain, in which case again, the aforementioned proverb applies.

When you say you manage a hundred+ domains, I hope you have a system to prioritize which domain to give more of your time to. If you are too busy tending to the bottom of your list, then someone is going to come along and steal your most prized domain if you aren't too careful.

@Ppl..

The page that's sitting on the original post clearly states: "domain is pending renewal or deletion" ; and that is *different* from being available for sale.

Getting sick and being dead are two different things! Someone renewed it before it got out to the rests. So before getting all too excited about "buying the domain", you read what the message says first (then jump!).

The domains my work-team's responsible for managing have been managed without being missed for years; we push them back, but they sure do get updated. However, we can't guarantee that it will always be seamless (and that's been understood). If 'high-profile' companies can fail and collapse, failure of domain name renewal is a subset of the game.

You're welcome to stick with your opinion, but to me ekantipur's temporary outage would have zero effect on anyone that knows how to browse away for the news. That said, I'd rejoice the opportunity to snatch that TLD, and join pointing fingers @Kantipur; but that's not the case.

~@~

 

I have nothing against you all. I am not taking sides either. But I want to clarify one thing.

ekantipur.com is not a TLD. It is a domain name registered under .COM TLD

.COM TLD is owned by Verisign. Registrars have to pay a certain fee for any domains delegated on the .COM domain to Verisign and certain $$ to ICANN.

Godaddy is just an authorized registrar for .COM TLD among many others and happens to be the largest one out there. They will renew based on renewal requests, and considering that you are just renewing with the same registrar and not making any changes to your NS or A records, ekantipur.com miserably failed to understand that their website is actually viewed by thousands and they should have renewed it before the expiry date. They followed the reactive approach and we should denounce any unprofessional conduct - may be it due to lack of proper back-office tasks, lack of proper personnel to do the job, or just ignorance for that matter. 

And let this be lessons learned for other domains out there, be professional or be prepared to hear criticism. This is a positive criticism to help you guys improve on you practices.

Thanks
 

I hate these damnnnn squatters.. saaley chorr haru..
a friend of mine was telling several years ago, he lost his domain to one of these damn forsaken squatters who demanded $25000 to claim it back.
daka ta dakai ho yini haru.. ajha phurti laucha.. k k nai garey bhanera..

 I'm sure people would be very level headed if they typed Facebook.com and were shown a GoDaddy scaffold page saying the domain has expired. 

This is not an over-reaction. This is a criticism,  hopefully constructive, of whoever is behind that slip-up, to be a bit more vigilant in doing their job, or they might be faced with a much worse consequence, albeit, as bittertruth nimbly puts it, sqatting.

Occassional failures are pertinent in every aspect of life, and that's applicable to all. 

Criticisms are good, as long as they're intended right. The extent of initial reaction here simply didn't jibe with my perception. Recognizing and quoting this as an act of negligence would have sufficed.

As far as the havocs and losses during outage are concerned, I'd imagine they have proper accounting in place to measure appropriate metrics for *critical* service losses; and would plan accordingly for proactive future actions -- if (e)kantipur values itself as much as some of us here do.

@sleepless, I appreciate your clarification on Top-Level Domain. I had that term all over me due to a recent debate on whether or not a domain name from .xxx TLD was appropriate for acquisition (trademark retention purpose). Apologies for the term misrepresentation. 

~@~