Poll for Name Protection Product Concept

[Rob Monster]

I previously invited input for a new brand name for a product/service that protects domain owners from unforeseen risks and provides optional insurance against economic loss. The concept was introduced here.

After a few days of reviewing domain submissions, we now have a screened list of prospects for this project and are looking for some input on name selection before making a final decision.

 

[Radu054]

Lets get back to the task at hand and make the thread on topic again. If anyone has any other names not included in the poll and where not previously sent to Rob then please feel free and post them here, explaining why it is better fit than those chosen for the poll. Peace

I'l add 2 new submissions:

NomGuard.com
NomShield.com

Many of the comments suggested the keywords "Guard" or "Shield" as being suitable for the project. Though I think we all agree that name/domain/dn are better than nom, the 6 domains are priced more than the budget ($1000) as follows:

DNGuard//com - No BIN, min. offer $3,925
DNShield//com - BIN - $4,595
NameGuard//com - developed
NameShield//com - developed
DomainGuard//com ( not for sale as per my quick research (landing page/afternic/sedo).
DomainShield//com - BIN $7,038 - min. offer $1,000

I think that many of us were greedy in our asking prices when sending domains to Rob and that's why those names are not in the poll. I'm sure I was and I'm not proud of myself, pricing my one day regged domains in mid-high $X,XXX, but I came to understand that the most important thing is to help our enduser(Epik) and in the meantime make a profit on our domains. Rob knows domains, he's always here when in need, why do we have to quote him a higher price for our domains than we would usually quote for a handreg (my case) ? As I said, I'm not proud of myself and I learnt a big lesson: don't be greedy!

Many of us sent him handregged domains, don't you all think that the Epik's team could have brainstormed and come up with similar domains that they could've regged for $5,49 instead of paying mid-high $XXX? Maybe (Probably) it made more sense to the business that we regged domains with Epik, but one of us gets to have a sale and help Rob/Epik.

 

[Etinosa]

I'l add 2 new submissions:

NomGuard.com
NomShield.com

Many of the comments suggested the keywords "Guard" or "Shield" as being suitable for the project. Though I think we all agree that name/domain/dn are better than nom, the 6 domains are priced more than the budget ($1000) as follows:

DNGuard//com - No BIN, min. offer $3,925
DNShield//com - BIN - $4,595
NameGuard//com - developed
NameShield//com - developed
DomainGuard//com ( not for sale as per my quick research (landing page/afternic/sedo).
DomainShield//com - BIN $7,038 - min. offer $1,000

I think that many of us were greedy in our asking prices when sending domains to Rob and that's why those names are not in the poll. I'm sure I was and I'm not proud of myself, pricing my one day regged domains in mid-high $X,XXX, but I came to understand that the most important thing is to help our enduser(Epik) and in the meantime make a profit on our domains. Rob knows domains, he's always here when in need, why do we have to quote him a higher price for our domains than we would usually quote for a handreg (my case) ? As I said, I'm not proud of myself and I learnt a big lesson: don't be greedy!

Many of us sent him handregged domains, don't you all think that the Epik's team could have brainstormed and come up with similar domains that they could've regged for $5,49 instead of paying mid-high $XXX? Maybe (Probably) it made more sense to the business that we regged domains with Epik, but one of us gets to have a sale and help Rob/Epik.

Domainshield.com is $5732 on Sedo , I think that falls within the budget . what do you think Rob?

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

I'l add 2 new submissions:

NomGuard.com
NomShield.com

Many of the comments suggested the keywords "Guard" or "Shield" as being suitable for the project. Though I think we all agree that name/domain/dn are better than nom, the 6 domains are priced more than the budget ($1000) as follows:

DNGuard//com - No BIN, min. offer $3,925
DNShield//com - BIN - $4,595
NameGuard//com - developed
NameShield//com - developed
DomainGuard//com ( not for sale as per my quick research (landing page/afternic/sedo).
DomainShield//com - BIN $7,038 - min. offer $1,000

I think that many of us were greedy in our asking prices when sending domains to Rob and that's why those names are not in the poll. I'm sure I was and I'm not proud of myself, pricing my one day regged domains in mid-high $X,XXX, but I came to understand that the most important thing is to help our enduser(Epik) and in the meantime make a profit on our domains. Rob knows domains, he's always here when in need, why do we have to quote him a higher price for our domains than we would usually quote for a handreg (my case) ? As I said, I'm not proud of myself and I learnt a big lesson: don't be greedy!

Many of us sent him handregged domains, don't you all think that the Epik's team could have brainstormed and come up with similar domains that they could've regged for $5,49 instead of paying mid-high $XXX? Maybe (Probably) it made more sense to the business that we regged domains with Epik, but one of us gets to have a sale and help Rob/Epik.

Thank you. Nom is French isnt it?

 

[Cal2]

Domainshield.com is $5732 on Sedo , I think that falls within the budget . what do you think Rob?

I prefer 'domain' to 'name', in this instance. More specific, yet still general enough, for domains. I was going to ask if anyone had names that didn't have 'name' in them - it's one reason why I chose DNProtect.

Now if anyone had a great brandable or 2 that would fit....

 

[Radu054]

Thank you. Nom is French isnt it?

I'm not French, but as per Google nom is French for name. Also, I saw that one of the entries had the keyword nom so i thought I would check the availability of nomguard and nomshield.

 

[Ategy]

The Nigeria reference is a bit off-topic.

Not really .. it was never meant to mean people from Nigeria are any different from anywhere else. I just used it because it's where you said this particular person who tried to rig the system is from (I never said, meant or implied that he represented all Nigerians in any way .. I apologise if anything I said was written in a way that might have given that impression) .. people are taking what I said completely out of context (I'm hoping you can empathise with that).

I was using it in a generic way to point out that $5K usd can be life changing for many people, and that you can't really blame anyone for trying to get all their friends to vote blindly. It's nothing criminal or evil .. I'm not even saying he's a bad person ... but it's just a fact that getting your friends to vote blindly completely spoils the poll system going forward making the results effectively meaningless with regards to actual domain quality.

As for VettedName.com -- I am pretty sure that this is the flag name of Team Nigeria.

I thought VettedName was a bad domain and suspected the poll was being rigged before you posted that, and before I even know it was a Nigerian submission .. I didn't even know there was a "Team Nigeria" on NamePros as I don't really care where people are from .. and the fact it's a Nigerian submission has nothing to do with why it's bad ... there are bad domains from every country in the world. Just as I'm sure there are plenty of Nigerian domainers with great domains.

It should also be noted that I wasn't making false insinuations .. if you go to the forum you linked, unless it's been deleted, you'll see the submitter asking his contacts to come vote for him.

Even more interesting is going to that forum and seeing things like "A lot of whites have started to open new account to attack my name on the vote list and increase their vote as well. Thanks", "He later commended Nigeria that we are least better than India", "We are saints compared to India in cyberfraud rate".

There have also been posts in this thread directly and personally insulting me and my intelligence that have since unfortunately been deleted after being left too long originally.

Now am I going around making claims of racism? No. Using the term "Whites" the way it was most certainly is racist .. but was it actually meant to be racist? Likely not! Is the person who said it racist? Also likely not! He or she probably just got excited at the thought of making a great domain sale (something that ALL domainers ALL around the world can appreciate, including myself) and resorted to what was likely meant to simply be a nationalistic statement to motivate his/her buddies to come here and vote for the name in question.

As you know I'm half Indian and I also could have been extremely offended seeing statements like Nigerians are saints compared to Indians, or that Nigeria is better than India. But who knows .. in all likelyhood there are more people in India doing scams than there are in Nigeria. Does that mean Indians are scammers .. no .. just that some are .. just as there are some scammers in Nigeria and some in Canada and all over the world.

It's in the same way I used the example that money can go a lot further in Nigeria than it can for most of us in the west .. it most certainly was not meant as a personal attack ... and I meant it to actually show my possible empathy in that I could understand if someone would ask their friends to vote for them given the significant impact that amount of money could have. (Again .. I'm not saying he's a bad person .. it's not like he asked people to help him rob a bank or beat someone up .. it's an internet poll .. it's not the end of the world .. it just sucks for those of us who take it seriously)

I have zero hate for Nigerians (or any nationality/race) .. my family doctor as a kid was Nigerian and I was friends with his kids. I worked for a Nigerian one summer when I was young and it was great .. he was one of the coolest guys I met. While it's cooled the last 2-3 years, the Nigerian economy has been growing at an explosive rate the past 2 decades, they are well positioned for further growth .. particularly when it comes to Internet usage. Anybody would be a fool to bet against the future of Nigeria.


I actually did take time to explain and spell out the technical and linguistic reasons why I felt strongly that VettedName was a bad domain, but unfortunately that post and several others have been deleted .. what you're seeing now is likely a trail of somewhat off-topic posts.


All that said .. I'm just not a fan of people voting blindly and rigging the system for anything regardless of what it is and/or where they are from. That being said .. it seems many people here are indeed actually fine with that .. so I've said what I had to say .. and they said what they had to say.

 

[H Malsawmtluanga]

Whether the submission is from Nigeria or India or Colombia or Belarus or any other nation for that matter, VettedName.com is not the best IMO. As long as the present tense VetName.com / VetNames.com remain unregistered, that will remain my opinion.

 

[BradWilson]

VettedName.com is not the best IMO. As long as the present tense VetName.com / VetNames.com remain unregistered, that will remain my opinion.

I'm definitely not wanting to continue to defend the Vetted choice BUT...

Vet and Vetted really do have a different meaning, yes they come from the same root but are used and understood to be way different.

And yes, one of my submitted domains was VettedDomainS.com

Do I think this is the best for this project? No, but it's pretty good.

Will it or the non-plural version be selected? No, I'm pretty sure neither will be.

The point being, with it in the mix we as a group can figure out why it doesn't work and learn what will work. Which is the whole point of this test right? Well maybe not the WHOLE point but still very important I'd say.

 

[BradWilson]

There have also been posts in this thread directly and personally insulting me and my intelligence that have since unfortunately been deleted after being left too long originally.

...All that said .. I'm just not a fan of people voting blindly and rigging the system for anything regardless of what it is and/or where they are from. That being said .. it seems many people here are indeed actually fine with that .. so I've said what I had to say .. and they said what they had to say.

I definitely was glad I wasn't you while reading those comments.

I used to also be on the edge with my comments and walked the fine line with my opinions. But after being harshly attacked for a totally misunderstood comment I made, I realized it is never worth the pain.

Instead, I've committed myself to ALWAYS be as kind and positive in my replies as I can possibly be. Have I achieved my goal? Almost, but I'm definitely much better than before. The result is that I've greatly improved my communications online by a longshot.

So now, I feel the need to address the issue of unfairly stacking of votes.

Yes, there will always be the temptation to do this, and it might work short term, but it will eventually come back to haunt those who do it. In the end, those who do it will likely lose.

If Rob and his team are smart and I think we all know they are, they are well aware of this and will factor it into their decisions.

So, for me I decided to just sit back and watch how this unfolded and to not be the target when things hit the fan, which of course they did.

Have we all learned a lesson here? Yes, I think so and hopefully everyone involved will be better off from the experience. It all depends on how each of us responds to what we learned.

 

[Ategy]

@H Malsawmtluanga and @BradWilson ... As I pointed out in my post that is now unfortunately deleted, my strong objection to VettedName was simply that it isn't natural language. The expected and correct brand would indeed be VettedNames (Brad's submission/suggestion, although to be clear, still not one I would have chosen).

Effectively when you have a 2 word adjective+noun brand, and it's effectively an exact match ("Vetted Names" is indeed a real thing), then in general the correct and expected natural language is for the trailing noun to be plural when there is the expectation of there being more than just a single instance of the product. In this particular case the natural presumed expectation is that the company will be protecting/insuring multiple names (from multiple domainers) .. which means that if the brand is an exact match (as is the case here), it needs to be plural. (This is NOT my opinion, it's simply the reality of how English works in this case)

In some cases you can have what would be an exact match of something completely different take on the role of a brand. For example you could have a cool brand called "BlueTiger", but the expectation is that you won't find any blue tigers there, that indeed it's just a brand. The image you're trying to portray in this case is that of a Blue Tiger (singular). If indeed the brand were representing what they were actually selling, and indeed the website/company sells Blue Tigers, then the natural English would be "BlueTigers" (unless there was only one tiger for sale).

Note that there are plenty of exceptions .. there are cases where both plural and singular can be used, and other cases where both aren't quite right .. there really is no other quick or easy explanation of the guidelines and exceptions (that I know of) .. English unfortunately can be somewhat unstructured often times .. you just have to know ... that's why it's unfortunately very tough for anyone (including English speakers) who don't have strong language and communication skills to succeed at domaining.


As for the "Vetted" part itself .. it isn't too bad .. although I think it only covers the first half of what they want to do with the project, it doesn't convey anything about insurance. But to be clear .. the strongest part of my objection to the doming "VettedName" is the lack of the "S" at the end of "Name" .. it takes a usable domain (VettedNames) into unfortunately an unusable one (VettedName).

While for most brands you want to avoid the past tense .. in this particular case the past tense "Vetted" I feel is actually the correct usage because the expectation is that for the domains that will be insured to have first already have been "Vetted".

If the primary service of the project was just the vetting of names, then "Vetted" wouldn't really work because the client would be going to the service to "Vet" their not yet vetted names. (Although somehow VetNames doesn't work in this case .. one of those exceptions that just doesn't feel right and I'd think the natural language in that case would be NameVetting .. confusingly, most of the time the natural language is for nouns to be singular when the first word of a brand .. ).

 

[TCK]

I'm not French, but as per Google nom is French for name. Also, I saw that one of the entries had the keyword nom so i thought I would check the availability of nomguard and nomshield.

Nom is also short for the English word “nomenclature”. But if you are going to use a short form, I prefer Dom for domain.

 

[Recons.Com]

nom is meaningful in English as a root of many words, like nominal, nominate, binomial, denomination...

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

nom is meaningful in English as a root of many words, like nominal, nominate, binomial, denomination...

Not in this case though

 

[Recons.Com]

Not in this case though

It is a choice )) And it has to be consistent. For example, NomPros would have been strange, but we would have gotten used to it probably.

In contrast, I won at an auction NeoNom with the meaning of "new name", as a potential marketplace name. Loved everything about it: a) both parts are derived from Latin/Greek, so consistent. NewNom would have been much weaker b) Both parts start with N and are 3 letters each; c) rolls off the tongue very well.

 

[Rob Monster]

Thanks for all the input and intense discussion.

The polls are closed. @bhartzer and I are planning to select a winner on this coming Thursday afternoon. Just FYI, there might be a 24 hour "snap poll" before that.

Looking back on the process, I think Squadhelp and similar services would be hard-pressed to generate as much quality input and suitable submissions as what we saw here.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Looking back on the process, I think Squadhelp and similar services would be hard-pressed to generate as much quality input and suitable submissions as what we saw here.

Agreed. To get this type of input would have cost several thousands of dollars had it been done by traditional market testing methods. Hats of to you and the Epik team for understanding the value of this process and to all those that participated both constructively and not...all the input contributes to the final decision making process.

 

[Rob Monster]

Agreed. To get this type of input would have cost several thousands of dollars had it been done by traditional market testing methods. Hats of to you and the Epik team for understanding the value of this process and to all those that participated both constructively and not...all the input contributes to the final decision making process.

I like the open source approach for a few reasons:

1. It causes a lot of knowledge to be shared with a lot of people.

2. It lets people with talent for domain selection and/or logo design demonstrate their talents in a (mostly) classy non-spammy way. It also lets others see who has what talents and natural ability -- I have actually met many impressive people from all over the world through this particular name selection process. There is some serious talent resident here.

3. It gives NamePros an intellectually compelling function. I say this due to the comments made by some that NamePros is being overrun with folks who are spamming domain lists. One reason is that some people are desperate for a sale. They increase the volume rather than change their tune -- they are playing yesterday's hits (PPC) and selling off low-traffic brandables, and then wondering why they are broke.

Anyway, thanks again.

 

[NicTraders]

Not really .. it was never meant to mean people from Nigeria are any different from anywhere else. I just used it because it's where you said this particular person who tried to rig the system is from (I never said, meant or implied that he represented all Nigerians in any way .. I apologise if anything I said was written in a way that might have given that impression) .. people are taking what I said completely out of context (I'm hoping you can empathise with that).

I was using it in a generic way to point out that $5K usd can be life changing for many people, and that you can't really blame anyone for trying to get all their friends to vote blindly. It's nothing criminal or evil .. I'm not even saying he's a bad person ... but it's just a fact that getting your friends to vote blindly completely spoils the poll system going forward making the results effectively meaningless with regards to actual domain quality.



I thought VettedName was a bad domain and suspected the poll was being rigged before you posted that, and before I even know it was a Nigerian submission .. I didn't even know there was a "Team Nigeria" on NamePros as I don't really care where people are from .. and the fact it's a Nigerian submission has nothing to do with why it's bad ... there are bad domains from every country in the world. Just as I'm sure there are plenty of Nigerian domainers with great domains.

It should also be noted that I wasn't making false insinuations .. if you go to the forum you linked, unless it's been deleted, you'll see the submitter asking his contacts to come vote for him.

Even more interesting is going to that forum and seeing things like "A lot of whites have started to open new account to attack my name on the vote list and increase their vote as well. Thanks", "He later commended Nigeria that we are least better than India", "We are saints compared to India in cyberfraud rate".

There have also been posts in this thread directly and personally insulting me and my intelligence that have since unfortunately been deleted after being left too long originally.

Now am I going around making claims of racism? No. Using the term "Whites" the way it was most certainly is racist .. but was it actually meant to be racist? Likely not! Is the person who said it racist? Also likely not! He or she probably just got excited at the thought of making a great domain sale (something that ALL domainers ALL around the world can appreciate, including myself) and resorted to what was likely meant to simply be a nationalistic statement to motivate his/her buddies to come here and vote for the name in question.

As you know I'm half Indian and I also could have been extremely offended seeing statements like Nigerians are saints compared to Indians, or that Nigeria is better than India. But who knows .. in all likelyhood there are more people in India doing scams than there are in Nigeria. Does that mean Indians are scammers .. no .. just that some are .. just as there are some scammers in Nigeria and some in Canada and all over the world.

It's in the same way I used the example that money can go a lot further in Nigeria than it can for most of us in the west .. it most certainly was not meant as a personal attack ... and I meant it to actually show my possible empathy in that I could understand if someone would ask their friends to vote for them given the significant impact that amount of money could have. (Again .. I'm not saying he's a bad person .. it's not like he asked people to help him rob a bank or beat someone up .. it's an internet poll .. it's not the end of the world .. it just sucks for those of us who take it seriously)

I have zero hate for Nigerians (or any nationality/race) .. my family doctor as a kid was Nigerian and I was friends with his kids. I worked for a Nigerian one summer when I was young and it was great .. he was one of the coolest guys I met. While it's cooled the last 2-3 years, the Nigerian economy has been growing at an explosive rate the past 2 decades, they are well positioned for further growth .. particularly when it comes to Internet usage. Anybody would be a fool to bet against the future of Nigeria.


I actually did take time to explain and spell out the technical and linguistic reasons why I felt strongly that VettedName was a bad domain, but unfortunately that post and several others have been deleted .. what you're seeing now is likely a trail of somewhat off-topic posts.


All that said .. I'm just not a fan of people voting blindly and rigging the system for anything regardless of what it is and/or where they are from. That being said .. it seems many people here are indeed actually fine with that .. so I've said what I had to say .. and they said what they had to say.

Just wanted to support you in this post @Ategy.com. I voted a number if days ago in the poll, but to me it seemed immediately obvious that the voting was rigged for VettedName. It had 30% of the votes but no mentions (at the time) in the thread as to why anyone was picking it. I also saw it as a relatively poor name and for the vote to be at such an overwhelming majority was highly irregular. I was going to mention at the time that someone should check how many new NP accounts were voting for it, but thought better of it and deleted the comments before I posted them. So I just stopped watching the thread and decided to ignore it since I was pretty sure others would figure it out too. So I've read nothing between page 2 and page 9. I just decided to jump in again as the thread was in the 'popular this week' box. I read this last page and from your post I can pretty well guess what the pages of posts have been about so I'm quite happy I've been ignoring the thread till now. Anyway, your post seems very diplomatic and well thought out so just wanted to say so. I shall now go and hide back under my rock...

 

[WarpedMind]

I didn't read these 10 pages of text lol but I like nameassurance and dnprotect. If I have to choose one, I think NameAssurance carries more weight IMHO.

 

[TCK]

FYI, IMO, all the names are bad. Don’t fight to find the best one. They’re all bad. You can find much better on the aftermarket.

 

[TCK]

NameSeal might be the only one worth consideration.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Hello,

The secondary discussion that evolved in this thread has been moved to its own dedicated thread; you may continue the discussion there.

We greatly appreciate the discussion about polls, but please remember the following rule:

• Rule 1.5. Do not post anything suggestive or critical of NamePros (e.g., policy, staff, or moderation activity: infractions, content approval, edited/deleted posts, etc.) except in the designated areas for customer support (private) and feedback (public).

This rule exists for many reasons, but here are two worth noting:

1. We need to be able to track suggestions so they have a chance of being implemented. Otherwise, they can easily be lost, forgotten, or missed.
2. When necessary, we need to be able to discuss them freely without disrupting the original purpose and topic of any other thread.

Please help us help you (the community) by following these rules and guidelines.

Thanks.

 

[swapna sri]

NameProtector.com is my choice, it is appropriate for the project and idea.

 

[Brand Herald]

I'd go with VettedName.com - with NameSeal.com a close second

 

[TCK]

@Rob Monster, who is the winner? Are you going to go by the name with the most votes?