Topic: Need domain name ideas! (Star Trek Online game wiki)

[TerranRich]

So, as the title says, I'm starting up a wiki for the forthcoming game Star Trek Online. One already exists, but it seemingly has nothing to do with the game, so I may very well the first one to attempt such an undertaking. I'm thinking along the same lines of www.wowwiki.com (the World of Warcraft wiki) where they list every little detail of the game, right down to specific details about every spell, skill, item, and whatnot.

Thing is, I need some help in coming up with a domain name that is easy to remember, not that confusing, and fits in with a Star Trek Online wiki.

Here's what I have so far, divided up into those that are already taken and those that are available. The ones that are available aren't really perfect... for example, stonlinewiki.com is kind of long and may be misread in some way, while sto-wiki.com has the dreaded hyphen in the domain name that some web developers tell you to stay away from (although memory-alpha.org, the Star Trek wiki, has a hyphen and is a .org domain to boot).

Taken, So Don't Bother Suggesting It
trekwiki.com, .org
stowiki.com
startrekwiki.com
trekpedia.com, .org
stopedia.com

Available, But Not Quite "It"
stonlinewiki.com
sto-wiki.com
stowiki.net, .org
trekwiki.net
startrekwiki.net, .org
trekpedia.net
stopedia.net, .org

I was also tossing around the idea of following the "Memory ___" format. While Memory Alpha is for the main "canon" of Star Trek, Memory Beta is for the novelverse (or the Star Trek universe extended by the novels and other publications). There's even a Memory Gamma, which is dedicated to fan fiction. I was thinking a Memory Omega, for the Star Trek Online universe and information within the MMO. But I'm just not sure.

Any suggestions, or even new ideas would be wonderful!

[Anian]

Smashing Magazine (design and stuff kind site) just did an article on choosing site names and there's even some things for searching the availabilty of a name:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/02/the-effective-strategy-for-choosing-right-domain-names/
Hope that helps a bit. 

Personal thought - go with .com unless it's obviously a kind of comunity site (ie cgsociety.org). I kinda like stonline.
Btw. stowiki.com is taken, but did you see what's on that page? Nothing. I googled and saw this forum disscusion from last year (link)

[TerranRich]

Nothing is on stowiki.com, but it's still registered and taken and therefore unavailable.

I'm torn on the .org issue... WoWWiki.com is a .com site, but Star Trek's wiki, as well as Wikipedia, are both .org domains.

A lot of these domains are taken by domain prospectors, who sit on potentially popular domain names, hoping that someone will pay insane amounts of money to take it off their hands.

[Mr Flibble]

In terms of .com or .org, go with whatever is cheaper to be honest.

[TerranRich]

Is sto-wiki.com really that bad, with the hyphen in it? Or stowiki.org (.org without the hyphen)? It might be a toss-up between those two.

[Mr Flibble]

I remember reading something on Penny Arcade, someone scoffing at them for having a hyphen in their URL.

They did alright out of it.

[Renal Shutdown]

Have you looked at STO.wikia.com? As Cryptic's old game City of Heroes uses both paragonwiki.com and cityofheroes.wikia.com (they link to the same pages, hosted by wikia).  They actually moved to wikia a while back, as it was better for them and it's improved since then.

[TerranRich]

So basically host it on Wikia, then have a domain name point to it? I guess, although I can host it on my own just fine. I can install the MediaWiki package and customize it however I see fit. I don't see any advantage in using Wikia.

[TerranRich]

Well, it's settled... I've chosen http://stowiki.org/ and you can view it at that link. Thanks for the suggestions and help, guys!