I let a domain expire today. It's a little like losing a pet, isn't it?

In a massive-multiplayer on-line game that I liked for a while, I was doing alright by myself when one of the founders of one of the bigger clans thought I could bring something to the clan he'd started. I don't think they called 'em clans, but the idea's the same. Anyway, there was a lot of banter and stuff that flew by in the chat, so I proposed a blog-style site that they might be able to use to both share the information, but also maintain some history of it, and tie the information to specific users. The game didn't offer such facilities at the time.

My pitch was accepted, so I grabbed a domain name to match the clan. A couple of the members participated half-heartedly, but it never really caught on. Shortly after, the clan was merged with another large clan, and no one had any interest in the site.

The only visitor to the site was my "is it up?" monitor and me, occasionally checking to see if anyone visited... Since it's zero cost to have the domain running, and since canceling a domain registration brings nothing, I just left it going. The domain name "thewildbrothers-dot-com" didn't have any marketable value for anything else, and any ideas I did have for it all seemed to promote either porn or misbehavior.

Yesterday the domain expired, and I got a stern warning from the registrar. With a little sigh at seeing a small effort end, I deleted the domain to end the inevitable continued warnings for the next month as the domain would be held in limbo.

I just finished editing the files on my server and deleting the database and files used by the domain. Earned myself a couple more megabytes of space. That's a different kind of sad.

It isn't the first domain I've let go. I've been involved with domain registrations on the behalf of many of the less-familiar, and usually it's just their dream dying, and a relief for me as it's one more thing I can offload from my server. Those seem easier than when it's something with which I'm involved.

It's like breaking up with a fun, but not really serious, person, or losing a small pet, like a fish or hamster. Farewell, thewildbrothers-dot-com. Fun while it lasted.