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I ask because the likelihood of this question turning up is greater as time goes by and it's best to have this sooner rather than later.

Not all cultures approve of the word "ham", despite it being a very common way of describing the hobby. In particular, anything pork related is banned from import in several Muslim countries. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, in their official pages, describes the hobby as "Amateur Radio" and never as "ham radio".

Wikipedia describes the hobby as "Amateur radio, also known as ham radio", and since we drop "radio" either way, can we not just use "amateur", or if we choose to include it "amateur radio", as the subdomain?

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The host name "ham" is short, and the domain is already long.

If it's going to be renamed, then the SE web server must be permanently configured so that anyone who tries to access the original site gets redirected.

How about hamradio as the hostname?

Having said all this, I have no strong opinion on this matter either, other than that there should be strong support if we're going to make a change.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks, Mike. With a mod having answered this with a no-contest and saying that it's a matter of community support. I'm going to close this question for now, in the future if we're ever planning on migrating, I guess the community can take a vote. $\endgroup$
    – Amin Shah Gilani
    Mar 29, 2019 at 18:52
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Sorry for being blunt, but renaming it to Amateur.SE doesn't really make sense because it doesn't tell anything about what the site is about: Amateur model? Amateur musician? Amateur performance? Oh, amateur radio?

While I'm not sure about the relevance of "ham" being banned in several Muslim countries (do they also block any sites mentioning "ham"?) and I can't comment more about that, a better compromise is to rename to Radio.SE (the actual topic of this site, although might be too broad and misleading), or AmateurRadio.SE (as per name of this site).

(That said, both are just suggestions while I don't advocate to rename the site, and not even sure if TPTB might agree with it)

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    $\begingroup$ I agree, but conversely "ham.stackexchange.net" really doesn't convey that this site is about amateur radio either. And not at all, your bluntness is appreciated, no point in beating around the bush :) $\endgroup$
    – Amin Shah Gilani
    Mar 29, 2019 at 18:44
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There are several things to consider here:

  • a shorter, more succinct name is better for several reasons.
  • ‘ham’ is a term that is known the world over for amateur radio enthusiasts.
  • even the term “amateur radio enthusiast” feels clunky and is not as descriptive as the term “radio ham”.
  • the Pakistan Amateur Radio Society seems to be perfectly fine with the term

As an aside, I even have a friend here in Thailand whose official nickname (every Thai person is given an official nickname by their parents) is “ham” (แฮม) because her father is a licensed radio amateur. That’s how entrenched the nickname is.

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