Is "www" desirable in web site URL?

[Karen Campbell]

Based on experience, it's my understanding that Netscape can access
any address without the protocol part of the address (htp:// or ftp://),
but that if www is part of the actual address (www.hamline.edu), it needs
to be present.

While far from a purist myself, I still insist on teaching students to use
the protocol part of a web address, just as I have them fill in the entire
e-mail address in Pine exercises, even though our setup will supply the
address for users on the local network.  I think this helps in
demystifying the internet a little for people to be aware of what they are
doing. But then again, I don't use the preprogram buttons on my telephone
either! 


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Karen Campbell	                           Bush Memorial Library
kcampbel at seq.hamline.edu	           Hamline University
(612)641-2482			           St. Paul, Minnesota
We are "web weavers and dancers at the dawn of the Meso-Electronic Period"
                                       ---Paul Evan Peters
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On Fri, 13 Sep 1996, Laura B. Cohen wrote:

> I'm not so sure you can always leave off "www" in the URL when
> you're using Netscape. (I'm on 3.0 for Windows 3.1).
> 
> My university's home page is www.albany.edu. When I just point
> the browser to "albany.edu," I get to a forwarding page set up
> last year, pointing to the new university home page. I need to
> type "www.albany.edu" to get to the current page.
> 
>   -- Laura Cohen
>