domainist /doh-mayn'ist/ adj.
1. [Usenet, by pointed
analogy with "sexist", "racist", etc.] Someone who judges
people by the domain of their email addresses; esp. someone who
dismisses anyone who posts from a public internet provider. "What
do you expect from an article posted from aol.com?" 2. Said of an
Internet address (as opposed to a bang path) because the
part to the right of the @
specifies a nested series of
`domains'; for example, esr@snark.thyrsus.com specifies
the machine called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus
within the top-level domain called com. See also
big-endian, sense 2.
The meaning of this term has drifted. At one time sense 2 was primary. In elder days it was also used of a site, mailer, or routing program which knew how to handle domainist addresses; or of a person (esp. a site admin) who preferred domain addressing, supported a domainist mailer, or proselytized for domainist addressing and disdained bang paths. These senses are now (1996) obsolete, as effectively all sites have converted.