I have only just found you..

[CPTL]

I have only just found you, which is not a surprise, because I don't surf much and did not speak much.
I am Danny, have been long watching IDN since it was in its first days.
There is a story to tell.
Dot CC was the first to release IDNs, using the ra-- conversion codes back in early 2000. Then Verisign announced they would support IDNs, and I was interested. I knew it was a matter of conversion, and I found the RACE code secret just one day before the landrush on 2000-11-09. But I was skeptical and registered only a few with their bq-- equivalents, including 天.com and 龍.net (龍.com had been registered before me, would you believe it).
Then I waited and waited, and Verisign extended the registration period several times without charge. But before I knew, they changed the coding to PUNY, and I did not get auto-converted, so all was in vain. However, because I was keeping an eye on it, I was able to grab a few good ones as they dropped, in those days when you could still try your luck to poke the registry at the time of its release, which was in the middle of the night here in Hong Kong.
There was a elapse of several years I had done nothing, and let a few dropped, until last year when I heard IE7 was going to resolve. But it was too late, almost everything was gone by then. Anyway, I have only got less than 20 IDNs, all in Chinese, with a few 4 character proverbs no one had noticed.
I have been doing IDN.CN and ascii.CN also, where there are several China sites auctioning dropouts that one can still bid for good names with pennies.
I am proficient in Chinese, anyone has questions on Chinese IDNs or dot CNs, I can be of help. Fire away...

[Rubber Duck]

Welcome aboard.

You will note we have Local Language subforums.

Chinese forum is suspended and hidden at the moment as we are looking for someone competant to volunteer to moderate it.

[CPTL]

I would not have much time to do a good job, so I shall leave it to other Chinese friends here, but I can be of secondary help, you can email me any time and I would do my best.
with apologises,
CPTL.

[rhys]

Ah...to be so early on the scene and yet too late. That's a heartbreaker. Well welcome to the forum! There is still time to turn it all around!

[Developer]

This is a great story! I heard of people registering bq-- names, but I never knew anyone who actually did.

I remember Network Solutions people even called me up on the phone asking if I wanted to renew the bq-- names, and I told them no.

Anyways, welcome aboard! You know, some people who heard of IE7 last year managed to put together decent portfolios, but it took hours and hours of work.

[Drewbert]

Actually bq-- names were preceded by ra--

Quite a few of them were regged as ASCII by people hoping to get an early lock on the good stuff.