[wg-b] Re: [wg-c] URGENT: Moratorium on all additions to confusing GTLDs and ccTLDsRequired.

["matt hooker" <matthooker@hotmail.com>]

11/21/99

The objection, which follows, to my proposal is a bad one. The analogy is a 
bad one too. We do not use phone numbers as easily as we use words. We can 
remember words more easily also. An area code simply adds a few more numbers 
to a number. A TLD adds 2 or 3 (so far) letters - that may have no meaning 
of their own, to a word or string of words or letters that has a meaning and 
is usually easy to remember. People do not try to remember phone numbers 
with their associated area codes, but rather keep lists or use directory 
information services. With a domain name and the internet, people can 
remember names as long as there are not too many TLDs added on to those 
names. There are already too many TLDs added to the names (SLDs) for easy 
human use and memory. To add more TLDs will only make this situation worse. 
Furthermore, with telephone numbers and area codes, one knows that the area 
code refers to a specific country, and area of a county. No such information 
can be derived from and of the gTLDs or many (and, I might add, an ever 
increasing number) of the ccTLDs. Thus without the associated place, which 
is what allows humans to sometimes remember area codes, (because they 
remember the physical location of the phone), it is much more difficult for 
a human to remember an often meaningless gTLD or ccTLD, along with the 
domain name itself. To have to choose among 5 or 10 or more domain names 
which are exactly the same, with the exception of the TLDs at the end of the 
name is extremely difficult for the human memory and leads to confusion. To 
have to do this for any more than are already in existence - well, most 
people won't be able to do it at all, and vast confusion will set in. We 
need to REDUCE the number of TLDs NOT increase  it.

Matt Hooker
Webmaster@Net-Speed.com
matthooker@hotmail.com

In response to:
Matt,

If your basic premise were indeed true, then the telephone numbering
systems in use around the world would have fallen apart a long time ago.
Your thesis conveniently forgets that a domain name consists of two
important parts - the TLD and the SLD. The existence of multiple TLDs does
not lead to a fractured Internet - it simply means that we have more area
codes to work with.

-RWR

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