[wg-c] There is no "consensus"

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

Javier wrote:

> The answer to the first question seems to be clear: Yes, there should be new
> gTLDs.

I'm afraid that it is not clear at all. It is *very* clear that there is not
even a consensus on what we mean by "new gTLDs."

To some commentors, "new gTLDs" means selecting a small list of names and
letting ICANN's Board find someone to operate them, according to whatever
business model it chooses.

To others, "new gTLDs" means authorizing a process by which organizations can
apply for the ability to run a gTLD that is placed in the root. Such a model
implies no fixed number of TLDs, and therefore the "second question" is
entirely inappropriate.

There are other positions that have been stated or implied as to what exactly
"new gTLDs" means.

These differences need to be defined and discussed more systematically.

It is also clear that the trademark people are not in favor of new TLDs until
and unless their concerns about dispute resolution are addressed. I suspect
that everyone knows that I am not and have never been sympathetic to the
trademark community's positions on domain names. Nevertheless, I am very
surprised to see little or no good-faith effort to address concerns about
sequence, which ought to be relatively easy to handle. Surely some effort could
be made to bridge the gap.

To me, the concept of a "working group" and "achieving consensus" means just
that: we *work* at developing proposals and exploring ways to achieve
agreements among parties who bring different views to the table. We don't just
dismiss views we disagree with and hope that they'll be outvoted.

To date, there has been exactly ONE proposal to this list that shows an
appreciation of the fact that there are contending positions, and which
attempts to define some method for resolving the points of contention: Craig
Simon's compromise proposal. Oddly, almost no one besides myself has bothered
to comment on it.

Everyone else seems to be content to restate their own pre-ordained position
again and again, perhaps based on the totally illusory idea that the
differences that have animated the warring camps of the past four years are
suddenly going to go away.


--
m i l t o n   m u e l l e r // m u e l l e r @ s y r . e d u
syracuse university          http://istweb.syr.edu/~mueller/