Re: [wg-c] CONSENSUS CALL -- selecting the gTLDs in the initial rollout

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sun, Mar 05, 2000 at 06:28:52PM -0500, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:
> reflect perceptions within the working group -- suggest the only approach
> with a chance of winning rough consensus in the WG for selecting the gTLDs
> in the initial rollout is the one recently urged by Sheppard and Mueller:
> 
> Registries would apply describing their proposed TLD, and an ICANN body or
> process would make selections taking into account the characteristics of
> both the registry and its proposed TLD.  

This is an extraordinarily bad proposal.  It would be perfectly
reasonable for some group headed by, for example, Jamie Love, to propose
a TLD, and contract with an already established registry (say Nominet,
or maybe even NSI) to operate the registry for them.  This proposal
precludes such a possibility.

Of course, one could get out of this difficulty by simply saying that
anyone who proposes a TLD is a registry, by definition -- that would be
easy to live with.  However, somehow the unglamorous work of simply 
nailing down definitions never got done.

> I'm putting that plan forward as a consensus call, and I strongly urge all
> of you to support it.  I'm not making that call because I think this is the
> overwhelming best result on the merits (though I think it's a pretty good
> one).

I strongly urge people not to support it, because it is an
extraordinarily bad idea.  There is absolutely no reason to restrict
proposals of TLD names to registries alone.  Whatever approval process
there is for TLDs should accept proposals from anyone, and the proposals
should be evaluated on their merits.  There are many many registries 
already capable of providing production quality registration services, 
and adding a TLD to an already existing registry is a very minor 
matter.

This proposal severely restricts the possibilities for TLD choices, and
shuts out a whole variety of creative possibilities, and THERE IS NO
GOOD REASON FOR SUCH A RESTRICTION. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain