Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed

["Bret A. Fausett" <baf@fausett.com>]

Mark C. Langston wrote:
> Besides, this is irrelevant.  All I proposed was:
> 1)  A round in which TLD are proposed and selected, giving us a TLD pool.
> 2)  A round in which registries petition to control TLDs in that pool.

Yesterday I stated a handful of reasons why this should be one step. If it
helps to clarify what I was talking about, a good example of what such a
proposal might look like is in sections 4-12 of:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/19991023.NCwgc-report.html#Position Paper E

E proposes a kind of chartered TLD, but there's no reason that the format
used there couldn't be followed for open TLDs in a shared registry (e.g.,
along the lines of Section 7 of Position Paper D).

It may be the case that there are many more proposals for new gTLDs than can
fit in the 6-10 slots to be allocated, but all the better. Send them all to
the NC, with a suggestion that selection take into consideration the WG's
recommendations, popular user demand, minority interests, GA or constituency
preferences/votes, registry model, confidence in registry operations, and
certainly some other factors.

I think it's an impossible task to expect to build "consensus" on what the
first 6-10 new gTLDs should be, but I would expect that we could find
consensus on what factors should be considered and what minimum standards
should be imposed for gTLD names and registry operations. The NC would use
those consensus factors to select among the proposals, and then forward a
recommendation to the Board.

We could certainly try to find consensus on which 6-10 should be
implemented, and forward that to the NC, but I'm skeptical that it would
prove fruitful. 

      -- Bret