Re: [wg-c] Respecting the process

[Simon Higgs <simon@higgs.net>]

At 08:13 AM 4/20/00 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:

I'd like to add my vote of rough consensus to what Dave just said. Strange 
thing to do, but I'd better qualify it before I do it again. <grin>

 From my personal viewpoint, I don't believe it is possible to obtain 
strong enough consensus on issue number 2 (6-10 new gTLDs) due to the 
various interests involved. The problem is that every interested party will 
quote a different number of new TLDs to address their particular agenda. 
Trademark community says none, and so do NSI (but twist their arm and 
they'll put two new gTLDs in for everyone). Some of the academics say the 
number is unimportant, while others say we need lots of new TLDs. Etc.

The test-bed, while a good idea in theory, is in reality, based on the fear 
of the unknown. It is an artificial limitation which is being effectively 
used by those with an agenda to stop or limit the number of new gTLDs. It 
is a glimmer of hope for the rest, but not much else.

At the end of the day, the internet community should be allowed to 
determine this number for themselves (a true measure of community 
consensus) by the number of actual qualifying applications for new gTLDs. 
Let me use the only documentable statistics we have to illustrate this.

The IANA list contains 244 requests over a fifteen month period for 163 new 
gTLDs from 66 applicants. Of these applications, the following statistics 
can be used to determine consensus/popularity of various TLD requests (I 
used the top 10% of requests to find the 13 most popular TLDs - the 
percentage is derived from the number of requests for a specific TLD 
divided by the total number of requests):

2.87% (7/244)     .INC
2.46% (6/244)     .WWW, .XXX
2.05% (5/244)     .BIZ, .SEX, .WEB
1.64% (4/244)     .ALT, .ART, .FAM, LAW, .MED, .PER, .USA

For those wondering where .SHOP comes in all this, the original request was 
filed by Jeff Weisberg on 19 Sep 1995, and was the only request (0.041%) 
for that particular iTLD (I hope NSI have paid Jeff well). This data also 
supports Chris Ambler's claim that .WEB has received more support than 
.SHOP. Of course, we'd all be interested in any data showing otherwise, 
should it exist.

If anyone wants to check the data for themselves, the IANA list is here:
http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-discuss/mail-archive/00990.html

The point I'd really like to make is that, the total number of qualifiable 
applicants isn't going to be all that high. Out of the 66 applicants back 
then, there probably aren't more than 20 that would actually qualify. Even 
if you multiply this number by 5 (for each year since), it is still much 
less than the number of ICANN registrars (when you include all the OpenSRS 
and CORE registrars). If the ICANN registrars can organize themselves in 
those kind of numbers, there is no reason why new registries can't either 
(the proof is in the large number of ccTLD registries).

If a sensible set of criteria is used to evaluate each new TLD application, 
you will find that they will organize themselves into orderly fashion for 
inclusion into the root, and the need for an artificial test-bed becomes 
irrelevant.

>At 10:12 AM 4/20/00 +0200, Philip Sheppard wrote:
>>this point?" I know of those opposed to the idea and so could only vote no.
>
>"consensus" means "general agreement", not "unanimous agreement".  To 
>underscore this point, the IETF uses the term "rough consensus".
>
>For any interesting topic, there will always be some dissent.  Hence, the 
>criterion you cited guarantees that you will always vote no.
>
>That's not very helpful, if there is any interest in making progress.
>
>d/
>
>
>=-=-=-=-=
>Dave Crocker  <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
>Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
>Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464
>675 Spruce Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA