Dear CORE Members:
I started a thread with Excom and the SRS WG over a week ago. I had not wanted
to expose the magnitude of my ignorance to the whole universe of CORE -- at one
time. <:-{>
BobH replied and copied to CORE. Not to worry, no major feasibility issues
have been referred back to me.
This morning, I brought it up again with Excom.
If you are not familiar with the thread, my thought is to start feeding our
queues into the SRS in the near future. There IS a plan to input artificial
data, but what could possibly be better than real data?
Many of the worries that we've bounced back and forth will be resolved rather
quickly, e.g. how much interest is there in each of the seven TLD's. I ran a
survey and obtained a rough estimate, but "one peek is better than two
finesses" in anybody's Bridge game.
This morning, I emphasised the following points:
1. Applicants are presently worried about whether they have been successful in
getting their important domain names. Once the land rush is over, they can
know whether they succeeded. Those who applied through multiple Registrars can
know who their Registrar will be when we "go live".
1a. We can marshal the successful registrants to pressure the USG and GP to
approve the gTLD-MoU plan.
2. The international Trademark professionals may see what names have been
taken. Some will be pleased that "their bull has not been gored", others will
be able to initiate a strategy to deal with tradename collisions.
3. With this information, WIPO may be able to get off the dime and complete the
ACP rules.
4. There have been posting by Registrars who are worried about how much money
each Registrar will need to deposit with CORE (I just ready one from Elliot
Noss). Once we hit steady state, CORE should be able to "read the meter" and
tell each of us how much we must send before their registrations are effective.
5. Registrars will be able to collect the necessary funds from registrants in
sufficient time so that they will not be "stuck" by any deadbeat registrants.
(To do so will require a temporary change in our rules -- only until we go
live.)
6. The initial stage of data entry can go forward in the cool light of day.
Glitches can be dealt with in an orderly fashion. Such would be far preferable
to having the glare of the world press looking over our shoulders and
exaggerating every little glitch.
7. We can then stop designing our business plans based upon the transitory
"land rush" model and can focus on the more normal, steady state conditions.
8. Government officials can stop worrying about how many angels can dance on
the head of a pin and get down to looking at real life situations.
I'm sure there are lots of other advantages.
Nay sayers in Excom were worried that the world might fear that we were about
to run off and go rogue.
I don't know how to resolve that problem. Or do I? It seems to me that some
Registrars will adapt an "Alternic" plan if they are totally frustrated by the
USG and GP. The best protection which the USG can have is to make sure that
CORE Registrars can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
Please, why won't it work?
Regards,
BobC