Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] RE: Summary of VI Public Comment Forum

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/23/10 3:55 PM, Richard Tindal wrote:
> 
> Hi Eric,
> 
> Saw your public comments --  
> http://forum.icann.org/lists/pdp-vertical-integration/msg00007.html

There is also
http://forum.icann.org/lists/pdp-vertical-integration/msg00004.html,
which is an attempt to distinguish between types of proposals. The 007
note is an attempt at guessing, from the choices and advocacy claims,
the range of outcomes probable.

> I think it's fair to say the Single Registrant (SR) scenario is not the 
> primary focus of the proposals submitted so far.  I think the proposals place 
> primary focus on the permitted cross ownership level in 'standard' TLDs (i.e. 
>  ones other than SR).  

I hope you're right, but my first thought on seeing this week's "poll"
from the co-chairs was that you, more than any of the SR advocates,
should be congratulated for having captured the co-chairs, who won't
separate SR-must-have from SR-maybe advocates, leaving us with ...
SR-must-have as the end result.

> It's also my sense that proposers are more flexible on how we treat SRs.  
> Though most seem to have strong views on how we treat standard TLDs - I think 
> there's more room to compromise on the SR rules.

This sort of follows like day follows night from the modestly awkward
problem that (a) we don't know what an "SR" is, and (b) no one appears
to have run through DAGv3 and picked out every, or even most, of the
nits that need fixing so whatever a "SR" is, isn't somewhere at odds
with pre-SR text, and the same again on the famous unilaterally
modified at will registry contract.

As for those strong views on how the standard type is treated, what a
luxury! No standard type to date has been a 1/10th as successful as
its operators claimed. Without the .org redel and the NANPA cash,
.info and .biz would be in the same place .name is, on someone else's
spindles.

> Given that, I don't think a proposers' current position on SR should be a 
> reason to reject their overall proposal.    It may even be useful, as some 
> suggested early in the WG,  to separate each proposal into its 'standard' and 
> 'SR' portions.

I've tried to see what is left of each after the SR advocacy is
removed, and also what is left after the help-the-lame-and-the-halt
rationals are removed, to see what of substance actually exists,
whether I think it good or useful or not, and what is one thing
masquerading as another.

So, if there is little or nothing left after abstracting the best
reading of the SR portion of a proposal, then there is no harm in
rejecting the proposal, until the Council, and the Board, affirm the
claim that "SR" already exists, as you've artfully argued.

> This is just my sense of the group.    

I appreciate the comment.

Eric