Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] WT-2 who/what

[Andrew Mack <amack@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Elaine, Richard and all,


Sorry to have been absent the last couple of days.  Out of the office.
 
To Elaine’s good points:
 
-Is it ok if the applicant only serves a very small part of
the public?  The
answer depends on what we might describe as “very small”.  Denmark is small in 
population but has a relatively
larger footprint on the web than the Hausa community which is much larger in 
terms of population.  Absent a very compelling reason to carve out
a specific small TLD (and an organizational structure to support it),for 
viability I agree that there would need to be some sort of “floor” number
of say, arbitrarily 500,000 community members, before an application is 
considered.  (This is not a proposed number, just a guess).  
 
To the second (implied) part of the question,
what is the public?  If nearly the only
people interested in the TLD are its members, is that OK?  I would argue yes, 
since the community
building function is a positive good in most cases, even though the “general
public” might not care much about Hausa literature for example.

> -Would the applicant need to demonstrate demand for the TLD? If so, what
is the threshold? For example, is a projection of 10k registrations enough to
consider it "viable"?  Not sure here.  Part of this depends on price per 
registration and running costs.  In any
case, I think we may run into difficulty demonstrating demand for something
that isn’t launched yet.  For example,
especially for relatively less well financed groups, what is the cost of taking
an accurate sample of a multi-jurisdictional community like the Quechua-speaking
community which spans Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and other areas as well as a
diaspora?  How accurate would an estimate
be?  I know we will need estimates, but it strikes me
that the message might travel more slowly into communities that might need the
space most in terms of things like cultural preservation etc.  In this case, an 
early snapshot might miss
demand.  

> -Does theTLD have to be a worthy cause in order to qualify for support,
does it need to benefit society or make the world a better place?  Beauty is in 
the eye
of the beholder.  Hard to argue that
having a place for Catalan speakers is a bad idea, but I’m a bit concerned that
having a strict “holiness test” might make things unnecessarily messy.   This 
is one of the reasons why in our “Group
A” we included communities defined by language and culture/ethnicity as opposed
to NGOs or the like.  My recommendation
is that we make a blanket assumption that Group A communities pass the “worth
considering on social grounds” test.
> 
> 
> As far as what type of support, we've identified:
> financial-fee reduction/subsidization
> infrastructure-IPV6 compatible hardware/networks
> education-DNSSEC implementation
> translation of relevant documents
> assistance with writing and through the application process
> extended outreach to potential applicants-to make them aware of the
opportunity and to allow them extra time
> What about a waiver of some of the obviously challenging to developing
states technical requirements-IPV6, DNSSEC, uptime requirements...  
> Or do we dismiss the concept of a self-run registry and instead stick to
the idea that disadvantaged applicants would use 1st tier back end services?
> Any other types of support?  
> 
> Proposal:
> Post a notice of the WG's intentions, and ask potential applicants to
(anonymously) identify types of needs.
> The APTLD, LACTLD, etc managers and ccTLD operators might be a good
channel for distribution.
I think this is an interesting idea,
but I wonder if we’d reach enough potential applicants as a lot of this still
seems pretty far off for most communities and the vagaries of ICANN world are
still not widely known in most quarters.  Also, going through AFTLD, LACTLD and 
the ccs might be a good place to start,
but I do have a question: would they see the new community TLDs as
competition?  If so, would that skew our result?  Would it make sense to query 
the many groups that are trying to offer services to potential applicants 
(thinking about potential clients they'd rejected as being not wealthy enough?) 
 Would that be too muddled?

Regards, AAM


Andrew A. Mack 
Principal
AMGlobal Consulting
+1-202-256-1077  
amack@xxxxxxxxxxxx  
www.amglobal.com




________________________________
From: Richard Tindal <richardtindal@xxxxxx>
To: soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wed, May 19, 2010 2:06:31 PM
Subject: Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] WT-2 who/what


Elaine,

Good note.  

I think your list of 'what type of support' is comprehensive,  but I'll try to 
think of anything that could be added to it.

I like your idea of an anonymous posting of applicants intentions.  I think 
that would be very helpful.       If others on the group agree we should get 
that rolling?

Also, rather than each of our applicants having to scope and provide their own 
infrastructure we could promote to them the idea of a cooperative 
infrastructure in which they all share the required DNS,  SRS and WhoIs systems.

RT


On May 18, 2010, at 10:18 AM, Elaine Pruis wrote:

> 
> Some questions on what type of applicant might qualify for support/reduced 
> fees.
> 
> -Is it ok if the applicant only serves a very small part of the public?
> -Would the applicant need to demonstrate demand for the TLD? If so, what is 
> the threshold? For example, is a projection of 10k registrations enough to 
> consider it "viable"?
> -Does theTLD have to be a worthy cause in order to qualify for support, does 
> it need to benefit society or make the world a better place?
> 
> 
> As far as what type of support, we've identified:
> financial-fee reduction/subsidization
> infrastructure-IPV6 compatible hardware/networks
> education-DNSSEC implementation
> translation of relevant documents
> assistance with writing and through the application process
> extended outreach to potential applicants-to make them aware of the 
> opportunity and to allow them extra time
> What about a waiver of some of the obviously challenging to developing states 
> technical requirements-IPV6, DNSSEC, uptime requirements...
> Or do we dismiss the concept of a self-run registry and instead stick to the 
> idea that disadvantaged applicants would use 1st tier back end services?
> Any other types of support?
> 
> Proposal:
> Post a notice of the WG's intentions, and ask potential applicants to 
> (anonymously) identify types of needs.
> The APTLD, LACTLD, etc managers and ccTLD operators might be a good channel 
> for distribution.
> 
> 
> Elaine Pruis
> VP Client Services
> elaine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> +1 509 899 3161
>