Quoting a remark by Marc Schneiders elsewhere in this
discussion:> Why do people want a .union? And who wants it? Is it usefull to
>
create a TLD for a very limited number of second level domains
> that can easily
be found place for in .org? After .union we will
> have calls for .church, .museum
(already mentioned in
> proposals), .party (in many countries there are more than
two),
> .ath(letics), just to mention a few strictly non-commercial
> bodies.
These should be in .org.
I don't know about the other cases, but the proposal for
.museum is based on the conviction that broad public interest would be served if
the museum sector had a cohesive identity on the domain name level. This benefit
derives from the societal value of museums, not the number of entities that could
be expected to register in their shared TLD. The number of museums in the world is,
however, not trivial; the potential registration base for .museum is large enough
to be worth the effort of setting it up. (Without having checked the demographics,
I would venture a guess that in many countries, the number of sports practiced, or
the number of trade unions, is significantly smaller than the number of museums.)
At
the time when discussion of expanding gTLD space was getting underway, any museum
wishing to register in .org found the following notice in the InterNIC registration
form: "museums register under country domains." Since there was no alternative
means for registration in .org, the only option was either to hope that this rule
was not enforced and attempt to register, anyway, or to turn to the appropriate ccTLD
registry.
Unfortunately, rules differed (and still do) within the two-letter national
domains and many do not permit organizations such as museums to register second level
domains, at all. The obvious alternative of having a museum.cc in each ccTLD, under
which individual museums could establish third-level identities, is similarly precluded.
Many ccTLDs do not permit the registration of generic terms as second level domains.
Although
I cannot imagine how it realistically could be mandated and deployed, I fully agree
that a global museum.cc structure would go a long way to filling the purpose mentioned
at the outset of this message. It would, however, remain significantly inferior to
a single .museum unless a global set of registration criterea could be devised. The
difficulties attaching to this would be no less substantial than those to be overcome
in setting up the underlying domain structure.
As need not be mentioned in present
company, the initial meaning given to .org has eroded completely. Museums now can
and do register freely there. Although they thereby gain the benefit of their own
corporate second level domain, they will have done nothing to bond themselves to
the notion of a joint museum presence on the Net. I will also freely admit that museums
do not invariably ascribe value to the latter factor. I would, however, expect this
attitude to change if obvious means for establishing a sector-wide domain identity
were provided.
Indeed, one of the challenges from the museum perspective would
be motivating organizations that have well-known second level domains to consider
migrating to, or (at least initially) registering alternately in, a domain shared
by the entire sector. The benefit in terms of resource locatability may readily be
accepted. As has so often been observed, however, organizations are generally unwilling
to move to lower level domains, no matter what value might accrue in the doing.
In
this light, the creation of .museum has a good deal of justification. Shared second
level domain alternatives, their disadvantages notwithstanding, will be proposed
as a matter entirely internal to the museum community should a chartered TLD not
be possible. Two fundmental issues of principle remain. From the museum point of
view *if* a .museum is ever go to be brought into being, it must be as meaningful
as possible. This cannot be ensured by any means other than the regulatory participation
of an established central authority within the museum sector.
From ICANN's point
of view (and I apologize for the presumption in speaking in this manner), there may
be utility in forging further collaborative bonds with the pre-existing internationally
mandated NGO community. The .museum case would provide that benefit and would test
the hypothesis that chartered TLDs can enhance the informational value of the DNS.
(For what it's worth, museums have often served as robust testbeds for the deployment
of new technological devices, with no initial assumptions about the outcome of any
such experiment.)
I cannot comment on whether ICANN even ought to ascribe value
to the way the museum sector appears to the Internet community. Obviously, the museum
community cannot be expected to remain silent whenever a forum is opened for the
discussion of how its benefit to the public may be increased.