Re: Mapping (social) reality into Internet (was: Regional ITLDS & TLD inter-fact)

[George Michaelson <ggm@connect.com.au>]

We are unlikely to agree (collectively) on the merits of fan-out at the
top-levels. Since even X.500 people can't agree on the merits of dense
versus sparce versus early versus late fanout, or depth, or any of
a number of issues (including what langauage to to work in of course) we
need to be realistic and accept we don't have consensus on some issues.

Lack of consensus means compromise. I think the mood of the process is
to find technically viable solutions which make political compromises but
keep substantive technical merit and consensus.

As an observation, USENET is one of the older anarchies of naming space
and those of us who recall the pre-B naming model were comfortable with
a much more rigit hierarchy with very few top-levels. Even in the post-B
state, news retains broadly similar numbers of iTLD as well as an ISO-like
national space. And news also retains control-freaks as well as anarchists
in the name wars area.

I think we can look to .ALT as a model of how people should expect to have
considerable freedom of naming. In effect, I don't *CARE* what issues the
EC are confronting if the EC names things under either .EC or .ALT, but to
assert there are no consequences to recognizing the ligitemate issues of
self determination amongst the human tribes is equally non-sensical. For
EC read Africa or any post-colonial landmass BTW...

If you promote this to a TLD issue, you will create an even larger space
of disagreement. I ernestly ask people to consider SLD or 3LD
as a space to provide less rigid naming models, and to keep TLD small.

(note: if we include TLD to define spaces of alternate policy, then nobody
 has to feel constrained to follow any specific geopolitics. strictly nested
 sets go out the window and every one of us becomes legitemate owners of names
 under an infinity of spaces. They just have an anchor one level lower down)

I wish I understood why I think early fan-out is bad. I see why the proposers
of 10,000 top levels see merit, but my hind-brain is still reacting badly.

Anybody else got a visceral objection to wide fanout in the TLD? Anybody else
got reasons they can state on why?

Maybe we need to define a .. to match . so we can then discuss a ... proposal
for in-addr.arpa...

-George
--
George Michaelson         |  connect.com.au pty/ltd
Email: ggm@connect.com.au |  c/o AAPT,
Phone: +61 7 3834 9976    |  level 8, the Riverside Centre,
  Fax: +61 7 3834 9908    |  123 Eagle St, Brisbane QLD 4000