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

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Fri, 29 Nov 1996, George Michaelson wrote:

> 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?

Human beings expect naming systems to work from the general to the
specific. Early fanout breaks this model because with 10,000 iTLD's one
can no longer say that they represent broad categories or classifications.

> 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

Your postal address illustrates this. The top level (not written) is
Australia, next are two different ways of subdividing the country, one for
humans (QLD) and one for machines (4000). Within a certain portion of the 
country is a city named Brisbane. It could have been one level higher in
the hierarchy because it happens to be unique within Australia but other
towns and cities may not have unique names thus they are all grouped at
this level. Within Brisbane are many roads and streets, you are located at
Eagle Street at position 123. Again, for human beings there is redundant
information (the Riverside Centre) which represents a unique building.
However not all buildings in Brisbane are unique enough to be well-known
this the Street name and number remain in the address. This is a
multistory building and if we go to the 8th floor (or is it the ninth in
Australia?) we will discover the offices of an organization whose acronym
is obviously AAPT. If we enter and asked for connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. we
will discover that this organization is known, perhaps we must now travel
to a certain room to find George but in any case we can simply leave our
letter with the AAPT receptionist and be assured that it will be delivered
to George promptly.

Now this description of the namespace is obviously a journey through
physical space. Human beings expect namespaces to work like this even when
they do not describe a physical space. This is whty systems for improving
your memory involve memorizing elaborate mental spaces to stor
information. It's why the PARC people and SGI are experimenting with 3D
information navigation systems. 

To the extend that the DNS follows this spatial model of grouping more
general classes closer to the root it will be more usable by real people
in the real world. Early fanout is good if it keeps domain names
relatively short (3 - 4 segments) but it is bad if it breaks the paradigm
of moving from the general to the specific.

Michael Dillon                   -               ISP & Internet Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael@memra.com