Re: Thread 5: Defining the namespace

[David Collier-Brown <davecb@Canada.Sun.COM>]

davidk@ISI.EDU wrote:
> The trick is to use meaningfull names. .SEX is a nice example of such a
> name. You can be sure that many people don't want to be associated which
> such an gTLD while others do want to be associated with it.
> 
> The problem with .COM and .NET was that they are *not* meaningfull so
> nobody gets a feeling that they are registering at the wrong place. 

  I quite agree.

  To make this slightly stronger, I would suggest the names also
have meanings which are generic and non-overlapping, such as the
oft-mentioned ``sex'', which is unlikely to be confused with
medicine (in common usage (:-))

  As a meta-suggestion I'll propose that the names
of new domains meet several criteria, that we collect criteria
and proposed names, and see if there are obvious cantidates
for both.

  I'll suggest the two above, plus
	3) have a significant number of cantidates for registration
	   in the domain, by estimation based in part on how many 
	   domains in .com and .org and .ca already exist that are
	   arguably cantidates.
	4) have a real possibility of disambiguating existing
	   areas of ambuguity (eg, beef.sex.* -vs- beef.food.*)

  Any other good criteria?

--dave
[ps: many moons ago, a colleague on an RFP commitee said ``but I
  have a bias against company x''.  We asked him, why, and mulled
  his reasons over and came up with a criteria.  So don't be shy:
  a bias is probably a cantoidate for a criteria if we can figure
  out why you're biased.
  This is why I'm so open to comments from nominally ``biased''
  commentators, by the way...]
--
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
Willowdale, Ontario   | davecb@hobbes.ss.org, canada.sun.com
N2M 1Y3. 416-223-8968 | http://java.science.yorku.ca/~davecb