[NA-Discuss] Statement on Pre-Registration: Draft for discussion

[John R. Levine]

> You say there's no possible way, no matter how carefully a city-TLD is 
> developed, that it will assist the residents and organization of a city. That 
> there are no lessons to be learned from. That all hope is lost.

I think there are plenty of things one can do to improve the life of a 
city, but squandering hundreds of thousands of dollars on a vaniity TLD
is not one of them.

> That's why I'm hear asking for lessons from positive experiences. Are you 
> saying you can't find a single one. None?

There's .CAT, which has a rather unique set of historic, political, and 
geographic circumstances that is unlikely to be repeated anywhere else. 
Even there, it's at best a modest alternative to .es, and has seen 
considerably less use than .CH or .HK, each of which covers a population 
similar to Catalonia's.

>> This is the wrong place to look for naifs who are foolish enough to imagine 
>> that that new TLDs are anything other than a speculative money grab.
>
> Are you absolutely certain you're not throwing the baby out with the bath 
> water?

If there were a baby in with the bilge, we'd have seen or more likely 
smelled it by now.

By the way, is anyone here other than me the registry for an actual 
existing municipal or county domain?

R's,
John