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

Evan Leibovitch evan at telly.org
Thu Jun 16 05:38:53 UTC 2011


On 15 June 2011 21:42, Thomas Lowenhaupt <toml at communisphere.com> wrote:


> City TLDs were a bad idea in 1996, and they're an even worse idea now.
> Their only transformational effect would be to transform money out of the
> pockets of the suckers who registered in one into the pocket of the domain's
> sponsor.  (Well, if the past decade is any guide, they will also transform
> the sponsor's investment into nothing.)
>
>

> So just throw up your hands and say "Go ignorance, go speculators. We don't
> care."
>


If anyone's going to toss their money down the drain on domains in what John
aptly calls "vanity TLDs", it might as well be speculators. Shouldn't be
real people and businesses with real content and sensible business models.

And before you start cavalierly tossing around accusations of ignorance,
consider that you've been able to counter none of the facts presented with
anything more than wishful thinking.



> 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.
>


Sure there is some assistance. But that assistance is one of convenience,
not necessity, and it's minimal. Very hard to justify given the cost.



> Come on John. If you tried, I bet you could write a City-TLDs for Dummies.
>

I think he already did.
The book has one page and the only word on that page is "Don't", in large,
friendly letters.
The explanation doesn't get much simpler than that.


As for the comment in another message,

Try, try, try again is my motto, especially when the returns can be so
> great. And with the experience of less-than-useful TLDs, how do we develop a
> better one. Don't give up. Things can get better.



I'm reminded of the quotation often (but not definitively) attributed to
Einstein:
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results"

- Evan



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