Could you read this in two years at the URL http://www.coyotecrossing.y!sctp?

Imagine a top-level domain (TLD) reserved for independent bloggers, possibly reserved for independent and progressive bloggers, possibly reserved for independent and progressive bloggers who are without major mainstream outlets for their writing.

Eric says it’s possible, and a feeble in-joke I made in his comments has provided a working handle that would almost certainly be changed in an actual proposal to something people could pronounce aloud.

Eric is an ICANN old hand, having shepherded the technical end of the .cat TLD through ICANN on behalf of Catalunya, and he says:

I’m traveling to the ICANN meeting in Seoul in a week. In my parfleche there will be two dozen applications, and adding one for blogtopia is a simple matter for me. If it were 2003 or even 2005, it would be a simple matter for blogtopia too.
Here are the fundamental rules. Terms first: “open” means without restriction, other than the unstated restriction of making enough to pay costs, like Verisign’s .com, and “community”, sometimes called “closed” means something else, a cut-out created to protect tribes and similar cultural affiliations, like .cat, for users who write and read in Catalan.

if the application is “open”, then if the string has value, and “blog” does, though “b!sctp” does not, overlooking the awkwardness of the exclamation point, then the deepest pocket wins, via auction, else
if “community”, then the “community” must be bounded, and large enough to support a registry, else
the string must be inobvious and hidden until the application is filed to escape the greed interest of speculators, which exist, and
it always costs $185,000, just to file the application.
not “in the rules”, but wicked obvious, the applicant has to pass on offers of easy living lying under the trees their eyes closed, skimming direct, or indirect revenue from the abusers of the net, who also exist.

I suggest a non-profit or a workers cooperative as the legal vehicle to propose .mumble, and come up with the policy, whether “open” (and undetected) or “community” (and defended by broad community support likely to (a) prevail when the “community” claim of the application is tested, and (b) repel speculative or simply other-oriented competitors), and become the contracting entity.
It is simpler than it looks, but to dance one must put one’s feet on the earth and push. I can dot tees and cross eyes, but more hands than one must hold the pen.

 

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1. 
   Jim Stanger 2009 10 07 at 7:27:46 pm

   I’d like to secure the .meh TLD, but I only have 63,200 on me. Damnit!