>On Sunday, June 21, 1998 9:38 AM, Adam Todd[SMTP:at§ah.net] wrote:
>§At 16:18 21/06/98 +1000, Chris Chundry wrote:
>§>There have been several postings by (I would assume) US-based list members
>§>making the assertion that a domain is not official unless it appears in
>§>the InterNIC whois database!
>§
>§Bit like the ambit claim that a Root Server isn't official unless it's in
>§the so called "official" Name Server Hints file.
>§
>§I guess it very much DEPENDS on WHERE you LOOK for the INFORMATION you
>§require.
>§
>
>Yes...it is all relative to where you look. For example, some people
>group countries in certain ways and only the countries that are part
>of their view exist. Here are some examples...

I was actually speaking more from the contecxt of Rick, Lincoln and various
other peoples claims they can't find AUS TLD data.  

It's the fundamental basis of DNS.  There is NO central complete zone
table, I think Chris Chundry already explained this anyway, especially
indicating that the Legacy Root Servers don't know anything themselves
about COM.AU and NET.AU.  So it's pointless asking the root servers (like
Rick and Lincoln keep telling us) for any data relating to sub domains
under AU.  You need to ask to AU servers.

>By the way...it would be nice if they learned to spell Australia correctly...
>...of course, Australia is not on some politicians' radar screens. In other
>words, it does not exist. I have not found it very useful to declare that

Actually my sister was in the USA the other day and her flight was
cancelled.  She rushed to the reception desk ask asked loingingly "How do I
get to Sydney" the American girl looked puzzled and said "Where is Sydney".  

My sister was stunned.

So much for Olympics Marketing :)

>things that do exist do not exist just because someone does not want
>to deal with the situation.

Yes, this is very true.  Sadly Australians have this happbit of bagging
anything they do not understand, or do not wish to understand.  It's easier
to ignore it and try and convince everyone of this, than it is to accept.

Like OnRamp, Cheapest Local Call Zone Digital Access in Suatralia, but no,
we have to bag it.

>.AU is certainly in the list. Whether it is being properly managed
>should be up to the trustees that have stewardship over it. Again,
>using the tracking approach, we are only concerned about the
>top 8 people that are the leaders in the .AU TLD administration.
>That seems to be a nice round number of people to make sure
>that fair policies are followed.

Oh Jim, you forget - OWNERSHIP - Australians are greedy. (On a very very
very small scale.)

>Does anyone know who the top 8 people are in the .AU domain ?

There aren't 8 top people in Australia. If there were, we'd have no
monopoly on the domain name front.