On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Rodney Swansborough wrote:

 > A major submission has already been endorsed on Geographical
 > Place Names by
 > the Online Council of Australia and now awaits urgent
 > action from AUDA.

Well, I can see the urgency to get this bureaucratic nightmare through
before there's time for proper notification of and true consultation
with all of the communities to be appropriated by this 'Online Council'.

 > The proposal which the Online Council has approved and
 > recommended can be found at www.onecityonesite.org

This proposal has as its primary assumption that the Local Government
tier is the same thing as the communities (plural) who inhabit the city,
suburb, town or district that particular council has inherited or been
granted political control over by amalgamation by the state tier above,
who can by majority vote determine who will control locality licences.

This, to me at least, is a patently false premise; ask almost anyone but
politicians self-interested in promoting such ancient pre-industrial age
hierarchical models upon the DNS and internet communications in general.

Fortunately the internet design itself resists such attempts as this and
the so-called Community Technology Centres being installed by state and
federal government funding all over rural NSW at least, to centralise
access to and of community information resources under the ambit of the
ancient governmental structures, as more sensible alternatives evolve.

The Names Panel report quoted (presumably as supporting this proposal) 
in fact says, as you quote, "the Panel cautions that proposals for new
geographic 2LDs should be carefully considered and widely canvassed.  In
particular, it is critical that new geographic 2LDs are
community-focused, _NOT_ government-focused." (my emphasis)

I can't see that the process of informing the public - not just 300 DNS
List-reading 'public' - regarding any such proposed appropriation of the
(in any case, largely discredited) local 'portal' model, has even begun. 

Perhaps, after councils nationwide have issued proper notices of public
participation meetings to canvass discussion of the issues and options,
and sufficient time for (non-predetermined) outcomes of these meetings
to be compiled into an even vaguely representative report of the range
of views expressed and held by different sections of 'the community' has
elapsed, then it may indeed be time to seek 'urgent action from AuDA'. 

(Not that I expect AuDA to pay more than lip service to consultation or
'wide canvassing' after this present .com.au generic domains debacle ..)

Cheers anyway, Ian