Most of the comments on this list about the possibility of new 2LDs in .au
appear to be in the category of:

"I don't agree with creating new 2LDs, even though I have no idea what might
be proposed, and therefore no idea what I'm objecting to".

I recommend that people focus on concrete things to object to, rather than
worrying about things that might never occur.

If you're looking for things worthy of scrutiny, here's something for y'all
to work on.....



First, have a read of the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the New Names
Advisory Panel.  Its at
http://www.auda.org.au/policy/panel-newname-2002/tor.html.

There are a couple of areas in it that concern me, and may be of interest to
others on the list.





First Concern - have a look at points 1 & 2 under 'Activity and Outcome'.
The TOR states:

"1 auDA will issue a call for proposals for new 2LDs in the following
categories:
1.1 Proposals for new open 2LDs
1.2 Proposals for new closed 2LDs
1.3 Proposals for new geographic 2LDs
1.4 Proposals for re-activating the existing conf.au and info.au 2LDs
The auDA Board will specify the selection criteria applicable in each
category.

2 The NNAP will evaluate new 2LD proposals using the selection criteria
specified by the auDA Board."


Surely that begs a few questions.  Such as:

* What exactly is meant here by "Selection Criteria"?  Criteria that
determines whether a proposal is for an 'open' or a 'closed' 2LD?  Criteria
that determines which of two competing proposals for the same 2LD gets
preference?  Eligibility criteria for Registrants in a proposed new 2LD?
What??
* Since this appears to be a policy issue, not a procedural issue, why is
the auDA board, rather than the New Names Advisory Panel setting the
criteria?
* These criteria appear to be critical to any proposed new 2LD, since
they're going to be used to evaluate the proposals.  So how does a proposal
for a new 2LD (due in by 31 May) address criteria that are unknown?  Are
people going to spend their time submitting proposals only to find that the
proposal has no hope of getting up because it doesn't meet some criterion
that isn't known?
* What's supposed to happen - is the auDA board going to have a look at the
proposals, and then invent the selection criteria to evaluate them against?
* If the criteria already exist why aren't they spelled out in the TOR?


auDA extending the closing date for submissions until one month after the
selection criteria are made public might be a sensible move.  That gives
time to determine a) whether its appropriate for the board to set those
criteria and b) what the criteria are.






Second Concern -

"The chair of the NNAP will be Derek Whitehead, Director Information
Resources, Swinburne University of Technology."

Derek chaired auDA's first panel - the review of 2LD policies - and had the
difficult task of being the groundbreaker and trying to work out how these
policy development panels could be made to work in the real world.
Therefore I have a fair bit of sympathy for his task on that panel.
However, the actual outcome of that panel (the report) struggles to get more
than an 'average pass' mark because it didn't address many detailed policy
issues and avoided taking some difficult decisions.  The effects of that
'average' report have not been significant as long as monopoly Registrar's
remained.  The introduction of competing Registrars in the future will
inevitably highlight the inadequacies of the outcome of that Name Policy
Review Panel.

I can guarantee that in the months after the introduction of the new system
with competing Registrars, this discussion list will spend much time arguing
backwards and forwards issues that should have been resolved in the original
Name Policy review panel report, but weren't.

I don't mind auDA selecting Derek again to chair this new panel (he's
experienced in this area), but the standard of the report this time had
better be higher.






Regards, Mark

Mark Hughes
Effective Business Applications Pty Ltd
effectivebusiness§pplications.com.au
www.pplications.com.au
+61 4 1374 3959