random thoughts

Let a thousand flowers bloom

(This is an email I sent to the the NARALO list.  I liked it and it seems a few other people did too.  But it had some typos, that bothered me all the way from EWR to MEX  - which considering the number I make is really quite funny. So I reproduce it here with a few edits.)

Hi,

as a very active and vocal proponent of “let a thousand flowers bloom”  I feel i should offer a few words in support of this notion.

in fact the reason i am involved with ICANN is the blooming of a 1000 blooms

• in WGIG I said ICANN should quit dithering about and new gTLD should happen now, like they long promised.
• and people in ICANN said come put your time where your mouth is -
  (Note: I said time and not money because i didn’t and still don’t have any money)

i do this with the full awareness that I may get slammed, if ever so politely, for such heresy on the NARALO list.

personally, i always find the polite and civil slams cut the deepest.

i always liked the image of flowers blooming.  

not only are flowers very pretty, each appealing to a different personality type.

many of them are valuable, though sometimes we don’t see the value.

i live in a neighborhood where most everyone has the same kind of grass.

and for most people in the neighborhood one type of grass is enough.

and they work really hard, 

with their poisons and their weed wackers to kill all the nasty weeds.

i tend to cultivate the weeds.

scything around the pretty blooms

to get rid of the common grass.

i like the diversity that the blooms others call weeds,

brings to my world.

so too with new gTLDs.  

to be honest, I don’t really  see 

- why NYC needs a gTLD.

- why anyone would want a .sport

- or who should care about a .mine

  for some value of ‘mine’

but so what?

they think they need one.

or they think someone else needs one.

and that is good enough for me.

in a diverse world, why do i need to understand?

i just need to accept that they see a reason.

and the bees and the birds and the other critters,

like my yard better than they like the neighbor’s.

lots of places to make a habitat in the city.

and every once in a while something dangerous may happen by, but a dog, a cat and a flashlight to shine on them is usually enough to deal with it.  and sure sometimes we want to call the professional to help with the skunks.  but the skunks would be around anyway.

at least in my yard, we know where they live.

and some people think they can produce wealth 

from new gTLDs;

and good for them.

if someone had  not realized the value of the weed called tomato,

think of how boring Italian food might be.

so i say,

let a thousand flowers bloom.

some will thrive,

some will die to maybe come back again another year.

as for users and what they need.  

sure,

beyond basic food and clean water and rudimentary shelter and health care and gray sack cloth

we don’t need anything else.

or do we?

i need pretty flowers.

perhaps it is just that they suit my vanity

but so what?

a.

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Surprise and shock at yet another delay (YAD) in the start of new gTLD program.

There have been two articles that quote the Board Chair of ICANN, Peter Dengate Thrush, as saying that the decisions on the new program will be delayed until the end of the ICANN meeting in June.  Of course I can’t confirm that the facts in the articles in CircleId and Domainicite.com are indeed the case, but it sort of stands to reason, so it could be true.  

If there is going to be a prior notion of the possibility of coming to an agreement with the GAC on the Thursday before the San Francisco meeting ends, the Board can’t very well make a decision in one night to change the program.  And, given the possibility that they actually make some substantive concessions (which I hope they don’t), how can the Board initiate the program without giving us, those who created the program in ICANN’s vaunted bottom-up process, a chance for appropriate wailing and gnashing of teeth over our bitter disappointment and great chagrin.

Some would ask, but why wait for Jordan meeting to make the decision.  Well, first, who really believes we are still going to Jordan in this political climate?  But more relevantly, what’s 3 months in the geological time periods that ICANN works in?  How long have we been waiting on this program? 5 years? 10 years? More years?  What’s another few months?

One thing we can be grateful for.  We used to delay 9-12 months at a time several times a year, now the delays are only 3 months long.  ”It’s getting better all the time.”

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Why Yet Another Delay (YAD)?  Because this is ICANN we are talking about and what good is a blog on ICANN without introducing Yet Another Acronym (YAA) or two.