All, I'd like to add one more criterion for comfort in chartering public interest closed generic string domains: "7. Registration fees and revenue in general should be set at a level to cover costs and provide a reasonable rate of return for the administration of the domain. Should assets build up over time for an unrelated reason, it should be required that they be periodically withdrawn and dedicated to an external effort in a manner related to the public interest objective for which the collective management of the domain enjoys rough consensus." More important, reflecting on my post of yesterday, it occurred to me that there were some general principles behind the detail that might be worth abstracting as guidelines for how we might think about setting ground rules for structuring closed generic domains to obtain the conduct of participants and effectiveness of behavior in the public interest that we might want to see. I suggest the following (again a rough approximation of what could be possible): A. The initial applicants for such a domain should all come from a base of organizations already involved in action with regard to the public interest issue to be addressed by the domain's name and purpose, and should constitute a large enough representative subset of that gro p to skeak with some authority about the substance, importance, and legitimacy of the issue. B. The financial arrangements governing the operation of the domain should provide a reasonable operational return to t he activities of the domain and should preclude any windfall gains to the organization. Rationale: This should serve to cater to the public service aspects of the activity rather than any significant financial gain. C. The rules governing the development of the domain should encourage competition among registrants to provide the best, most relevant and most useful information and services for beneficiaries who access information from the site. Competition should be directed to the area of substantive content and not to competitive structure or direct financial profit. Rationale: The primary purpose of the domain will be the substantive content that it provides. Competition among organizations is inevitable, so let's create a structure that focuses that competition on what's most important for the user: helpful and useful content. Is this too draconian? If the resulting domain is truly to be a public interest web site, then the incentive for organizations in creating one should be more in the centralization and enlargement of a more useful and more visible collection of helpful information, not hopes for large financial gain. George ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ George Sadowsky Residence tel: +1.301.968.4325 8300 Burdette Road, Apt B-472 Mobile: +1.202.415.1933 Bethesda MD 20817-2831 USA Skype: sadowsky george.sadowsky@gmail.com <mailto:george.sadowsky@gmail.com> http://www.georgesadowsky.org/ <http://www.georgesadowsky.org/>