[Chapter-delegates] The "hey, don't forget us" resolution and global city TLDs.

[Thomas Lowenhaupt]

With last night's passage of what's being called the "Hey, don't forget 
us." resolution by a New York City planning agency - see post 
<http://bit.ly/OurBlog> - Connecting.nyc Inc., the not-for-profit 
organization founded in 2006 to guide the development of the city's TLD 
as a public interest resource, will be focusing its attention in the 
coming months on point 5 of the 6 point resolution:

  * **that the city carefully coordinate the development of its Top
    Level Domain with the other cities that have applied for their TLDs,
    seeking opportunities for**standardizatio**n and the sharing of good
    TLD governance practices*.*

Queens Community Board 3 <http://www.cb3qn.nyc.gov/> 
<http://www.cb3qn.nyc.gov>, the local planning agency, had passed an 
Internet Empowerment Resolution 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Empowerment_Resolution> in April 
2001 calling for the acquisition and development of the .nyc TLD as a 
public interest resource. Last night, 11 years later, and with that 
resolution finally on the road to fruition, the board passed another 
resolution saying in essence: "Hey, we started this thing. Don't forget us."

The new resolution calls for the city to activate and fund a promised 
Community Advisory Board and assure that good domain names - those that 
are short, descriptive and memorable - are provided to the "city's 
neighborhoods, community organizations, not-for-profit institutions, and 
local small businesses." *It calls for the city to coordinate the 
development of the .nyc TLD with the 38 other global cities that have 
applied for their TLDs*. And it requests that a process be developed for 
recycling domain names so as to assure their availability for future 
generations.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The resolution:

A Resolution in Support of the .nyc Top Level Domain

- by Queens Community Board 3, the City of New York, November 15, 2012 -

Whereas, on April 19, 2001 Queens Community Board 3 passed an Internet 
Empowerment Resolution <http://www.cb3qn.nyc.gov/page/62506/>calling for 
the acquisition and development of the .nyc Top Level Domain (TLD) as a 
public interest resource, and

Whereas, the City of New York submitted an application to the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the .nyc TLD on 
June 12, 2012, and

Whereas, the City of New York plans to create a Community Advisory Board 
to "encourage meaningful input into the development of the .nyc 
strategy" and

Whereas, 38 other cities have followed New York City's initiative and 
applied for their TLDs,

Queens Community Board 3 hereby endorses the following resolution:

We congratulate Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council for filing an 
application for the .nyc TLD.

To contribute to its success, Community Board 3 recommends:

 1. that the .nyc TLD's Community Advisory Board take a careful view of
    this most important resource, and that it be provided with adequate
    resources to assure its effective operation.
 2. that Community Boards, civic organizations, not-for-profit entities,
    and local small businesses be represented on the Community Advisory
    Board.
 3. that domain names that support civic life should be thoughtfully
    reserved for use by the city's neighborhoods, community
    organizations, not-for-profit institutions, and local small businesses.
 4. that civic not-for-profit organizations, and small businesses be
    provided with adequate notification of domain name selection
    periods, and the opportunity to select a good domain name.
 5. that the city carefully coordinate the development of its Top Level
    Domain with the other cities that have applied for their TLDs,
    seeking opportunities for standardization and the sharing of good
    TLD governance practices.
 6. that a plan be formulated to assure that the .nyc TLD is a
    sustainable resource: that domain names are recycled so they are
    available to New Yorkers today and tomorrow.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our work plan on point 5 will begin with the following:

  * Connect with the governments of the "sister cities" and appraise
    them of the coordination task recommended by the resolution. When
    making this connection we will point the cities to some preliminary
    efforts, including the City-TLD Governance and Best Practices
    <http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/component/content/article/102-transcripts2010/717-50>
    workshop we helped facilitate at the 2010 IGF in Vilnius.
  * Complete the Side-By-Side comparison chart of city TLD applicants -
    see here
    <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhVMdzMAZzUQdFFwTDlpTXJ6Q2psejdMUkFoZDdNaFE#gid=0>
    (thoughts on a more graspable implementation of this would be
    appreciated).
  * Reach out to those in sister-cities with existing ISOC chapters
    (.abudhabi, amasterdam, .barcelona (Catalonia), .berlin, .brussels,
    .budapest, .dubai, .helsinki, .london, .madria, .melbourne, .nyc,
    .paris, .roma, .stockholm, .taipei, and .tokyo) to  seek their
    assistance in reaching the city administrations.
  * Devise a plan for developing governance structures, best practices,
    standards... with cities, civic society...
  * Seek a complementary event (e.g., IGF, ICANN, C-40) where a
    face-to-face meeting for the 39 can be held.

This will be a big task for our small organization and we hope to gain 
collaborators from members of civil society, especially ISOC chapters in 
sister-TLD cities.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt

-----------------------------------------------
Thomas Lowenhaupt, Founder & Chair
Connecting.nyc Inc.
tom at connectingnyc.org <mailto:tom at connectingnyc.org>
Jackson Hts., NYC 11372
718 639 4222

Blog <http://blog.connectingnyc.org/> - Wiki 
<http://wiki.connectingnyc.org/> - Web <http://www.connectingnyc.org/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20121116/a8c8d3a2/attachment.htm>