Re: [ga] More thoughts on a Registrants Constituency

["kidsearch" <kidsearch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is definitely an issue for a lot of discussion. The voting issues need 
to be debated fairly heavily in my opinion. Here are some thoughts.

First to get people to join and stay interested in the process, we need to 
catch them when they register their domain name. If we wait a year, they may 
no longer have interest in the process. It's simple marketing/ MSN.com is 
set as people's home page when they get their first computer for example. 
Many stay there due to that being their first home page. If microsoft waited 
until one year was past to ask users to make msn their home page, I'd have 
more traffic than MSN does.

Second, we aren't giving domain names a vote in my opinion, we are giving 
people who own domain names a vote. If we base any of the voting power or 
rights on formulas that involve the number of domain names owned, the length 
of time registered, etc. we stand more chance of capture by people who know 
how to manipulate formulas. What other parameters would be put up for 
consideration? How about my domain name gets a million hits per year and 
yours gets 100 so I should get more votes. My domain is more important to me 
than yours is to you. When we introduce parameters like you suggested, then 
others may think other parameters should apply, ones that benefit them.

I believe one person or organization = one vote. Now we still stand the 
chance of capture even with that. IBM has a lot of subsidiaries and can 
create as many as they want on paper. They could take a domain name and 
transfer it's ownership to each entity and therefore have a ton of votes. If 
that became standard practice by a few, they could have much more weight 
than they should.

Maybe there would need to be an approval process where these capture 
attempts could be sniffed out. Like to hear what others think on that.

Chris McElroy aka NameCritic
http://www.articlecontentprovider.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>; "Roberto Gaetano" 
<roberto@xxxxxxxxx>; <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 5:00 PM
Subject: [ga] More thoughts on a Registrants Constituency


> I've had a couple of more thoughts on what I think is a sub-optimal idea, 
> a constituency for domain name registrants.  (The optimal solution is to 
> allow individuals to have the direct vote for board members.  These are 
> not mutually exclusive ideas.)
>
> Anyway, the question is how much of a vote does each domain name 
> registratrant get?
>
> Is it one vote per person/organization no matter how many names they have.
>
> Or is it scaled according to the number of names.
>
> Is that scale linear, i.e. twice as many names gives twice as many votes?
>
> Is there a factor for the time that the name has been registered?  I feel 
> that this is important because it is indicative of how much the registrant 
> has invested into the name.  Those who have had names for many years tend 
> to have a much greater investment than those who hold portfolios for short 
> term speculation.
>
> So I suggest this - that the number of votes a registrant gets for having 
> a name is scaled according to a simple formula based on the number of 
> years that have elapsed since initially registered.  Of course, during the 
> first year, that number would be zero.
>
> So the formula I suggest is this, where Y is the number of years that have 
> elapsed since registration.
>
>   Votes = 2**(Y-1)
>   (i.e. the number of votes is 2 raised to the power Y less one)
>
> Thus the registrant would get votes according to the following table:
>
>  YEARS     VOTES
>      0     0
>      1     1
>      2     2
>      3     4
>
> etc.
>
> This means that one has to hold a name for at least a year in order to get 
> a vote.
>
> By-way-of disclosure, I have several names that were initially registered 
> during the 1980's, but whois doesn't go back that far and shows 'em as 
> 1994.
>
> --karl--