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Jackson Hts., New York, March 22, 2012 - I’ve got to start with a gripe. I was forced to spend the morning at DoITT’s office at 75 Park Place looking at the parts of the proposed contract for the .nyc TLD that have been completed. Forced because they refused to email me a copy. Also, I was forced to make hand notes - see picture - because they wouldn’t allow me to take pictures with my cell. Why? It’s a draft document and not complete. (Perhaps a reason they shouldn’t be having a hearing on a incomplete document!)

Separately I was informed that the one public hearing - Friday, 2 PM at 2 Metrotech Center, 4th Floor, Brooklyn - meets the letter of the law, and that’s probably true. But clearly it’s not the spirit of the law. It’s an odious situation. And with the mayor and his staff quoted in this morning’s New York Times as saying he’s opposed to the “daily referendum” of social media and that people should focus on long term planning - OMFG.

OK, got that off my chest. So what did I learn from my 2 hours at DoITT? I can say I was at some points pleased, for example, in its handling of the Nexus question. But even here close scrutiny is required and was not possible as I was relegated to a noise lunchroom to view the materials. (OK, last gripe, promise.)

But vital pieces had not yet been completed, for example, Appendixes F and G dealing with reserved domain names. G deals with “names reserved for marketing and business development.” Is that the neighborhood names? How is it possible to testify on that?

I didn’t see anything about creating a sustainable TLD. There was nothing about how the funds, from auctions of some names, were to be used: to help small business? for education/training? moderate the digital divide? - not a word. At least none that I was able to find in the lunch room. (Fact, not gripe.)

I asked about the contract development process: Was an independent industry expert brought in to advise the city? No. So apparently the proposed contractor, and the overworked city employee drafting the contract, worked out (or rather, are working out) the details.

I’ll be in Brooklyn tomorrow at the “public hearing” (first announced on the last page of Tuesday’s City Record, an arcane insider paper). Hope to see some supporters of good government and long term planning at 2 Metrotech Center, 4th Floor, at 2 PM tomorrow. The A,C, F, and R trains will take you there.

Learn more about The Campaign for .nyc on our wiki pages.

November 17, 2011, Occupied Wall Street - The Campaign for the Commons, a working group of the Occupy Wall Street movement, was to meet this evening in the Atrium, at 60 Wall Street, with the topic “Occupy the Digital Commons.”

The Atrium is a magnificent Greek-revival neoclassical structure opened in 1989. It is a “privately owned public space,” which means:

• The land is owned by a private entity.
  
• In return for adding several floors above the allowable height - which block the public’s light, air, and space - the owners agreed to make the ground floor Atrium space available for public use.
  
• When the building is torn down - in 10 or 1000 years - the owners can do with the space as the law then allows.

But until then, the owners must abide by these city rules:

• Arcade: Open 24 hours
• Covered Pedestrian Space
• Open 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
• May be closed to the public with advanced notice for 6 private and 6 local community not-for-profit organized events per year starting at 2:00 p.m. weekdays or at any time on weekend days

Since September the Atrium has been the de facto meeting headquarters of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Each night several of the movements 80+ working group meetings have been held there. Always in an orderly and respectful manner.

Tonight was to be the first meeting of the Campaign for the Commons working group, focusing on the commons, spaces like streets, parks, waterways, and public areas like the Atrium. The discussion was to center on how to nurture and grow the commons, including New York’s TLD. We’ve contacted Deutsche Bank for an explanation of the closing, and when and under what circumstances they plan its reopening.

The word irony comes to mind with 60 Wall being closed on the night a discussion on governing the commons was scheduled there. (Commons photo of guards in front of the Pine Street entrance to the Atrium, from the Connecting.nyc Inc. library.)

Learn more about our overall effort from our Wiki Home Page

Jackson Hts., New York, June 30, 2011 - I split my out-of-office advocacy efforts for .nyc between civic and tech events. Generally I receive a positive reception at civic oriented meetings and a “why bother” at tech events. Last night it was an East Village Tech meetup at d.b.a., a beer garden at 41 1st Avenue. It was a loud space with about 10 picnic style tables with our group of perhaps 25 occupying three of them.

I went to test the salience of the “secrecy story” as a recruitment tool: that is, that inadequate transparency on .nyc’s development precludes sufficient public engagement and endangers the resource’s optimization. Or more viscerally, will residents become enraged upon learning that the .nyc TLD is being divvied up behind closed doors at City Hall?

The first fellow I spoke with was student working for a firm that had just made a bundle selling Tweet Deck, a Twitter add-on. His listened attentively but as I answered a question from another 20ish fellow next to me, moved to another table, either not having understood me or not interested. That second fellow worked for a tech advertising firm. He told me that he’d not entered a domain name in three years and doubted their value, (typical of those under 30). With the event being a geographic East Village tech meeting, I tried drawing upon his civic pride, “Wouldn’t you want to have a role in managing the EastVillage.nyc domain?” He responded with confidence that only corporations could guide the development of a successful digital product. I was about to mention our dotNeighborhood governance approach, the success of Wikipedia and open source when he asked the fellow across the table what he thought, presenting the secrecy aspect with cogency. That fellow responded that corporations are going to get what they want anyhow, so why bother to even try. My neighbor nodded his acquiescence, and so went the evening. 

On a more positive note, I conversed with someone frustrated with the banking system who wanted to create a collaborative financial guidance tool, perhaps a wiki. I thought this was a great idea and agreed to make a connection with the Wikimedia folks. And finally, d.b.a. had a great Brooklyn East India Pale Ale which made the evening a joy. (Ice Cream photo courtesy of Free Photo.)

Learn more about our overall effort from our Wiki Pages

New York, September 2, 2010 - As the school year opens in this part of the world, my thoughts turn to the returning students, and I dream of reaching those few who might collaborate on our work.

If time allowed, I’d trek up to Columbia University and see if I could recruit a student in the School of International and Public Affairs to look into the impact of city-TLDs on commerce and governance, starting with lessons from the Greek city-states and Hanseatic League. (There’s a PhD thesis in there.)

And I should really head over to Hunter College and see if I can get the Graduate School of Urban Affairs to do a follow-up on the great dotNeighborhoods report they did last year. Or get to NYU’s ITP for someone to imagine the role of a TLD in a location based world (or redo our web presence).

Or perhaps I could send a posting to London to have a student at the School of Economics check my fantasy of a trusted TLD making .nyc a preferred shopping space on the net. Or of the role of a city-TLD as a common pool resource

Locally, I really must get to the local schools and have them begin putting OpenStreetMap.org projects on their agenda, data that will fit nicely on NYCwiki.org. 

But it’s 95 degrees (35 Celsius) here in NYC and I’m closing shop for the day. A final note: we are very receptive to student proposals of an independent nature.  See ((Intern Opportunities)) for current openings. (CRESTED TERN courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Learn more about our overall effort from our Wiki Home Page

March 19, 2008 - We’re still in our formative days and need to settle a few governance issues before we’re ready to decide on which of the many opportunities before us we’ll focus our attention (see the wiki). But I don’t think it’s too early to make a decision on what we’re “not” going to do.

One such banished idea emerged from my seeing the picture at left as I opened my Facebook page today. I’ve captured and named it Facebook Head.

As posted on Facebook, the original bald head image had the “You hair loss?” text above it, with the “Our products for you!” string below. Those who know me might think this an actual summit photo. And I will admit that on first glimpse something looked familiar (though I’ve rarely if ever seen myself from that perspective), but I immediately knew “that’s not one of my pictures.” And I almost turned my head upward to see if some monstrous privacy violation was in play. But within a second I realized it was an ad of some type, probably for some magic juice or rug to cover.

As my Facebook visit was a quick in-n-out to respond to a message, I assumed it was not to be seen again. An hour later I returned for another quick visit. And there was Facebook Head again. Poking me in the left eye. And now, two hours later, it appears that Facebook Head is to be my official, personalized, Facebook companion-advertisement for awhile.

So, I’m thinking it’s time we make a commitment: We Won’t place insensitive ads on anything we publish, be that our wiki, our website, an index…

While seeming like a no-brainer, it will be helpful to publish a set of Community Sensitivity Guidelines for the days ahead.

Tom Lowenhaupt