Hello Paul,
Thanks for your response..
On Sat, 2002-06-15 at 15:56, Paul Andersen wrote:
> On 13 Jun 2002, Mike Gifford wrote:
> > There are lots of opinions about how to run a dotCA business, but if the
> > basic mechanics of registering, transferring and owning a dotCA are a
> > pain (and compared to a .com they are), many folks just aren't going to
> > bother.. The mechanics with interfacing with CIRA are in my opinion the
> > largest disincentive to owning a dotCA, followed shortly afterwords by
> > the cost of ownership.
> Registration in dot-com land wasn't always peachy.
It's true.. And transferring from Network Solutions can still be hell..
But right now, managing a .com, .org or .net with OpenSRS is just really
dead simple compared to the red tape which CIRA demands.
> I was not going to respond but cannot let your 'transfer' comment pass. A
> transfer in CIRA can be done in 5 minutes flat.
Yes.. But there are lots of little 'extras' with CIRA that just seem to
be much more trouble than they are worth.. For instance the legal type
- or heaven forbid changing your legal type. Not sure why this is
required, but it is poorly explained and lots of organizations don't fit
very neatly into one category or another.
> There is the admin contact issue which I know that the process
But how long does it take if your client has lost their admin email
address? Yes, it's annoying when that happens, but is just far too
common..
Not that this is perfect in dot-com land either.. But there is less
paper work involved..
> > CIRA seems to lack a certain level of technical competence. Javascript
> > has some security concerns, some browsers don't have it enabled, and yet
> > to vote in these elections you need to have javascript enabled. It also
> > doesn't work with Netscape 4.76 as they haven't built it with
> > accessibility in mind.
> The technical staff was well aware of this. They did not want to use
> Javascript but felt they had little choice to handle directions from the
> elections people.
Are the elections people different from the board? If they are, then
the board needs to explain security/accessibility better.. If they are
one in the same, then we need more techies on the board..
I had a client walk down to the CIRA office and vote because he didn't
want to turn on his javascript. They didn't take the paper ballot
that he made up, but did let him use on of their computers to vote..
> > Getting to the voting booth always seems to take more clicks and
> > attention that should be required.. The participation rate must be
> > pretty small..
> Same as above.
It's a web design issue.. An add on every CIRA page that says vote here
and now by clicking here..
This was a problem with the last election too.. So who is responsible
for making sure that the board represents the members?
> > These aren't OpenSRS issues, but I would hope that the new board would
> > have the technical awareness to recognise
> I agree with you that avoiding such things needs to be done if possible.
> And look! I'm even on the board!
Excellent.. Took me a while to find this in CIRA, resorted in using the
site map:
http://www.cira.ca/en/about_ca.html
So, what can we do to support you to ensure that CIRA's techies carry
more weight than CIRA's 'branding experts'.. I'm perhaps overly
optimistic in assuming that if there are more techies on the board there
will be less javascript in the poll booths....
> > The three listed in the TuCows supported http://www.ciraboard.ca/
> > IAN MACEACHERN
> > RICHARD M. ANDERSON
> > DENIS TANGUAY
> > All seem to have business & marketing backgrounds. Denis is an
> > engineer, but you can be an engineer without knowing how to turn on a
> > computer.
> I'm also an engineer and I assure you Denis knows how to turn on a
> computer. He's also an OpenSRS reseller!
Good.. Glad that both you and Denis are technically competent.
However, one can't assume that just because you are an engineer you know
anything about domain names.. I wasn't intending to slight Denis as
I've never met him.. But I must say that the description from the CIRA
site is much better than what is posted here:
http://www.ciraboard.ca/
Mike
--
Mike Gifford, OpenConcept Consulting, http://www.openconcept.ca
Open Source Web Applications for Social Change
New Site Launched: http://www.patmartin.org/
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrows. ML King, Jr.
