Agent86 wins again

[toast]

I'm locking this now so people see the change of heart:

OK I un-caved to agent (for the first TLD at least)... I'm too indecisive to be an effective project lead.

[GaltReport]

I'm also against this. Unless I'm missing something critical, what's preventing my competitor from getting into bidding wars with me just to rack up my costs? What if my website has massive authority in the eyes of Google but is non-profit; a wealthy individual can come by and buy up the domain to utilize its authority. I definitely wouldn't want to register a .p2p domain knowing that some rich competitor could take my domain, destroying the branding and mindshare I've accumulated.

[Method-X]

OK I un-caved to agent (for the first TLD at least)... I'm too indecisive to be an effective project lead.

This makes you a great project lead. It's better to always remain open minded.

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. - Albert Einstein

[toast]

OK I un-caved to agent (for the first TLD at least)... I'm too indecisive to be an effective project lead.

[toast]

The right thing to do is to try every model with different TLDs. During development of agent's model I spotted a few other cases which make me unsure of the best way to do this and so I will hold off on comitting to as "the" model for this DAC.

All that said, DNS functionality is not even going to be enabled at launch, right now the focus is all on making KeyID usable for stuff like signin and mail.

[bytemaster]

I think Agents ideas are interesting... but I think there is an element of "own your domain" vs "rent your domain" at play here. 

The issue isn't squatters, it is the non-standardization of purchasing names from squatters that makes it difficult and annoying to purchase.

I think if you adopt Agent's model you will be competing against this model:

1) You bid on a name, the next bid must out bid you by as much as you outbid the prior bid encouraging you to bid 51% of market value.
2) If you get outbid you lose 5%... don't try to be too cheap.
3) Only allow X names to "close" per day where X adjusts according to delegates.
4) Provide a standardized method to list a domain "for sale"

People don't mind paying higher prices for good names and they don't care who they buy the name from.   What they don't like is having 1000 different squatters they have to do business with. 

To maximize revenue, have people bid on the annual renewal fee rather than the "one-time purchase fee".     Someone who wants to try out a name for "a year" can bid more than someone who wants to squat all names for many years. 

[stuartcharles]

I'm also against this. Unless I'm missing something critical, what's preventing my competitor from getting into bidding wars with me just to rack up my costs? What if my website has massive authority in the eyes of Google but is non-profit; a wealthy individual can come by and buy up the domain to utilize its authority. I definitely wouldn't want to register a .p2p domain knowing that some rich competitor could take my domain, destroying the branding and mindshare I've accumulated.

I can't believe they are really thinking about someone else being able to buy your developed domain. Toast can you explain simply what is being proposed.

Some domains like business.com or sex.com have value because they are cool domains but the realy valuable domains like twitter.com facebook.com have value because of what has been developed on them and that value belongs to the developers/shareholders and should not be available to be auctioned off.

[Method-X]

I'm also against this. Unless I'm missing something critical, what's preventing my competitor from getting into bidding wars with me just to rack up my costs? What if my website has massive authority in the eyes of Google but is non-profit; a wealthy individual can come by and buy up the domain to utilize its authority. I definitely wouldn't want to register a .p2p domain knowing that some rich competitor could take my domain, destroying the branding and mindshare I've accumulated.

[blahblah7up]

The only real reason to register a domain is to build a website on it.  Everything else is either squatting, or good intentions with lack of execution.  mdw is right about giving ample time to create quality websites.  Parking or "parking like" pages should be banned somehow. There could be some index like "proof of development" which confirms through submissions that a website is actually under construction in order to retain control of the domain.  Works in progress are ok, as long a something is going on.  With a reasonable time limit of course.  Completed websites should be guaranteed their existence though!

[mdw]

There are good lessons to be learned from ICANN TLDs. Many like .biz launched with fairly strong registrations. But retention rates were low; one year out most were dropped.

It became clear that success over time means getting people to build websites. If registrants cannot count on controlling their domain name for some reasonably long period of time I can't imagine them investing the time, effort and money to build quality websites on the domain.

Some people say letting people control domain names for a long time encourages squatting. I think it's the only way to incentivize serious development of websites. IMHO that is the most important success factor over time! Anyone know any cool .biz websites?

[Thom]

It does seem like what's missing is how a domain owner can "give back" to the DAC and how that is measured. It should be a meaningful metric but not an onerous one. Most won't like it if "giving back" entails much effort or thought. About the only thing on my mind regarding an ICANN domain is when it expires and where I bought it.

The only things I can think of in terms of value add are more of a delegate type of function, like an ICANN to BitDNS bridge or search service or some type of rep system or rating service.

[gamey]

It is either $$ or voting and they're roughly the same thing in DACs.  With voting you have the problem of people having different motivation levels.  Like if I have a large stake and want to kick someone off a domain, I'm going to be far more motivated to vote on the proposal than others.

I suppose you could charge a fee for the elections and pay those who vote?  Meh.

Regardless, I don't think all these really matter. I believe Agent86's belief is that this system will help monetize the system while removing squatters.  I partially disagree, although it might very well have value in the future through some unforseen events.

[hadrian]

I agree with many of the previous posts.
For many, the current ICANN system will seem favorable to this proposal. Unless you worry about your domain being shut down, ICANN enables you to bank on the fact that you can keep your domain. That stability it important.
The suggestion in this topic has it's merits, but also has one major downfall. If someone decides to obtain a domain, they'll usually want the security of knowing they can use it without worrying about someone coming along and taking it by brute monetary force. The current proposal seems only to have significant value to a niche market. Why would many people choose this option over the existing option? Only if they have very specific needs.

Can't we use this model, but without the possibility of domains being forced out of people's hands by spitefulness, rich bullies or naughty competitors? I know squatting is a problem, but this doesn't seem like a good solution.



Is there any value hidden in the following half-baked ideas?

• If someone wants a domain which they believe is being squatted or underused they can challenge the domain. The owner of the domain must somehow overcome the challenge.
• In order to keep a domain the owner could add value to the DAC somehow, as well as leasing their domain. This could be almost like a proof of work, but one which is useful rather than arbitrary. Can someone think of a way to implement something like this? Is there some kind of manual work which could be done to improve quality, review sites, report problems etc.?
• Maybe this kind of proof of work can be used in order to stop people from bidding you out of your domain. That way you could have a choice - prove that you're not squatting by manual POW, or if you don't want to, the system could revert to the original suggestion by Agent86
• Maybe the POW could involve the development of a reputation/review system for domains or users. Or a filtering system whereby sites are categorized for efficiency in searches, or avoiding certain content material etc.

I admit I have little knowledge, but can anyone build upon any of these ideas? I don't know whether or not anything I've suggested is feasible.

[gamey]

I believe this is going to be a proto-dac much like BTSX.  So in that regard, all I ask is that you PLEASE PLEASE make it very apparent that there will be a DAC that does not have these auction rules.  This is necessary so we don't have piles of FUD flung in our direction by the early adopters who are the only ones interested at this point.

[Thom]

To me it sounds like this lease + auction system completely destroys the usefulness of BitShares DNS as an actual domain name system, while making squatters' wet dreams come true.

IMO the concerns raised by Empirical1 and gamey in the thread referenced above are valid and were not addressed (at least not in *that* thread).

I too am a "lowly tech type" as gamey described himself. I am now a BTSX shareholder b/c I believe in I³'s whole DAC perspective. My first foray into this tech was thru Derrick S & MWD. That's my background into this, but I am even more interested in a DNS DAC than BTSX.

I tend to agree with the above comments. Whatever is rolled out needs to be a practical replacement for the current ICANN DNS system, and IMO that implies names must be awarded for some period of time without fear of it being lost to another, stronger influence during that rental period.

The auction scheme sounds pretty good to me, but once a name is "won" it should be settled for some X period of time.

Why not have different classes of rental periods? The longer term rentals will cost more than shorter periods. I don't see much of a market for names without a way to deterministically have control over a it for a known length of time.

[pc]

To me it sounds like this lease + auction system completely destroys the usefulness of BitShares DNS as an actual domain name system, while making squatters' wet dreams come true.

IMO the concerns raised by Empirical1 and gamey in the thread referenced above are valid and were not addressed (at least not in *that* thread).

[bytemaster]

Agent86, what life situation can you possibly be in that it doesn't make sense for you to join I3 as a developer ASAP?

We discussed that this week. 

[CLains]

Agent86, what life situation can you possibly be in that it doesn't make sense for you to join I3 as a developer ASAP?

[gamey]

I can imagine the use of the domains for actual websites to be very moderate, but the market flipping domains could very well end up being rather lively.

Sure, but the system has to be adopted first.  Who is going to buy domains using this system ?  I'm just a lowly tech type, but I would think you need some form of network effect/adoption for these domains to have value. 

The domain flipping market has to be bootstrapped by actual demand from users.  No one has explained where these people will come from or what they will be looking for.  This should not be hard to explain.  I'll gladly change my mind.

Initially it made sense because although not huge, there is a demographic out there that does not want their domain censored/seized.

I do not understand Toast's comment on 'scorched earth' policy of keyID so I hope there is something redeeming in that direction of thought.

Gamey, I think you are way off base here, I'm not sure how best to convince you, maybe on a mumble sometime.  Even toast opposed the idea at first, I think if you look carefully at the proposal it doesn't have the bad outcome you imagine.

You could explain it here so that everyone could read your arguments.  I am not sure what "bad outcome" I am expecting.  I think your approach could work well in a different place and a different time.

However, I think we will be fighting to get people to adopt this system.  While your approach has some definite merits to it, I think it will do next to nothing to advance adoption which needs to be our primary goal.

[mint chocolate chip]

We're switching to his great cost-carrying model for domains

Ugh, so no guaranteed-ownership namespace at all? I do appreciate simplicity, but I really don't know about this. At least we can always use the KeyID namespace and the DAC can't do anything about it. Also, please at least reserve the "own", "key", and legacy TLD names in the cost-carrying namespace to give us future flexibility.

I agree.  As I pointed out, (perhaps not eloquently) this makes no sense to me.  The idea here is that you get rid of squatters and you have more authority in the domains because people bid/rent them and some form of a market rate is formed.

The issue is that anyone who wants a domain with authority will already have their domain and it is well protected by ICANN without any unknowns.  Up and comers won't want this domain system for obvious reasons.  So who are the customers?  No one has ever answered that.

Furthermore you'll alienate crypto people.  I can't wait to hear the arguments against the DNS DAC over this system.. good grief.

Gamey, I think you are way off base here, I'm not sure how best to convince you, maybe on a mumble sometime.  Even toast opposed the idea at first, I think if you look carefully at the proposal it doesn't have the bad outcome you imagine.

I can imagine the use of the domains for actual websites to be very moderate, but the market flipping domains could very well end up being rather lively.

[Agent86]

We're switching to his great cost-carrying model for domains

Ugh, so no guaranteed-ownership namespace at all? I do appreciate simplicity, but I really don't know about this. At least we can always use the KeyID namespace and the DAC can't do anything about it. Also, please at least reserve the "own", "key", and legacy TLD names in the cost-carrying namespace to give us future flexibility.

I agree.  As I pointed out, (perhaps not eloquently) this makes no sense to me.  The idea here is that you get rid of squatters and you have more authority in the domains because people bid/rent them and some form of a market rate is formed.

The issue is that anyone who wants a domain with authority will already have their domain and it is well protected by ICANN without any unknowns.  Up and comers won't want this domain system for obvious reasons.  So who are the customers?  No one has ever answered that.

Furthermore you'll alienate crypto people.  I can't wait to hear the arguments against the DNS DAC over this system.. good grief.

Gamey, I think you are way off base here, I'm not sure how best to convince you, maybe on a mumble sometime.  Even toast opposed the idea at first, I think if you look carefully at the proposal it doesn't have the bad outcome you imagine.

[toast]

There are a lot of different good ways to do the ownership model. I agree that it will be valuable to have this, we will have to fo this or else keyid namespace will be used for this and the "scorched earth" keyid namespace policy will backfire. So dont worry.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[gamey]

We're switching to his great cost-carrying model for domains

Ugh, so no guaranteed-ownership namespace at all? I do appreciate simplicity, but I really don't know about this. At least we can always use the KeyID namespace and the DAC can't do anything about it. Also, please at least reserve the "own", "key", and legacy TLD names in the cost-carrying namespace to give us future flexibility.

I agree.  As I pointed out, (perhaps not eloquently) this makes no sense to me.  The idea here is that you get rid of squatters and you have more authority in the domains because people bid/rent them and some form of a market rate is formed.

The issue is that anyone who wants a domain with authority will already have their domain and it is well protected by ICANN without any unknowns.  Up and comers won't want this domain system for obvious reasons.  So who are the customers?  No one has ever answered that.

Furthermore you'll alienate crypto people.  I can't wait to hear the arguments against the DNS DAC over this system.. good grief.

[arhag]

We're switching to his great cost-carrying model for domains

Ugh, so no guaranteed-ownership namespace at all? I do appreciate simplicity, but I really don't know about this. At least we can always use the KeyID namespace and the DAC can't do anything about it. Also, please at least reserve the "own", "key", and legacy TLD names in the cost-carrying namespace to give us future flexibility.

[emski]

Is there a short summary of the key features for the lazy people unwilling to read long .pdf files.

UPDATE:

What I understood:
1 Auction is held for each name.
2 Highest bidder takes the lease for limited period of time.
3 New auction (sort of) for the same lease starts as soon as the lease is obtained. Highest bidder (from 2.) controls the lease until it expires (with option to re-lease it).
4 Go to 2

Am I correct?

PS: I think the variable cost of the lease might drive people away (my opinion).

[toast]

We're switching to his great cost-carrying model for domains as described here:

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6561.0

Expect a test net on Monday.