[vip] Types of variants: do we have consensus?

[Alexey Mykhaylov]

Hi Andrew

 

In the case of the third class -- semantic similarity -- I first of all deny
the premise.  I claim that _no_ DNS label has a meaning.  It is possible
(indeed likely) that some people use labels as though they had meaning, but
that is quite a different matter from the labels actually having such
meaning.  That you might attribute a meaning to a given label could well
mean that you understand it to have the same meaning as some other label.
But that is not the same as deciding that the label has that meaning in
itself -- for instance, the same pair might not be related for me.  How
would one determine this?  What authority would one depend on?  And how is
this to be determined algorithmically?  Moreover, given that the tradition
in the DNS runs exactly counter to this -- traditionally, the labels "color"
and "colour" are simply different labels, period -- what justification is
there for including this type of similarity in the work of the teams?

 

I would like to point out (considering that this group deals with IDN TLDs
issues) that the FIRST requirement for IDN gTLD application in gTLD
Application Guidebook states as the following: 

 

"Meaning or restatement of string in English. The applicant will provide a
short description of what the string would mean or represent in English." 

 

I think it is safe to claim that TLDs do have meaning _associated to them_
(and ICANN could very well be the authority if needs to be). I am not sure
if semantically similar strings are actually variant strings the way we
define variant strings, but I agree with Vladimir that on a conceptual level
this is a case of similarity and will need to be addressed. 

 

Best Regards,

Alexey

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