[anti-abuse-wg] 2010-08 New Policy Proposal (Abuse contact information)

Hi Tobias,

On Nov 10, 2010, at 6:13 AM, Tobias Knecht wrote:

[…]

> Imho you and Leo Vegoda are mixing up the data quality and the work
> quality. Data quality judges the quality and the accuracy of the data
> given in the object and has absolutely nothing to do with the abuse work
> done behind the email address.
> 
> We will never be able to judge the quality of abuse handling work by the
> existence or non-existence of an object.

I must not have written sufficiently clearly as you appear to have misunderstood me. I am not arguing that you can judge the quality of abuse handling by the presence or absence of the appropriate information in the database. I am arguing that its presence can help you judge the willingness of a network operators to take the reports seriously. 

I see the problem as a social one: many people do not want to receive reports or investigate them if they do. Your proposal would make it mandatory for people to publish abuse contact information but would do nothing to actually make people take the reports seriously. As such, I do not see it as significant element in making things better. Instead, I see it as a way of making lots of people do some extra administration that is unlikely to achieve anything significant.

Making things better will require the people running the networks to *want* to make things better. Unless you can come up with a proposal to change people's minds about taking abuse reports seriously I don't think this proposal can add any significant value. I suggest starting with solving the social element before moving on to a piece of mandatory mass administration exercise.

Regards,

Leo Vegoda