[anti-abuse-wg] [db-wg] objection to RIPE policy proposal 2016-01

Hi Gert

I know we have a fundamental difference of opinion here but I will try 
to be constructive.

On 10/03/2016 19:00, Gert Doering wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 06:50:52PM +0100, denis wrote:
>> Maybe we should talk about making admin-c and tech-c work like abuse-c.
>> That would be a step in the right direction.
>
> So you want to add millions of unmaintained organization: objects to the
> millions of unmaintained admin-c:/tech-c: references?

For a start there would not be millions of unmaintained admin-c and 
tech-c references if they were used hierarchically. The problem here is 
that they are both mandatory in the inet(6)num objects. But for many 
organisations they don't need a different reference for every resource. 
This just generates massive amounts of unmaintained references. It gets 
even worse when the reference PERSON objects instead of ROLE objects.

So for many organisations to define just one admin-c and one tech-c in 
their ORGANISATION object would be all they need. I know there are power 
uses who don't follow the simple model. But so many members (who don't 
seem to be represented on these mailing lists) would benefit from such 
simplifications.

Secondly you would only need more ORGANISATION objects for these power 
uses who have more complex business models.

>
> Sounds like a very good plan to improve data quality!
>
> What?!
>
> (I wouldn't mind the hierarchical lookup capability that abuse-c: has,
> so "if an inetnum has no tech-c:, find the next less specific and use that",
> but the indirection via org and mandatory role is way too silly to be
> extended further.  Maybe you should start *using* the database for a while,
> like, "work at an ISP", so you can see which ideas are just not practical
> from a user point of view?)

There must be a middle ground here between my desire to simplify the 
data model and use a lot more inheritance and your desire not to have to 
duplicate ORGANISATION objects. But no one is willing to talk about the 
bigger picture. This database design is almost 20 years old. The abuse-c 
and irt object are the only things that use inheritance in this 
hierarchical structure. The majority of the 12k+ members are not like 
many of the people on these mailing lists. They have not been using this 
database for the last 20 years. They really do struggle to understand it 
and use it.

Technology that gets stuck in a time warp is bad technology. But there 
is no vision about what to do with this registry database. The RIPE NCC 
has had, has and will have some very good engineers, analysts and 
designers. You are paying for them. But they are too scared to propose a 
big change in case the 'community' just says NO. So instead they try to 
slip in little changes to nudge it along in a better direction. Changes 
they hope won't rock any boats and will get approved. That is why 
abuse-c works the way it does. I had a much bigger vision at the time 
but was not able to say it. So it is a little bit of a bigger plan which 
on its own may not be the best solution.

This is why I keep banging my head against the wall about the data 
model. I have nothing personally to gain or lose either way. But 
professionally I want to see this product move forward for the good of 
the internet community. The data model is way past the stage of little 
changes and tweaks now. What it needs now is a revolution...even if that 
is done in small backwards compatible steps....at least have a vision 
about where it is going. The last revolution was 17 years ago and 
deployed in a big bang 15 years ago....it is time for another one.

cheers
denis

>
> Gert Doering
>          -- NetMaster
>