[anti-abuse-wg] Looking for advice on WhoIs server query format

Over the past few days I have come to realize the not all of the TLD 
WhoIs servers seems to use or support a common query format and I was 
hoping someone on this list might be able to point me to forum or web 
page where I can find more information on this subject.

For instance I have found the whois.arin.net will respond with a helpful 
reply if it does not accept the arguments or prefixes for an IP query. 
It responds to let me know that I can get more information about the 
query format by sending it a query with noting but '?\r\n' but 
whois.ripe.net is not nearly as helpful and simply complains, without 
offering any information about how or where one might find details about 
acceptable arguments.

TIA