[db-wg] Re: "changed:" attribute

On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 07:19:51PM +0200, Denis Walker wrote:
>  * > The anti-spam WG is preparing a broad proposal, but one early thought
>  * > is to provide different database views for the different classes of
>  * > user. Casual users looking for contact information in the default
>  * > output are an important class, probably not the most well-informed or
>  * > patient, and it may be worth suppressing "changed:" in the view they
>  * > get. This applies whatever decisions we make about the internal
>  * > behaviour or the way LIRs will use the attribute.
>  * 
>  * That seems like a good idea. Many casual users of the RIPE database do
>  * not query it directly, rather through a small number of web-based
>  * gateways.  Would it be worth asking the owners of those gateways
>  * to filter out the changed field now, to see what effect that has?
> 
> But then someone will realise the changed lines are missing and think we are 
> hiding something. So they will write a tool to show them and give them even 
> more significance.

Nah. You're presuming far too much understanding of the black magic
that runs everything on the part of the typical casual user, I think.

It would be trivial to have samspade.org do this, and probably 
combat.uxn.com too, which I suspect are the two biggest web
gateways.

Cheers,
  Steve