[db-wg] Re: abuse-c: proposal

>>> Do you really think that users would understand better if they read
>>> "abuse-mailbox: user at example.com" instead of that sentence in
>>> english which explains what the allocation is for and who should be
>>> notified of abuse?

Actually, yes.  The only class of users for which equivalence is
reasonable is humans who are competent in English.  Non-human users
(such as automated reporting tools), and to some extent non-anglophone
humans, can be expected to have problems.

> Maybe RIPE could provide a web page to query the DB for abuse desk
> addresses (which would report no other data),

Not a web page.  Please, not a web page!

If you _must_ use a web page, please cast the query and response
formats in stone so that the result is scriptable.  (Actually, there's
nothing wrong with providing a human-friendly web interface per se.
What I have a problem with is providing no automation-friendly
interface.  There is a strong tendency these days to consider a webpage
as enough for all purposes, which it usually isn't.)

> So far only one tool writer contributed to this thread, and he
> reported that both abuse-mailbox and irt could be used by his tools.

I'm a tool writer, though I haven't written any tools for this, largely
because there is so little standardization among the various IP
registries on query and response formats, and so many netblocks use
human-targeted "remarks:" or equivalent to provide critical info.  I
would love it if we had something like abuse-mailbox:, especially if it
had buyin from other IP registries (ARIN, registro.br, KRNIC, etc).

Whether it actually is abuse-mailbox: or the IRT stuff is more or less
irrelevant to me; buyin from others, quick deployment, and a format
specified clearly enough to make queries automatable are much more
important to me than the details of the spec.

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