[db-wg] last-modified:, a succesor to changed:

Dear colleagues

Perhaps if I can clarify some of the issues here. I already see some of 
the old arguments being raised about spam and not wanting some 
information to be available to all.

Currently we have a list of multiple "changed:" attributes that may look 
something like this:

changed: unread at user.com 20100302
changed: hostmaster at ripe.net 20101115
changed: me at here.org 20140201

this implies that the object was created in March 2010 and has been 
updated twice. But it may have been created in 2003 and updated 10 
times. The content of these attributes is almost entirely at the 
discretion of the user. There may be many reasons why the full change 
history is not shown.

But now we have the query option '--list-versions' which would show the 
complete history of this object as:
rev#  Date              Op.

1     2003-03-17 13:15  ADD/UPD
2     2003-04-12 08:32  ADD/UPD
3     2003-05-22 13:20  ADD/UPD
4     2004-10-22 14:43  ADD/UPD
5     2004-10-31 03:08  ADD/UPD
6     2006-02-21 16:46  ADD/UPD
7     2009-12-02 13:27  ADD/UPD
8     2009-12-02 13:49  ADD/UPD
9     2010-03-17 15:00  ADD/UPD
10    2011-02-17 12:11  ADD/UPD
11    2013-03-19 16:24  ADD/UPD

So the "changed:" attributes may now simply provide inaccurate and 
confusing information, when the true information is easily available. 
Each version of this object can also be viewed with the query option 
'--show-version n'.

The "changed:" attribute also 'requires' an email address. This has been 
complained about for years because of the harvesting and abuse 
potential. New attribute(s) without the requirement for an email address 
completely removes this avenue for abuse. Data maintainers can add 
whatever additional information they wish about who did an update in 
"remarks:".

New attributes as Job and others have suggested for the above object 
could look like this:

remarks:        created by sales (RD132-RIPE)
remarks:        updated by customer support (dw-ripe)
created:         2003-03-17T13:15:30Z
last-modified: 2013-03-19T16:24:30Z

with the optional "remarks:" added by the maintainer and the time stamps 
auto-generated by the update software.

If necessary the RIPE NCC can generate the created and last modified 
dates for every object currently in the RIPE Database.

Hope this helps with the discussion.
Regards
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Team


On 16/04/2014 13:26, Nick Hilliard wrote:
> On 16/04/2014 12:23, Job Snijders wrote:
>> OK. But let's first reach some consensus in this group. Comments from
>> Wilfriend are always welcome.
> I'm good with a last-modified: line, or equivalent.
>
> Nick
>
>