[db-wg] Options for extending "abuse-c:"

Dear Piotr

We are not suggesting anything, certainly not abandoning whois. What we 
are trying to do is start to raise questions. This database design/model 
is 15 years old. We can say for sure it is not efficient, relationships 
are not good, there is massive duplication of data. But does it still do 
what people want? Could it be (much) better? Could we provide 
alternative ways to interface with it (and keeping the old ways)? Could 
we provide better features and services? Can we make your daily/regular 
tasks with the database easier and quicker and less error prone?

There are many people within the community who have 'grown up' with this 
database and RPSL. They understand it, know how to use it, have work 
arounds for it's limitations, have lots of software that integrates with 
it. But so many new users struggle to do all these things. We see the 
same problems on training courses. We see the same questions being asked 
so many times in support tickets. We hear the same issues being raised 
in the background at meetings.

We know these are big issues and nothing is going to be fixed/improved 
in one single step. But there is a big knowledge/usability gap between 
long term/experienced users and new users. In general many of the 
experienced users don't appreciate the way new users struggle with the 
complexity of the RIPE Database. So we are trying to raise awareness of 
this and find a way to move forward.

Regards
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Team


On 08/05/2014 11:57, Piotr Strzyzewski wrote:
> On Wed, May 07, 2014 at 12:52:59PM +0200, Denis Walker wrote:
>
> Dear Denis
>
>>> I find this suggestion clumsy. It adds hard to parse extraneous
>>> information to simple objects. The organization object for a very large
>>> organization would become unmanageable and unintelligible quickly.
>> Who do you believe is going to parse this object for this information? The
> Users. ;-)
>
>> RIPE NCC already has an Abuse Finder tool which can be accessed directly or
> RIPE NCC already has two Abuse Contact Finders, which already misleads
> the users. :| And yes, I know that one of them will be obsoleted.
>
>> via RIPEstat. As I said in the last paragraph of my article, people should
>> start to move away from the old fashioned idea of digging directly into the
>> RIPE Database themselves to find data, parse it and interpret it. If you
>> need information the RIPE NCC will provide web tools and API calls to
>> supply that information. We will  do all the digging, parsing and
>> interpretation for you.
> And sadly speaking, what I understand here, between the lines, is let's
> abandon whois in some point of time. I hope I misunderstood you.
>
> Piotr
>

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