[db-wg] RIPE Database: Cleaning-up Organisation Names in "descr:"

HI Job

On 11/05/2016 02:00, Job Snijders wrote:
> Hi Denis,
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 01:48:33AM +0200, denis wrote:
>> We have been in this situation many times in the past where an
>> attribute has been deprecated or its value has been suspect for some
>> reason.
>>
>> What we did in the past was to make the suspect/deprecated attribute
>> into a "remarks:" attribute.
>
> Sometimes this approach was used, but certainly not always.
>
>> This addresses both concerns raised in response to your discussion in
>> this case. The old value is still there but it is clear it is not a
>> reliable description. Those who want to keep that value can simply
>> remove the "remarks:" tag. Those who don't want it can delete the
>> attribute. After maybe 6 months you can do a final cleanup and remove
>> any old value that has been left as a "remarks:".
>
> Had the attribute been an actual "user-owned" attribute, the "remarks:"
> approach might have made more sense, but this is not the case.
>
> Thanks for chiming in,
>
> Job
>
> ps. It still annoys me somewhat that the "remarks: For information on
> "status:""  remarks show up everywhere, years later. :)
>

I believe these are only in AUT-NUM objects that had a new "status:" 
attribute added and all levels of legacy resource hierarchies that had 
their "status:" value changed. IIRC when I wrote the implementation plan 
for this change these "remarks:" attributes were locked in place to 
prevent accidental removal before anyone read it and then flood Customer 
Services with questions about the status change. Many AUT-NUM objects 
are auto-generated and it would be easy to lose these remarks.

I think the plan was to unlock these attributes after about 1 year. 
Another thing that was forgotten after I left...keeping track of things 
like this was one of the many things someone at the NCC did not know I 
did :)

cheers
denis