[db-wg] The DBTF needs your feedback!

Hi Ronald

Although I have nothing to do with the questionnaire, I am curious
what information you believe 'someone' wants to hide, or maybe you
think has already been hidden, that has never before been hidden in
this traditionally open whois?

btw nothing is decided by voting. Like other working groups we work on
consensus based on arguments.

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG

On Thu, 4 Feb 2021 at 02:22, Ronald F. Guilmette via db-wg
<db-wg at ripe.net> wrote:
>
> I am attempting to fill out this apparently endless survey, and it's
> obvious from the get-go that this whole thing was designed as an
> artificial device to justify the deep-sixing of critical WHOIS
> information which has traditionally been kept open and public.
>
> I mean seriously, who designed these questions?
>
> The way the questions are framed, they are all quite obviously
> pushing one particular point of view, and one specific political
> agenda, namely to excuse the hiding of information which has never
> before been hidden... and which does not need to be hidden, except
> for the benefit of criminals.
>
> Here's an example of how to frame a question in a way that pre-
> supposes one specific outcome:
>
>     *)  QUESTION:  What would you prefer?
>
>           1)  To be beaten and strangled to death?
>           2)  To die of a horrible communicable infectious disease?
>           3)  To be mercifully euthanized in your sleep?
>
> How about (4) NONE OF THE ABOVE?  I'd actually like to go on living, if
> it's all the same to you.
>
> The survey questionare is positively jam packed with questions that are
> framed in this same manner... questions that, in effect, ask "How much
> information should we hide?"
>
> How about NONE OF THE ABOVE?
>
> Here is a concrete example from the questionaire:
>
>    * 16. Rank this contact information from most (1) to least (3) important
>      to facilitate Internet operations in the RIPE Database:
>
>       Email address
>       Phone number
>       Fax number
>
> Well, hardly anyone ever sends FAXes anymore, so that one is a no-brainer.
> But the way the question has been formulated, it is obvious that *someone*
> wants to get rid of either phone numbers or email addresses in the contact
> data for various assigned resources, and that answers to this carefully
> crafted (and methodologically bogus) questionare are going to be used as
> a lame excuse to do that.
>
> I, for one, have seen this movie before...
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic6c3WvwbAw
>
> This kind of too-clever-by-half way of formulating questions in a way so
> as to get some desired set of pre-determined answers is both shameful and
> really beneath the dignity of RIPE.
>
> I suggest that the whole thing should be thrown out and replaced by the
> following single question:  "Are you in favor of hiding the traditionally
> open WHOIS infornmation?"  Then the folks who are in favor of allowing
> criminals in the RIPE region to hide behind GDPR can simply out-vote the
> rest of us and we can then wrpa up this entire sham process far more
> quickly and efficiently, saving time for all concerned, since the outcome
> has already been determined.
>
>
> Regards,
> rfg
>
>
> P.S. Whoever designed this survey form also does not believe, apparently,
> that any participant has the right to NOT have an opinion on any single
> one of the myriad of questions set forth.  Do not pass GO and do not
> collect $200 UNLESS you have given answers even to the questions for
> which you have no opinion.
>
> P.P.S.  Apparently, there is no constraint whatsoever on anyone who wishes
> to skew the results of this "survey" by simply filling in the form several
> thousand times.
>
> It's 2021.  People are still running online surveys that can be trivially
> gamed??
>
> <<me -- shakes head>>
>