[db-wg] Cosmetic changes to the RIPE Database

Colleagues

We had one comment on this. Does anyone else have an opinion?

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-Wg

On Mon, 6 Sept 2021 at 15:19, denis walker <ripedenis at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Colleagues
>
> There have been a number of cosmetic changes to the RIPE Database in
> recent months. There is no agreed procedure for making these type of
> changes. In particular the extent to which the community is informed.
> Examples of the type of changes we are talking about are:
> 1/ When the ORGANISATION object addresses were synced with the
> internal registry the address lines were entered in the wrong order.
> The RIPE NCC did a cosmetic update to reverse the order of the address
> lines. It had no operational impact at all.
> 2/ Capitalisation of status values. Again this had no operational impact at all.
>
> We would like some feedback from the community about how you want
> these type of cosmetic changes announced. We see four possible
> options:
>
> 1/ individual notification in advance to all affected maintainers plus
> general announcement on the mailing list plus update notifications
> (full disclosure)
> 2/ general announcement on the mailing list plus update notifications
> 3/ general announcement on mailing list and silent update (no notifications)
> 4/ no announcement, no notifications, just do it without disturbing
> anyone (totally silent)
>
> Some points to note:
> -In all cases the object history will show the changes.
> -There is also an option to not change the "last-modified:" attribute
> if you don't want that to reflect cosmetic changes.
> -The full disclosure option (1) can sometimes lead to considerable
> extra work load for the RIPE NCC. If people are individually told in
> advance of a change they don't always realise it has no operational
> impact and ask questions. Every question opens a ticket that needs to
> be manually addressed.
> -Perhaps options 2 or 3 are the most practical?
>
> Your feedback is welcomed...
>
> cheers
> denis
> co-chair DB-WG