[db-wg] Clear up of old issues - Whiepages

Colleagues

The co-chairs recently had a zoom meeting with the RIPE NCC. One of
the things we discussed was clearing up a number of old issues. We
need to clear the deck and move on with new and perhaps more relevant
issues. We will address a number of issues for the last time. In some
cases the chairs will make a recommendation. As these are quite old
issues, we will take silence as consensus for the chair's
recommendation.

The first issue is Whitepages. This is a feature from about 10+ years
ago. It was intended to preserve the PERSON object in the RIPE
Database and protect it from automatic deletion if it is not
referenced from any operational data. It was to use the RIPE Database
as a phone book for well known people in the industry who may not be
resource holders. There are many other ways to provide such contact
details today. It was only ever used by a handful of people. The RIPE
NCC now has other ways to preserve ROLE objects if needed, for example
if used by RIPE Atlas users.

The chairs recommend removing this feature from the RIPE Database. If
you need a ROLE object to be preserved, contact ripe-dbm at ripe.net to
discuss.

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG