[ncc-services-wg] Re: [db-wg] Clean up of unreferenced person/role objects

On Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 09:36:14AM +0100, Jon Morby wrote:
> 
> I personally think it would be a mistake not to at least attempt to
> notify the contact by email.

For the record, I really don't think it matters much. These person or
role objects are ones that are:

- unused for months, and
- trivially easy to recreate.

> Personally I think the bigger problem isn't unreferenced objects,
> but the bigger issue is with "orphaned" objects (*). The "new" role
> objects overcome a lot of this, but every day I still see objects
> with contact details of people who left the company 5-10 years
> earlier and are still referenced .. and unravelling that mess
> becomes a whole lot harder.

This is a separate issue, and is IMHO a failure of both database
design and policy.

The failure of database design is that data needs to be checked for
correctness periodically. Objects in the RIPE Database are not. Such a
mechanism can be simple. For example, each maintainer could get an
e-mail each year pointing to a web page listing objects maintained
asking "click to continue to use these values".

This points out the failure of policy... what happens if objects are
not maintained properly? Right now, there is nothing that can be done.
What I would like to see done is the resources made unavailable for
use until the maintainer confirms that the objects about them are
correct.

I think that LIRs will never accept such a policy. But I've been wrong
before.

--
Shane