I've been trying to get a response out of whois from whois.ra.net for the better part of an hour.
Despite evidence to the contrary (like the presence of the string "merit.edu" in the string "nanog@merit.edu"), "nanog@merit.edu" is not the same as "db-admin@ra.net". Nor is it the same as "noc@ra.net". Perhaps this isn't completely obvious. Anyhow, now you know. An obvious conclusion you might draw from this data is that reporting problems with the RA.NET whois server should really be done through a different mechanism. I suppose there are a number of other conclusions you might draw from this data, such as the fact that perhaps your mail message wasn't really appropriate for the North American Network Operators' Group mailing list. I only include nanog@merit.edu in the envelope of this message since a number of other members of the mailing list may be operating under similiar, somewhat understandable, misconceptions. I omit it from the headers to contrain replies. --jhawk