Lon R. Stockton, Jr. has declared that:

...

...

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Pat Myrto wrote: In terms of the larger number of issues we see these days, the contact info from whois tends to be woefully inadequate (and often out-of-date) at times. [...] The added contact info I suspect would be quite a timesaver once in place. Riiiight....it'll be a timesaver because unlike the rest of the contact records, the Abuse contact will always be complete and up-to-date.

They would be if some real requirements were in place. The effort required should be small (just a couple of added fields), and especially if the template made the requirements of the entries clear, I fail to see how it could hurt.

And unlike the Tech contacts which aren't technically literate, the Abuse contact will of course always have the power and the technical ability to assist.

Last time I looked (been awhile), the templates give no real clear indication as to what the contact(s) are supposed to be able to handle - just that a kinda vague something is in the space (except for the billing contact, thats gotta be valid of course or the domain goes away at billing time)... :-)

I do believe that an Abuse contact may very well be a good idea...on paper. I also believe that in the real world, it'll be a waste of time.

Most sites (at least at provider level) have an abuse contact (sorta for some that remain nameless). Usually its either abuse@spam.com, or postmaster@spew.com. Its working contacts for real technical issues that I find appealing - routing issues, bad announcements leaking out, broken DNS entries, and the like. One will never know if people dont even want to bother to give it a try, but give up on it right out the chute, unless of course, someone has a better idea to achieve the desired result. Lacking that, perhaps its worth a try. Bemoaning lousy contact info w/o being willing to try some remendy seems kinda pointless. Hell, if even a few more sites just provided honest tech contact info in good faith, it would be helpful. Even more so if the template instructions would spell out some _requirements_ about contacts, such as making _working_ contacts as one of the conditions to get the domain or IP space allocated, whatever the case might be. ISPs requiring good contact info for their customers domains would help, too. If contacts later turn out to have bogus or /dev/null type entries, perhaps it could result in suspension of the domain involved (removal of NS entry from root servers till its fixed, etc. would get the admin's attention I bet). Perhaps thats too extreme, but I'm sure someone could think of an appropriate remedy to accomplish the desired end. Role type entries would be fine for those who dont want to give up a real name/email, as long as it reachs _somebody_ that can deal with the issues in a timely manner. If such a scheme or requirement or something similar were in place, I am sure the number of bogus/useless entries would have a sharp decline. How does one tell if the contact is bogus? Well, if you send mail to the contact, and it bounces, and the phone contact comes back with an intercept msg, or the party at the other end has no idea what a domain or route is, for example, its probably not a valid/useful contact... :-) Also, while I am thinking about it, an automated response w/o a real followup in short order is not a valid contact, either, IMO. Some seem to spit out an automated response while routing the actual message to /dev/null. Might as well be a bounce, at least thats more honest. Pat M

-- #include <std.disclaimer> Pat Myrto (pat at rwing dot ORG) Seattle WA What the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms really is: Our Freedom Insurance. Don't let the Statists or 'Those Who Know Best' elitists succeed in continuing attempts at diluting or nullifying it with claims that 'people' really means 'state', or that "You don't need it".