[dbwg] WHOIS Modification - Part 1 of 2

[william at elan.net]

Format number 2 is the best one probably, it provides clear distinction 
which part of the address belongs to "street and other information" and 
which part to city, state, zip code.

But as has been suggested before it is good idea to separate City, 
State/Province and Zip/Postal Code by "," in the output to allow for 
easier parsing of this information. So I'd like to see the following format:

OrgName: Ministry of Colleges and Universities
OrgID: MCU-1 
Address: Government of Ontario 
          Corporate Planning and Services 
          Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
          8th floor, mowat block 
          900 Bay Street 
Address: Toronto, ON, M7A 1L2 
Country: CA

BTW: In terms of implementing parsers, format #4 is actually the easiest 
to implement and similar formats are so common in apnic, ripe and 
various country registrars and parsers for it already exist and can be 
ported in seconds. But at the same time, none of those parsers work 100% 
to get city, state, exactly because its often not clear in the address 
where they are its just easier to have it as clearly separated field.

On separate point, I think the example given was really bad - 
"Goverment of Canada", "Corporate Planning and Services" and 
"Ministry of Colleges and Universities" does not belong to address.
The whole problem is that there is no way to enter "full" organization
name in the database and address is used instead. Perhaps correct idea is 
to allow multiple lines for organization name, rather then forcing to 
enter this info as "address" and then those doing searches and queries are 
mislead especially since ARIN stoped providing address in every query.

Besides that "ONT" for province name is also very rare, almost everywhere
either 2-letter abbreviation of full province/state name are used and I do 
hope ARIN can make sure that province name when displayed follows 
conventional 2-letter format for US & Canadian locations - its not like 
there are that many states & provinces that ARIN can't write a filter and 
reject all incorrectly entered province/state in incoming templates (have 
them either enter full province/state name and convert that to two-letter) 
or just two-letter abbreviation! This suggestion is only for US & Canadian 
addresses everything else should be done as-is.

William Leibzon
william at elan.net


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
From: ginny listman (ginny at arin.net)
To: dbwg at ARIN.NET
Date: Wed Nov 20 2002 - 13:35:14 EST 
Subject: [dbwg] WHOIS Modification - Part 1 of 2

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A discussion took place on this mailing list, with further discussion 
during the Database Implementation Working Group Meeting at ARIN X in 
Eugene, Oregon, regarding separating the city, state/province and postal 
code from the address line. This would facilitate parsing the postal 
address. This can be done one of three ways: 


Current format: 


OrgName: Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
OrgID: MCU-1 
Address: Government of Ontario 
          Corporate Planning and Services 
          Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
          8th floor, mowat block 
          900 Bay Street Toronto Ont M7A 1L2 
Country: CA 


Suggestion format #1: 


OrgName: Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
OrgID: MCU-1 
Address: Government of Ontario 
          Corporate Planning and Services 
          Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
          8th floor, mowat block 
          900 Bay Street 
          Toronto Ont M7A 1L2 
Country: CA 


Suggested format #2: 


OrgName: Ministry of Colleges and Universities
OrgID: MCU-1 
Address: Government of Ontario 
          Corporate Planning and Services 
          Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
          8th floor, mowat block 
          900 Bay Street 
Address: Toronto Ont M7A 1L2 
Country: CA 


Suggested format #3: 


OrgName: Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
OrgID: MCU-1 
Address: Government of Ontario 
              Corporate Planning and Services 
              Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
              8th floor, mowat block 
              900 Bay Street 
City/Region: Toronto Ont M7A 1L2 
Country: CA 


Suggested format #4: 


OrgName: Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
OrgID: MCU-1 
Address: Government of Ontario 
Address: Corporate Planning and Services 
Address: Ministry of Colleges and Universities 
Address: 8th floor, mowat block 
Address: 900 Bay Street 
Address: Toronto Ont M7A 1L2 
Country: CA 


Although format #1 was not suggested at the meeting, it is similar to the 
format for multi-lined comments. Format #2 was the preferred method at the 
meeting, mainly because people were focusing on a single line street 
address. Format #3 was suggested at the meeting, but consensus was against 
it. Format #4 was not suggested at the meeting, but if implemented, begs 
the question, "Should the 'Comments:' label be repeated?" 


Prior to implementing this change, ARIN is soliciting further comments. 
Which method is preferred? Will it be necessary to provide advanced notice 
before making the change? 


If no additional comments are received before December 6, ARIN will begin 
to implement format #1. It should be noted that time of release of these 
changes depends upon the method selected. 


Ginny Listman 
Director of Engineering 
ARIN