[ppml] Directory Services - Take 2

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> We need to develop the purpose and scope of this directory service
> before coming to some sort of agreeable policy. Based on the purpose,
> the scope can be vastly different.

I tried to focus discussion on this point once before with this proposal
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2004_4.html

1. ARIN shall maintain and publish a directory of contact information 
   for the purposes of facilitating the operation of interconnected 
   IP networks. 
2. This directory will contain contact information for all organizations 
   and individuals within the ARIN region who have received IP allocations 

   or AS numbers directly from ARIN or its predecessors. 
3. Organizations and individuals must guarantee to ARIN that contact 
   addresses published in the whois directory will reach a person who 
   is ready, willing and able to communicate regarding network operations 
   and interconnect issues and who is able to act on that communication. 
4. Any other organizations may elect to be listed in the whois directory 
   as long as they make the guarantee detailed in item 3. 
5. All contacts listed in the whois directory will be contacted 
   periodically and the directory will indicate information which 
   may be stale if contact cannot be made promptly. 
6. Additionally, the whois directory will contain, directly or 
   indirectly, a record of all address blocks sub-allocated or 
   assigned by the entities mentioned in item 3. 
7. The records mentioned in item 6 will not identify the organization 
   or individual receiving the address block or their exact location. 
   These records will only indicate an organizational type, the nearest 
   municipality providing postal service to the end user, 
   state/province and country. 

At the time, the AC seemed to be taking an "all or nothing" position
on new policy and since a majority of members didn't support this
as is, they dropped the whole thing. But now, the mood seems to have
changed to one of bundling up policy incrementally which I think is
good. In that case, I would like to reintroduce this proposal here
as the strawman and hopefully we can build it up into something that
is acceptable to all.

Then, once we have the purpose and scope agreed upon, we can tackle
the rest of the problem. By the way, if you don't understand one of
the points above, or find yourself disagreeing with a point, it might
be a good idea to review the URL above. In particular, item 7 is 
explained there.

--Michael Dillon