Enforcing ISO-3166-1

[Cathy Murphy]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, John K. Doyle, Jr. wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Cathy Murphy wrote:
> 
> >  This change would mean enforcing ISO 3166 by accepting USA, GB or Brazil,
> >  but not accepting U.S.A., UK, or Brasil. An alternate proposal suggests
> >  that ARIN anticipate common mistakes such as embedded punctuation,
> >  misspellings and incorrect codes.
> 
> Cathy - enforcing the standard in the database is obviously a good idea. A
> friendly user interface that corrects for obvious and common errors is an
> equally good idea. Is there any reason that the two should be mutually
> exclusive?

Not really. The question is not can we, but should we, develop that
friendly user interface. What do we consider "obvious and common"? The PRO
for doing this are obvious: it simplifies life for those submitting
templates.

The CON (or PRO for strict enforcement) is that it introduces a certain
level of ambiguity. For instance, we might create a user-friendly test
(based on past, commonly-made errors) that CHI means Chile (CL,CHL).
However, perhaps someone specified CHI intending it to resolve to China
(CN,CHN) or Switzerland (CH,CHE). Not likely, but in this hypothetical, we
would be the cause of bogus data in whois. 

So it's a matter of balancing, and we are trying to determine where we
should draw the line. Do we anticipate those most common mistakes, knowing
that there is the potential for creating bogus data, but understanding
that we are making submission easier? Or do we play tough and shift the
entire burden to those submitting templates?

Cathy