Summary

  • Version 1 of Steffann and Shane Kerr's RIPE 2013-01 would have published each complaint's existence, submission date, affected resources and status. The submitter could choose whether the complaint text and their identity appeared.
  • Version 2 replaced the public case list with status counts and private progress access for the reporter and named organisation. Its separate public file of returned resources survived the rewrite. The authors withdrew the proposal in November 2013.

The first draft gave a complaint a public life before the investigation had finished. A reader could see when someone reported a number-resource registration, which resources were named and whether the case was new, under investigation or closed. The complainant could also allow publication of the report's text and their own name. Sander Steffann and Shane Kerr put that design in RIPE proposal 2013-01's first version. It promised an audit trail. It also gave an untested accusation a durable address on the RIPE NCC website and an FTP file.

The complaint system covered alleged policy breaches, false information, insolvency and incorrect database contacts. Its listed closure states included out-of-scope, resolved by holder, resources returned and no violation found. A public entry could therefore end in exoneration; the public exposure would already have happened. The draft itself acknowledged the risk of false complaints damaging an organisation's reputation.

The second version changed the unit of publicity. It asked RIPE NCC to publish aggregate numbers of new and investigated reports, plus counts for each closure state. The reporter and the organisation named in a report would get a private way to follow its progress. The public would see workload and outcomes, rather than a running list of suspects.

One list kept its teeth. Both drafts proposed a machine-readable public file for resources returned to RIPE NCC. Each entry would identify the resource type and range, return date, any reallocation date and a reason code: voluntary return, lost contact or policy violation. That file concerned a completed change in resource custody. The separate complaint count concerned an allegation still moving through a process. Steffann's revision drew the line between the two.

The line still drew objections. In the working-group discussion, Sascha Luck wanted explicit anonymity for statistics and warned that a reporter might publish supposedly private status information. Steffann accepted the anonymity point, described the private view as a status indicator, and rejected a new sanctioning role for RIPE NCC. Luck remained opposed. The revised text was a compromise in design, not a consensus in the room.

On 17 October, Steffann asked supporters to speak by 17 November: the latest version had received no working-group feedback. The 22 November withdrawal notice cites early objections and scant later feedback. The policy never took effect. Its surviving record poses a durable design question: which registry facts deserve a public ledger, and when does a complaint become one?