automatic DB cleanup proposal

  Dear George,
  
>I am worried that there may be *external* referencees to objects, and while
>we have no 'contractual' obligation it might not be nice to do this
>to people without some engagement but I expect most people would welcome
>losing a path to spam.

  without going into any detail of the proposal itself, I perceive the
  fact that there are external references (allowed) _without "consent" 
  and without documentation_ a major flaw in the architecture.
  
  In fact, there are mechanisms available already (at least in the RIPE
  DB-SW V2.x and V3.x) that allow us to deal with that requirement:
  maintainer objects.

>As to automatic sweeping, I think there are problems with link counting
>which are similar to those we've faced in discussing cross-database linkage
>and references. Too many risks of the link count getting out of whack.

  Fair enough, a very valid concern! But I think the proposal is trying
  to describe the "user view" and the "abstract behaviour".

>I think you could use it as a guide to a sweep, but not as a determinant
>without some review and other checks. Eg to trigger more exhaustive checks
>to see if there are are references in twisty ways.

  I agree.

>cheers
>	-George

  Cheers,
  and thanks for partcipating in this discussion!
  Wilfried.