[db-wg] country attribute: "ZZ" for unspecified?

Christian,

On 2010-02-07 21:31, Christian 'wiwi' Wittenhorst wrote:
> 
> might there be a consent for introducing "ZZ" as an allowed value for
> the "country"-attribute for "unspecified"?

History
-------

A proposal to do just this was made at RIPE 48 (Value "ZZ" for country:
attribute):

http://tinyurl.com/yauje3s

You can see the minutes here:

https://ripe59.ripe.net/ripe/wg/db/minutes/ripe-48.html

There was consensus for this in the database working group shortly after
this. It became an action for the address policy working group at RIPE 49:

https://ripe59.ripe.net/ripe/wg/db/minutes/ripe-49.html

You can look at the minutes from RIPE 50:

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/db/minutes/ripe-50.html

Basically, the address policy working group said "non!" and that was it.

This was 5 years ago, so maybe the opposition has changed its mind (or
retired).

An attempt was made later, which you can see in the minutes from RIPE 54:

https://ripe59.ripe.net/ripe/wg/db/minutes/ripe-54.html

It got dropped between RIPE 55 and RIPE 56, I'm not sure why.


Opinion
-------

My theory is that people *want* the "country:" attribute to be useful so
badly they don't care that it does not actually work.

And of course it is useful in most cases. But in some cases it is not.
And in some cases it is misleading or otherwise harmful.

I think making it optional makes complete sense. Or allowing ZZ. Or both. :)

--
Shane