[db-wg] WG Chairs Selection

Dear working group,

I fully support Piotr, William & David to be the new team of chairs.

I find in the below answers very encouraging signs that William
Sylvester and David Hilario will be good co-chairs, I thank them for
stepping forward as volunteers.

I think the three of them present a good, diverse outlook on the RIPE
database and its constituents; not only with solid "behind-the-scenes"
experience, but also the much needed real end-user perspective on
things.

Furthermore I'll emphasizse that Piotr, William & David are members of
our community in good standing. One of their common traits that comes to
mind first is a willingness to help, to listen to the community.

I seek in DB-WG's next leadership not only a clear view on how the
database works and its potential, but also the ability to act as a
bridge between different-minded people. A continuation of the
consensus-based, bottom-up model is crucial to the database's future.

Kind regards,

Job

> >Can you elaborate further on your motivation why you want to volunteer
> >as chair of the DB-WG? What role does the database play in your
> >professional work?

On Fri, Nov 04, 2016 at 03:31:34PM +0000, William Sylvester wrote:
> Thank you for your questions, I use the database daily in my
> professional work as our customers depend heavily upon the accuracy
> and usability of the database. We use the database for writing data to
> the database and also for reading the data in the database. I am very
> involved with customer education, object maintenance, and interacting
> with the many interfaces provided for the database.
> I have volunteered to help the working group because we need to be
> looking to the future of the database. As a co-chair, I would like to
> work to increase the working group member participation, work with my
> co-chairs to identify consensus for the many initiatives, and through
> consensus provide the necessary features to all the users of the
> database.
> The database is a global system used around the world. As a working
> group we have many items to discuss. Items like data validation,
> object access control, authentication, usability, and concerns from
> law enforcement. Finding consensus on these items has a great impact
> on the Internet as a whole. I would like to leverage my 20+ years of
> experience in Internet directory services to help the working group
> address our changing Internet environment.
> Best regards,
> William

On Fri, Nov 04, 2016 at 10:18:36AM +0000, fransossen at yahoo.com wrote:
 
> Thanks for the questions.
> 
> I left the NCC a little over a year ago and I am now going to be
> working with the RIPE Database again as part of a new job, mainly
> simple contacts and network registration.
> When I first started using the RIPE Database, it was an open Database
> where users could change almost any data and break any policies.
> It was confusing for the users and generating a lot of work for the RIPE NCC staff.
> 
> Many new users were confused as to why they were able to make changes
> that were not allowed, many experienced users were having "bad script
> days" and making changes that then required the intervention of the
> RIPE NCC to fix.
> 
> While working for the RIPE NCC I was involved in creating the sets of
> business rules that prevents the deletion or modification of data
> considered "maintained" by the RIPE NCC. 
> 
> That greatly improved the overall data quality and lowered the amount
> of time spent by the RIPE NCC in restoring information and having to
> to contact the users and also improved the user experience at the same
> time.
> 
> Many hours were spent in testing new releases to test new
> functionalities and discovering what would eventually break the
> expected behavior of the RIPE Database.
> 
> I would like to continue with that and help in further enhancing the
> usability of the RIPE Database, I know how it works and how to not
> break it fundamentally when implementing changes to its behavior.
> I am not a coder, my views and use of the RIPE Database is one from a
> user perspective only, based on the available public tools only. 
> 
> I like to investigate how to achieve the intended goals of the RIPE
> Database, registration of networks and contacts while adhering to the
> RIPE policies, all this in the less cumbersome way possible. 
> That experience should be as painless as possible for all users, basic
> users and power users alike.
> 
> Any changes should always be analysed with pros and cons to see what
> will break if implemented, and how to then circumvent this and ensure
> continuity of expected functionalities.
> 
> Cheers,
> David Hilario