Because the is tld has to exist in the ripe-db (for the "refer" option) the person objects need to exist in the ripe-db for that domain. So if you would lookup something like vortex.is in the ripe-db you can see that it has only person objects with the source IS and those objects are not in the ripe-db and can only be looked up in whois.isnet.is. So the objects within the is tld-record are allways going to be maintained in two places, but that are the only ones. About that error you got when looking up isnet.is I have never seen it before. I get about 1/3 of the queries on .is domains from joshua.ripe.net and I haven't got any complains about this before so it looks like it is working. And I have to say that since we set up this db we have run into quite a few delays in registering IP networks in the ripe-db that we could not have lived with when registering domains so now it is only ourselves to blaim if something is slow with the domains. Oli -- Olafur Osvaldsson System Administrator Internet Iceland inc. Tel: +354 525-5291 Email: oli@isnet.is