[...stuff about the NCC not managing conjtact info...]
Elegantly written. You have made it sound as though you've said something without actually addressing my point at all. My point is irrelevant to who routinely updates what objects or how contact information is kept. My point is that RIPE has the authority to assign address space, but is refusing to accept the concomitant responsibility to make sure that its assignees hold up their end of the bargin, in particular by maintaining current and correct contact information for their netblocks.
The RIPE NCC takes direction from consensus reached within the RIPE community.
Then for "RIPE" above please read "RIPE and the RIPE community". My point still stands: the address space delegated to RIPE is not being responsibly managed. I had hoped RIPE would have the decency and integrity to realize this when it was pointed out and start managing its address space correctly, but it is appearing that it is unwilling to do so. (_Why_ it is unwilling to is more or less irrelevant; if it is because internal policies prevent it from doing so without a consensus of its constituency, that is its problem, not the rest of the world's. Whatever the internal structure, RIPE is still being obstinate about living up to the responsibility that goes with the address space it has been assigned.)
If you would like to bring about a change then please bring a proposal to the mailing list of the appropriate working group.
What is the appropriate working group? I was refered to these two working groups (db-wg and anti-spam-wg) by someone answering mail to ncc@ripe.net. Neither of them appears appropriate to me, but I tried them both because, as I remarked in my initial messages, I really don't want to have to kick this even further upstairs without exhausting the resources RIPE is willing to make available. So far, all I've seen from RIPE is runarounds and hand-washing. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B