Dear Colleagues As a first step to clearing up long standing issues that cause confusion in using the RIPE Database, we would like to propose making the "referral-by:" attribute optional in maintainer objects. Historically maintainers were strictly controlled and users had to apply to the RIPE Database administrators to get one. This was created and "referral-by:" referenced ripe-dbm-mnt. The RFC for RPSS allowed for maintainers to be able to create other maintainers in this controlled world. The "referral-by:" attribute was intended to be an audit trail back to the root maintainer creation. This was never implemented in the RIPE Database software. Since the strict control was relaxed, we have always advised that "referral-by:" references itself. It is a redundant attribute that confuses new users. When we set up AfriNIC, they asked us to drop this attribute completely. If we make it optional now, although it is still in the RPSL definition, it can be completely ignored. Does anyone have any strong views on this either way? Regards Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC Database Group