[Community-Discuss] WHOIS data base access

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <6.2.5.6.2.20201224231825.0cdc6438 at elandnews.com>, 
"S. Moonesamy" <sm+af at afrinic.net wrote:


>There is a request form at 

><https://www.afrinic.net/ast/afrinic-bulk-whois-request-form-2020.pdf> 

>for 2020.  I suggest filling in the new version of the request form 

>and sending it to the hostmaster at afrinic.net email address.


Was this intended as a bad joke?

I already did this!!  I already filed out the form and send it back in
to AFRINIC and received an acknowledgement that it was received, *and*
I was then given a special password to access what I had hoped would
be a full and *UNREDACTED* copy of the entire AFRINIC WHOIS data base.

I did all this even before the pandemic began!

After all of that fooling around, I was shocked, amazed, and angered
when, at the end of the whole process, the only thing that I could
actually get after all of this jumping through hoops was the exact
same *redacted* copy of the AFRINIC WHOIS data base that I could already
get even *before* I went through all of this bureaucratic nonsense,
which is the same *redacted* copy of the data base that any fool can
download, via FTP, from ftp.afrinic.net any day of the week.

When I complained that I was still not getting the promised *unredacted*
version of the WHOIS data base, both Madhvi and Eddy just told me that
what I was given was all that was avaialble, and then basically just
ignored me after that.

Why did I have to fill out a form, send it back, and go through all
of this silliness, only to end up with the exact same (redacted) data
that I and everyone else on planet earth could already get, even before
all of this BS??

I guess that the joke is on me for being stupid enough to believe that
AFRINIC would at least be suffuciently competent and functional to
*not* just create a whole convoluted bureaucratic mechanism just to
give people absolutely nothing above and beyond what they already
had or could already get.

I say again, I have been stonewalled and I am *still* being stonealled.

I can't get even *current* unredacted bulk WHOIS records, let alone any
of the vital *historical* records.

Why?  

I am asking you, Mr. Chairman, to PLEASE get this nonsense sorted out
ON YOUR END.


Regards,
rfg