In reply to previous discussions with Melbourne IT, Simon Hackett wrote;

>In fact, here's the easy policy answer. Please consider it:
>
>Set your policy to be that you will not make a *change* to any existing DN
>delegations without the domain being registered up and paid for, but that
>for all existing DN delegations, you will explicitly LEAVE THEM ALONE (and
>not delete them - which would require labour and actions on your part that
>will cost you money, as opposed to leave them alone!) until one of the
>following events occurs:
>
>        - either someone owns up to that domain and offers you both updated
>contact information *and* money, and defines the anniversary, by
>implication, to be the date of this request, or:
>
>        - twelve months have elapsed from 01-Nov-1996 (when you started
>operations), at which point you explictly purge all COM.AU names which are
>not, at that time, paid up and registered properly.
>
>The point here: the incremental cost to you of existing entries in the DNS
>is damn near ZERO. So **LEAVE THEM THERE** until either someone claims it
>(with money to back up the claim) or we reach the end of 1997.  Let elapsed
>time do the work. Then you will
>
>(a) alienate NOBODY
>
>(b) cost yourself no work at all for domains you don't need to care about.
>They've been incorrect or broken for years, don't worry about it, *LEAVE
>THEM ALONE* and just purge un-claimed domains after 12 months.
>
>Surely that's simple enough, and fair enough, for us all to accept? Please?
>
[...]
>
>Think of the benefit - that huge labour intensive task you're about to start
>to get everything current - just *DON"T BOTHER*. Wait for your customer base
>to do your work for you.
>
[...]
>Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
>31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
>Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
>Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777

I agree completely. This is by far the fairest AND most logical solution to
the anniversary date problem. This would make the anniversary date process
completely transparent for all stakeholders and save M.IT a lot of hassle,
both from the customer relations aspect as well as their labour resource
allocation.

In planning effective allocation of resources, it is far better for M.IT to
spread the re-registration load out over a period of time such as 12
months, than to have to attempt to deal with a huge peak load over a period
of two months. After all, we know that, inevitably, most people and
organisations are going to leave their re-registrations until the last
minute, as human nature is inclined to do.

A basic strategic plan, which would have included a market analysis as well
as a full SWOT analysis, should have indicated to M.IT that this would be
the most effective strategy in terms of effective and efficient resource
allocation, as well as maintaining good stakeholder relations (bearing in
mind that stakeholders, particulary customers, ARE a major resource for any
organisation). Unless, of course, the strategy of M.IT is to monopolise the
market - in which case, the ineffective and wasteful allocation of
resources AS WELL AS the construction of bad stakeholder/customer relations
would not really matter to them.


Regards,
Boz

Boz Cappie
Dept of Social Communication and Journalism
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
University of Technology
Sydney
Australia
ph: + 61 2 9514 1955
e-mail: B.Cappie§hum.uts.edu.au
--- reality is what you can get away with ---