RE: [gnso-pednr-dt] Whois Output from "Thin Registry"

["Rob Hall" <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michelle,

Can I ask a dumb question ?  Where do you think Registrants are going to
do their whois lookups if not Registrars ?  And more specifically the
Registrar of record ?

I did a lookup of namescout.com on godaddy.com, and sure enough, they
showed the Registrar whois, with a link to the Registry whois if you
need it.  That is a perfect way to do it.   I think most Registrars show
the Registrar whois, not the Registry whois.  

But I am not sure any of this is really relevant.  I think we all
understand how whois works.

The question is, is there a better solution to the epiry date issue.  I
don't know of one, but if someone has one I would love to consider it.

Rob.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gnso-pednr-dt@xxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-gnso-pednr-dt@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michele Neylon ::
Blacknight
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 4:38 AM
To: gnso-pednr-dt@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [gnso-pednr-dt] Whois Output from "Thin Registry"


Ron / Tim / Alan / Rob


The question as I see it is quite simple:

Can a registrant be confused by the whois output displayed?

I think they can be.


Whois - it's a "touchy" subject, but I get the impression that  
whenever it or some other topics come into a discussion that people  
treat them like sacred cows.

I'm Irish, so we don't really care about cows much :)

Some of the cctld registries use much clearer status in the whois  
output that might be worth looking at.

Take co.uk's whois status codes:

"Registration request being processed"
"Registered until expiry date"
"Renewal request being processed"
"Renewal required"
"Renewal invoice being processed"

http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/maintain/renew/status/

 From the discussions we've had over the last few weeks it seems  that:

- most registrars are doing their utmost to inform registrants about  
renewals
- some registrars may not be doing this, but they are in the minority  
- however that minority is still important
- whether the resellers of registrars are doing their duty or not is  
impossible to know

Registrants are not stupid, but expecting them to make sense of whois  
output is unreasonable if the whois output is hard to make sense of  
and / or does not clearly reflect the actual status of a domain.

I'll have to disagree with Rob about where registrants are going to do  
lookups or perform other actions.

If the renewal dates etc., have been properly communicated to the  
correct people then yes - the registrant will be going to the correct  
site to renew domains etc., but it's impossible to know if they are  
all doing that or not.

I don't think anyone is trying to change how auto-renew, grace periods  
etc., etc.., work.

However I personally don't see why we shouldn't see if:

1 - is the whois output (regardless of source or where it is viewed)  
causing confusion?
2 - can it be tweaked to make the status clearer? (whether this is  
done by the registrars or the registries isn't important - it's more  
of a "should it be considered?" question)

Regards

Michele

Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Solutions
Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection
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