Re: [FreeDNS] urbanshield.za.net domain

[Christiaan Keet <hostmaster@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I used to be (probably still am if I could remember the login details
;) an admin for the uk.eu.org domain at eu.org. Their system is
mostly automated, but when I last checked even they had one final
"manual check" step in the process to weed out duff registrations.
In fact, when we started developing our automation model, a lot of
it was based on what I saw at eu.org.

Our system is about as automated as I'm willing to make it (at this
point). Templates and changes are checked automatically for technical
validity. The only manual step is for someone to look at the template
and go "yeah, that looks legitimate". (Physically that involves
using a web frontend to check the registration and click "Submit"
or "Reject with reason") The only reason I'm enforcing that is in
an attempt to keep down the number of rubbish registrations.  To
give you an idea - to August 2005 we processed 6673 modification
requests and in the same period we rejected 5139 new registrations
that had rubbish filled in for contact details etc. (Yes, filling
in "123456789" as phone number when the server rejects a blank box
on the form is really clever. Have some candy.)

History has shown us that people are a lot less likely to abuse
domains/use them for spam/whatever if they're required to list valid
contact details. It also makes our handling of any abuse complaints
a _lot_ easier if we have some proper contact details. Of course
people can (and will) always fake this, but we need to at least
try and keep the database as clean as we can.

- Christiaan



On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 10:17:54AM +0200, Peter van Heusden wrote:
> Hi Samuel
> 
> Any idea how eu.org works? I understand that the reason that za.net / 
> za.org updates take so long is that the existing pool of volunteers 
> don't want to trust anyone new with the job (kind of understandable,  I 
> guess, though hardly sustainable in the long term) and presumably they 
> do a fair amount of manual labour. In these circumstances automation is 
> vital.
> 
> Peter
> 
> Samuel Murray wrote:
> > Colin Alston wrote:
> >
> >> What customers?
> >
> > Let's not split hairs about this.  The FreeDNS is a business with 
> > customers.  It's not a group of friends doing favours for each other. 
> > It's a free service, but free does not imply unprofessionality.
> >
> >> You should find out how some other "free services" behave, this is a 
> >> rather good one.
> >
> > I'm not sure which free services you're referring to.  The only other 
> > free domain name service that I know of, is eu.org, and their 
> > nameserver change process is almost fully automatic.  The weird thing 
> > about my experience with the FreeDNS is that registering a new domain 
> > name is sometimes faster than getting your nameservers updated.
> >
> > But I don't think one should judge the quality of a service by the way 
> > it favourably compares with other services, if the service already 
> > fails on certain minimum requirements.  Do you disagree?
> >
> > Samuel
> > _____________________________________________________
> > FreeDNS                    ZA NiC - free domain names
> > freedns@xxxxxx    Archive: http://www.za.net/freedns/
> 
> _____________________________________________________
> FreeDNS                    ZA NiC - free domain names
> freedns@xxxxxx    Archive: http://www.za.net/freedns/

-- 
  ZA NiC Hostmaster             http://www.za.net/
  hostmaster@xxxxxxxxxx   Tel/Fax: +44 1442 240870
_____________________________________________________
FreeDNS                    ZA NiC - free domain names
freedns@xxxxxx    Archive: http://www.za.net/freedns/