From the minutes:
At 12:02 pm 21/3/1996, Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet wrote: [...]
The Role: or NOC: object needs more thought and detailed definition. There is still some uncertainty whether a full-blown new object (with a handle) is really needed, or whether the person object can be extended. Input was received from Michael H. Behringer that proposed a common format for describing contact information, coverage and emergency preocedures. This object is to be re-visited on the mailing list and a decision about implementation is being sought on the list. [...] Wilfried Woeber, Michael H. Behringer: To initiated discussion on the mailing list about the need and possible format for a role: or noc: object.
I sent out mail on this on 8. March 96, proposing to implement the role object in the DB, because I think it is the "clean" way to implement e.g. AS objects with. My mail led to a true storm of follow-up mails; well, maybe not quite, there was one response from Joachim (thanks!). But as this response was definitely positive, I guess we can conclude that we had 100% agreement on this issue. :-) Can we therefore consider this matter decided? Michael