These are generally good rules. Too bad you don't follow them.
Crocker, Royer, and Alvestrand et al should try to apply rule 1 to
themselves. The fact that they engage in personal attacks (including
further attacks of "having to put up with Mr. Anderson", "Proper behavior
towards irritating persons [Anderson and Staff]") demonstrates that they
have no rational arguments to make. It is an axiom that personal attacks
are the last resort of the wrong and weak-minded. I'll leave it up to
others to categorize those making the personal attacks. They are very
vague about my "egregious irrational bad behavior", yet I am very specific
about theirs.
On the subject which brought their attacks: I think it is an axiom of
civil society that accepting the claims of well-known, court-proven liars
is unreasonable and unacceptable. For some (plainly irrational) reason,
they find this axiom irrating. They are being unreasonable on this count,
not I. By contrast, there is logic and wide civil agreement to this
axiom: its an axiom of society. They just don't like that I've revealed
their unreasonable behavior, and don't like that I've revealed facts
they'd rather not have revealed. They would prefer us to ignorantly
accept the word of court-proven liars unaware they are court-proven liars
on an RFC topic.
They don't like it that this fact of court-proven lying on the subject of
open relays has been pointed out, thus making it unacceptable as the basis
for an RFC. But this isn't a trivial Homer-Simpson mistake on their part:
They are not shocked by the fact of the court-proven lying. They do not
recoil from the fact. They attack the messenger of this fact. It is not a
mistake by their own ignorance of the fact. They knew about this fact.
They intended to mislead. They are angry that the attempt to mislead has
been foiled.
And what they've had to "put up with" in the past has also been merely
unwelcomed truth about flawed schemes and false assertions. Schemes which
were then abandoned by rational people, I might add. And I've been
vindicated in many disputes on both spam and non-spam subjects, as well as
in disputes with spam radicals and liars. I am President of the League for
Programming Freedom, I have a fairly impressive resume, and a good
education with good grades at MIT, and my associates are leading people in
Computer Science. I have proven some organizational and political skills.
I can articulate my arguments without excessive vitriol. It is reality
that is annoying them. I'm just the messenger: I didn't create these
facts, nor the court judgements, nor pass the laws. They just hate the
facts that they can't dispute, so their only recourse is personal attack.
The personal attack is a distraction and diversion from the facts under
discussion.
I will try to apply rule 3 to the rather spiteful and angry responses of
Crocker, Royer, Alvestrand, etc. But it is good to know who prefers to be
associated with known, court-proven liars, and who would like to mislead
both the IETF and the public. This knowledge is a useful set of facts to
be documented. Eventually, there is always an accounting of such things.
It is just a matter of time.
The IETF and the ISOC have rules and codes of conduct that should be
enforced impartially by those in charge. Redress in several documented
instances has not been made. These cases will not be forgotten, and the
longer they are ignored, and as patterns develop, the more serious the
problem becomes. These problems don't go away because those in charge
ignore them. They fester in the public mind, and harm the IETF and the
ISOC.
Dean Anderson
Av8 Internet, Inc
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> Since Nick Staff's response is edging towards the subject of proper
> behaviour towards irritating people on the IETF list, I thought it might be
> worthy of response.... I found no reason to respond to earlier messages in
> this thread.
>
> I learned long ago some rules for reasonable behaviour on mailing lists.
>
> Some of those include:
>
> 1 - Argue rationally. Use arguments related to what's being discussed.
> Support those arguments with facts. When the facts don't support your
> argument, shut up. RFC 3184.
>
> 2 - When you think that other people behave unreasonably, ignore their
> unreasonable behaviour unless your role requires you to respond to it
> ("don't feed the troll"). Alternatively, complain off-list. RFC 3005.
>
> 3 - When other people respond angrily to the unreasonable behaviour, you
> may sometimes advise them that following rule 2 may be a better option.
>
> I've chosen to apply my strongest version of rule 2 to mr. Anderson - I
> won't see his messages unless I look for them. The reason being that I do
> not wish to expend my resources in cooling down to the point where I'd only
> make reasonable responses.
>
> I think that's a good thing for people to do when they discover that they
> have the same kind of reaction to mr. Anderson's posts as I far too often
> have. So in the spirit of rule 3, I have shared the information on what I'm
> doing.
>
> Believe me, if I wished to attack mr. Anderson, there would be no doubt
> whatsoever that I wished to attack mr. Anderson. But I don't.
>
> Or, summarizing my advice in a very short sentence:
>
> Killfiles are good for you.
>
> That's all.
>
> Harald
>
> --On tirsdag, juni 28, 2005 00:50:30 -0700 Nicholas Staff
> <nick.staff@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > You could also reasonably rule it obnoxious, childish, and pubescent.
> > Moreover since according to your earlier post you don't think fact is an
> > acceptable defense of a personal attack your response is at best a curious
> > double standard. Unless of course your comment about it being fact was
> > just some snyde payback from an earlier discussion.
> >
> > Clearly Harald included himself in the conversation for the sole purpose
> > of being a jerk and his success in that area was disruptive and
> > deconstructive at least for me.
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>
>
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