On 2/25/2014 11:52 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
for those who think the question was inappropriate, a comparative question about the following two entirely hypothetical cases:
...
Case 2: You have asserted that a protocol feature being reviewed in a WG does not work. Have you implemented and tested it and, if not, on what basis do you make that assertion?
For this thread, it's been interesting to watch the way people have been skipping logic steps, conflating issues, inventing issues, wandering off into hypotheticals, or entirely missing basic issues.
When a suggestion is made and there has been no offer of expertise to justify it, the reasonable challenge is "What is the basis for believing that the suggestion is appropriate?" or an equivalent that targets the pragmatics of the suggestion. It's entirely impersonal and entirely relevant.
What's happened here, instead, including your above examples (until the second part of the question in Case 2, is to challenge the person making the suggestion.
Absent an assertion of authority by the person making the suggestion -- and it was absent in this case -- questioning the background of that person is an ad hominem.
If the speaker is not arguing from authority, questioning their authority is somewhere between suspect and harassment.
d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net