Re: AB's comments on April Fools RFCs (was Call for Review of draft-iab-styleguide-01.txt, "RFC Style Guide")

[Pete Resnick <presnick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/7/14 6:02 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:

On 3/7/2014 5:53 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:

As Randy rightly said, this is *not* simple.

Forgive me, but there are two different and independent issues here.

One is what to do with a problematic pattern of posting.

The other is what to do about personal attacks.

It's just dandy to treat the first as subtle, complicated or whatever.

But it has nothing to do with the second, which is a very simple matter.

With respect to the tendency to think that frustration with the first justifies the latter... uhhh, no.  (Though yeah, for some of us it takes impulse control...)

As luck would have it, the message from you to which I responded:

On 3/7/14 4:36 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:

So, for example:

   Folks, this thread is repetitious and does not appear to have any productive content.  Please stop congesting the list with postings on this thread.


In fact, wg chairs or list moderators sometimes explicitly declare a thread closed.  Any of us can make a public request to the same effect.

And the message from Randy in which he claimed that things weren't simple:

On 3/7/14 3:58 PM, Randy Bush wrote:

i think we have a problem where a poster is *repeatedly* causing
massive useless discussion which overwhelms the useful content of the
list.  as their postings are probably well intended, asking to censor
them would be harsh.  asking folk not to be drawn into the response
cycle is not simple.
  

were both about the "problematic pattern of posting", and not about "personal attacks". So we are in full agreement. The issue of problematic patters of posting is quite subtle and, as I said, replying to it in the way that you suggested might be problematic.

The reason that they are not completely independent issues is because people's public responses to problematic patterns of posting, even if completely well-intentioned or said in apparently non-personally-attacking ways, can be interpreted as and can quickly escalate into personal attacks.

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478