it does no good for me to filter out the crackpots
if the rest of you are just
going to keep on replying to same. so, as RAH had
LL say: "never try to teach
a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig."
I believe it is still necessary (and a good thing) to
post messages on the record that debunk technical fallacies.
This mailing list is archived on more than one website
and indexed by search engines. If we ignore technical
fallacies without explaining why and how they are wrong,
then there is a risk that learners will read those
technical fallacies and create future de facto
standards based on them.
However, Jay Ashworth has now set up the Best Practices wiki at
Perhaps that is a better place to have these technical
arguments?
Thats right. That's why I debunk them. The lying children call me names.
They really hate it when you debunk their fallacies.
Vixie is a "screamer", like John Bolton. I'd love to say "procmail Vixie",
but he has too much control over DNS root servers to ignore him. I did
that back in the early 90's. He was a jerk then, and I decided I had
better things to do, than work on DNS.
But his judgement is so poor (on so many subjects) that he needs close
supervision, regardless of how detestable his personal behavior is.
Indeed, his detestable behavior over the years is what has caused people
not to want to deal with him or his bad judgements.
Thats right. That's why I debunk them. The lying children call me names.
They really hate it when you debunk their fallacies.
Vixie is a "screamer", like John Bolton. I'd love to say "procmail Vixie",
but he has too much control over DNS root servers to ignore him. I did
that back in the early 90's. He was a jerk then, and I decided I had
better things to do, than work on DNS.
But his judgement is so poor (on so many subjects) that he needs close
supervision, regardless of how detestable his personal behavior is.
Indeed, his detestable behavior over the years is what has caused people
not to want to deal with him or his bad judgements.
--Dean
Okay. Paul is an asshole. You got your point across. Now what? Did you
prove him wrong? You going to such a personal level on-list makes you a
**** (chose 4 letter word).
Why do I write this? Because if you can send such things to the list and
waste bandwidth, so can I.
I guess some people find it difficult to respond on a technical level,
so they rather go BOO.
When you respond quoting someone can you please include the quote
attribution line so our procmail filters can work properly? most of us
have procmail'd dean out, but your response cutting off his name from the
quote let it get through.
Remember that part of the process of revamping the moderation after
previous unfairness involves giving everyone a second shot. This means
that a few legitimately certifi(ed|able) full-time kooks are going to get
back onto the list along with the rest of the part-time kooks and wrongly
persecuted.
In order to make certain that the process is as fair and even-handed as
possible, the moderators have to treat these kooks as though they had a
clean slate. This means warnings are given, and the kooks are given a
chance to step back into line. If they choose not to avail themselves of
this opportunity, the warnings will run out and they will be moderated.
The best thing that we can all collectively do to help de-kook the place
is to give them the rope then sit back and let them hang themselves (if
they so choose). This means refraining from making personal attacks of
your own, or personal retorts even if provoked. You know they are idiots,
I know they are idiots, clearly they haven't listened before when they
have told to their face that they are idiots, so there is no need to call
them idiots with every post. If you are going to correct technical
misinformation that is fine, but personal attacks only give them grounds
to argue that so-and-so did something back and that the process is unfair.
If everyone would please make the effort to not respond to the blatant
personal attacks, no matter how justified the response may be, it will
help the process along. In the end this is the important part of not
feeding the trolls.
why? what damage is dean actually doing other than to himself?
and some would contend, and i tend to agree, that it is not
possible for him to further damage himself.
don't create or invoke forces that are not needed lest you
are willing to regret it forever.
bingo. he's already procmail'ed off by anyone who cares. reserve moderation
for cases where such doesn't work (eg when the person in question
deliberately evades filtering).
Knowing this crowd (and I don't excuse myself, there) as I do, I've
even created an obvious mechanism for dealing with the circumstance
wherein different people differ on the appropriate approach to a
problem or situation; hopefully this will avoid the sort of problems
<strike>that get everyone mad at me here</strike>
bingo. he's already procmail'ed off by anyone who cares. reserve
moderation for cases where such doesn't work (eg when the person
in question deliberately evades filtering).
i would be much more restrictive/specific. i would leave the list
self-moderating except for users who repeatedly violate one of the
following:
- dominates the list to the extent that others can not use it.
and note that, even with all of the folk replying to the
pathetic trogs, this is far from the case
- posts for-profit commercial use, job ads, ...
- sends email bounces and vacation messages to the list or to
legitimate posters to the list
and, while i dislike html, top posting, ... as much as the next
person, they somehow don't strike me as capital crimes. otoh,
censorship does.
That's rich. People are posting ad hominems of me. By contrast, my
criticims of Paul's personal problems are not ad hominem. "Ad hominem"
means attacking the messenger. That's what Paul and a few other people are
doing to me. However, most of the others have no position of trust, and so
their childish behavior, while inappropriate, is essentially meaningless
and harmless.
My comments about Paul's personality are about what his ad hominems reveal
about his personal judgement and character. This is not an ad hominem. I
_don't_ say he doesn't have a right to his opinion because he's an
asshole or idiot or anything that is similar to what is being said about
me.
I say that personal judgement and character is an issue for someone in
control of critical infrastructure. Paul is in control of a root
nameserver. His personal judgement and character is a valid concern. His
(mis)behavior is reflective on his personal judgement and character.
So far as the technical arguments go, I've already won all of the
arguments I've presented here in the last few days in other forums where
people aren't allowed to resort to ad hominems and then run off. When they
are forced (either by their lawyers or by other protocol) to address
technical issues honestly, they have lost on each of these questions.
Basically, when the discussion degenerates to "dean is a troll", on a
forum like this, it means they've run out of ideas, but don't want to
concede anything, and are looking to divert attention to something else.
And of course, one can't make someone (on a forum like this, anyway)
concede anything, and they wouldn't do so willingly.
Some progress is being made, in spite of the wailing and name-calling.
The people doing the name-calling aren't contributing more than disruptive
noise, but others are.
While I have a chance, and before I forget, I'd like to single out Richard
Steenbergen for making the most progress. Many years ago, he might have
been in the thick of the noise makers. But he managed to get past
namecalling and offer a nice bit of helpful information. Lincoln Dale was
also quite helpful in updating me a bit on routing architecture. My
thanks to both of them.
- dominates the list to the extent that others can not use it.
I've suggested to the list admins that we should have a
middle way in which the offender is limited to one post
per day. I think that they could easily implement this
and it may actually be enough to keep the list on track
so that banning is almost never needed.
IMHO "limited speech" is a form of freedom of speech and
cannot be compared to "no speech", i.e. banning from the
list.
> - dominates the list to the extent that others can not use it.
I've suggested to the list admins that we should have a
middle way in which the offender is limited to one post
per day. I think that they could easily implement this
and it may actually be enough to keep the list on track
so that banning is almost never needed.
^m (and it is almost always tru that
bManning is almost never needed... )
seriously, one would think that adults
should have enough forberance and insight
to moderate their contributions. email,
unlike street speach or party conversation
is -NOT- realtime or interactive...
(and it is almost always tru that