[ga-abuse] Re: With regard to the defamatory activity on the GA mailing list...

["Patrick Corliss" <patrick@quad.net.au>]

Hi Karl

Thank you for your interest.

All three of Roberto, Danny and I have made strong public statements to no
effect.  In return, we have in turn been vehemently attacked by William X. Walsh
and Dave Crocker.  One simple example is as follows:

On Wednesday, April 18, 2001 1:41 AM (AEST)
Dave Crocker <dhc2@dcrocker.net> wrote:
On Wednesday, April 18, 2001 1:41 AM
Subject: Re: [ga] Rules & Protocols Committee

> At 06:05 AM 4/17/2001, babybows.com wrote:
> >This pattern of constant sniping and badgering must come to an end.
>
> It probably does not further the stated goal to have an elected GA official
> engage in slander.
>
> d/

My view, is that Dave Crocker, in particular is a paid agent provocateur.  When
I implied that onlist I was advised by Harald that I had been suspended for two
weeks.  This penalty has not yet been effected.

At present Harald is the List Monitor and I have made a number of recent
complaints through the proper process.  None of these have yet been processed /
advised.

You will notice that William X. Walsh, in particular, has blatantly disregarded
the limit of five posts a day.  On one occasion he posted 14 by my count.  As
most of these are personal attacks of some kind so he is doubly provocative.

Harald advised me a few days ago that William has also been penalised with, I
believe, a two-week suspension.  If so, I find that particularly surprising
because I know that he has been suspended on at least one previous occasion.
The penalty should be higher.

I have not yet established the history of these matters so am unable to
determine whether Dave Crocker, or other persons, have been suspended
previously.

I have proposed Alexander Svennson, Bruce James, Kristy McKee and myself, with
Harald, to be appointed as new List Monitors.  My idea was to have at least
three with a majority of two deciding the outcome.  Makes for less appeals.

As I expect complaints to be made against me personally, I wanted one extra
pewrson so I could step aside should that occur.  Of course, it is my view that
any such complaints are basically unfounded, unsupported and vexatious.  And I'm
fairly serious.

Unfortunately Danny has been preoccupied on other business and has not been able
to address this issue.  I have been reluctant to assume his authority.

However, I have now been advised that Christopher Ambler and Joanna Lane have
both unsubscribed from the list.  These are both too valuaable to lose.  Chris,
as you know, often brings an added perspective but he has been provoked beyond
belief by William X. Walsh.  William has threatened me privately in reply to my
private comment:

> > All you are doing is undermining the integrity of the list.
>
> > If you want to discuss the rules, please do so without discussing cases
which
> > may come before the List Monitors.  I'll post an extract of the rules
onlist.
>
> Toss something like this at me again, and not only will I make sure it
> is publicly documented as I did this time, but I will start a serious
> concerted campaign to have the Names Council replace you, something
> that will not help the "integrity of the list."

Interestingly, William posted my private letter to him, onlist, without my
permission.  I returned the favour by publishing his reply.  This led to his
complaint as follows:

Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 6:21 PM (AEST)
Subject: [ga-abuse] Fwd: Fw: [PRIVATE] List Rules and Protocols

> This posting of a private email is a violation of the list rules.
>
> Specifically:
>
> "The messages must be relevant to the business of the GA"
>
> The message was directed privately for that reason.  The repost of it
> without comment was clearly done without respect to the rules.
>
> I ask the Chair to suitably warn his cochair about the consequences of
> such rash actions in the future.
>
> I remind the cochair that such actions lend credibility to the
> included criticism, and thank him for providing an example of the sort
> of insuitability I was suggesting.

Other comments, made by William, have been equally unfair, immoderate and simply
improper.  My only choices are sit and take it (and undermine any authority we
have) or fight back and cause further argumentation and division.  I have posted
one long response and ignored most (if not all) other provocations.

In the circumstances I am now taking the step of appointing Bruce James, Kristy
McKee, Alexander Svensson and myself as List Monitors.  I would ask Harald if he
would be kind enough to act as a mentor and guide for a month or so until the
monitors become acuainted with the present procedures.

My preference is for a panel of three to hear one complaint at a time and make a
secret determination as soon as possible.  The fourth monitor will collect the
secret votes from the other three.  Should two reply with the same decision the
case can be decided without waiting for the third.

The penalty should be reasonably automatic in accordance with the laid-down
schedule which I will seek to modify if possible to read:  warning, one week,
two weeks, four weeks, eight weeks, sixteen weeks, six months, one year, two
years, five years, life.

In time, I would like to have two categories of seriousmess: light and severe.
Bruce James has suggested the following:

(1)    It is not really a big deal to me unless the "two" persons keep it
going.
(2)    Keep their total posts to less than 8 in 24 hours.
(3)     **Surely we are all savvy enough to work out what contributions are of
value and what can be discarded.""    This was pointed out by a 3rd
person...I Agree!
(4)    Send the person who started this a {private} email and ask to tone their
posts down.
(5)    IF and only IF their are more complaints from "others" about the person
who started the "mud throwing", let it drop...:)

Certainly I like the idea of two complaints to trigger a determination.  Harald
suggests it would have more force if it comes from a "third party" rather than
the injured party.  I'd agree with that but think that if the injured party
doesn't complain , there's not likely to be much harm done.  Of course we have
to consider an insult against somebody off list.

I also think that the complaint can be instigated by the list monitors
themselves as much of the misconduct needs to be stamped out quickly.  As I
write this, for example, the insults are still be made against Prof. Froomkin.
If we wait for a complaint, it's often too late.

Perhaps there should be an immediate "caution" to stop misbehaviour as it is
happening.  Where a person gets a caution, and continues posting on the same
thread, such as the Froomkin one, then the penalty, if proved should be 50%
higher.  This might be contentious as it smacks of censorship.  Anyway, the
whole exercise is censorship.

However, we need to determine what flexibility we have within the posted rules.

I'd ask Elisabeth to add the following names to the [ga-abuse] mailing list.

Bruce James <Bruce@KeyName.Net>
Alexander Svensson <svensson@icannchannel.de>
Kristy McKee <k@widgital.com>

Thank you, Everybody.

PLEASE NOTE -- decisions of Co-Chair are subject to ratification by Chair.

Best Regards
Patrick Corliss


----- Original Message -----
From: Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>
To: Roberto Gaetano <ga_chair@hotmail.com>; Danny Younger
<webmaster@babybows.com>; Patrick Corliss <patrick@quad.net.au>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 4:50 AM
Subject: With regard to the defamatory activity on the GA mailing list...


>
> (I hope you aren't surprised to see this - I do monitor the GA list. ;-)
>
> I must say that I feel that Crocker and Crispin have gone off the deep end
> in their attacks on Michael Froomkin.  In my opinion these attacks are not
> only complete (and I believe intentional) misrepresentations of academic
> writings but I believe that they are also malicious and designed to
> besmirch rather than to discuss the underlying issues.  There is, I
> believe, no constructive intent to be found in the recent comments of
> either Crocker or Crispin.
>
> And its not just Froomkin who they have attacked.  I, too, have sat
> quietly by and let their defamatory and false statements about me and my
> own professional standing go unanswered.
>
> In terms of anything done on the GA mailing list, the works of Crocker and
> Crispin have been far more destructive than anything put forth by Joe
> Baptista or any of his ilk.
>
> While I am against removing anyone from the GA list, it does seem to be
> time for strong public statements from the GA leadership, past and
> present, indicating that their behaviour is unacceptable.
>
> --karl--
>
>
>
>
>
>
>