[ga-abuse] M1 against Roeland Meyer

[Alexander Svensson <svensson@icannchannel.de>]

M1: Alexander Svensson
Against: Roeland Meyer, rmeyer@mhsc.com
Complainants:  William X. Walsh, william@userfriendly.com
Complainant Comments: "This is nothing but a personal attack,
and doesn't even have any facts to back it up."
Date:  27-Jul-01
Messages:
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc08/msg00098.html
Grounds: Personal attack
Recommendation: Warning
M1 Comment:
The first warning (about posting limits) must
have arrived after this post, so I don't think a
suspension would be a good idea. I have written a
warning proposal which is a bit harsher than usual.
--------------------------------------------------------
Roeland,

the list monitors for the General Assembly (GA) of the DNSO
have issued another warning to you concerning complaints
received about the following post:
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc08/msg00098.html

Your message contains the lines:
"I sure hope that this is a sign of advanced senility on
your part. Because, I really wouldn't like to think that
you were that dishonest."

You certainly know the list rules of the GA: One of them
states that the messages must observe a minimum of decorum,
including not indulging in personal attacks. The lines
about senility and dishonesty are personal attacks on a
GA member. If you do not refrain from breaking the list
rules, your posting rights for the GA list will be suspended.

The rules for participation in the GA of the DNSO are
located at
  http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2000.GA-ga-rules.html

[Kristy or Alexander for the list monitors]

--------------------------------------------------------


M2:
M2 Comment:
Action:





> This is a forwarded message
> From: Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>
> To: 'Kent Crispin' <kent@songbird.com>
> Date: Friday, July 27, 2001, 12:41:41 AM
> Subject: [ga] Letter from ICANN to New.net

> ===8<==============Original message text===============
>> From: Kent Crispin [mailto:kent@songbird.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 10:09 PM
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 06:48:42PM -0700, William S. Lovell wrote:
>> > A telling presumption exhibited here: if the "protocol community"
>> > doesn't like something, ICANN should dump it.
>>
>> Yes.  That is the same presumption you would use to say "if heart
>> surgeons think a procdure is dangerous, dump it".

> No it is not. The fundimental difference is that hearts aren't artifacts and
> heart surgeons aren't [yet] artifacers. Computer Science isn't a science.
> It is an art, wholly created by man. As such we understand it very much
> better than we understand medicine. We can't create organic neurons, but we
> can create cybernetic neurons and even entire neural networks. The entire
> field of Computer Science is a fabrication of mankind, a pure artifact of
> our civilization. It is arguably, the only field where this is the case.

>> >  However, the
>> > Internet does not exist for the benefit of the "protocol community"
>> > or ICANN; those two entities exist for the benefit of Internet
>> > users.
>>
>> Right.  Medicine doesn't exist for the benefit of doctors.  But if
>> doctors tell us something is a bad idea, we generally listen.  If we
>> got practically universal agreement among doctors that a
>> procedure was a bad idea, we should almost certainly dump it.

> The analogy breaks down very badly here. As Computer Scientists, we both
> recognise that we have vastly more control over our work product, which we
> create, than Medical Doctors whom, by comparison, aren't much better than
> technicians. As a result, the same limits do not apply.

>> The problem is protocol engineering really is a species of "rocket
>> science"* -- it takes a long time to really understand the
>> issues.  And,
>> despitewhat you hear, most of the participants on these lists really
>> aren't rocket scientists of the proper variety.
>>
>> (*) for those who may not be familiar with the idiom, "rocket
>> science" is a slang phrase meaning "truly esoteric and specialized
> technical
>> speciality".

> I don't know about you, but I've been writing communications drivers since
> long before even the IAB existed. This was ages before the IETF existed,
> which was mostly populated by academics and not working engineers. The
> engineers hung out in the IEEE, in those days, even if some of us did join
> the ACM. When was the last time you baked a seven-layer ISO cake, if ever?
> But I digress, there are probably only three or four of us here. That's
> nowhere near a majority. How many of us are active in the IETF? The IETF
> includes a very small portion of the Computer Science community.

> The fundmental difference, between rocket science and computer science is
> that rocket scientists are limited by physics, Computer scientists aren't.
> Yes, it may take a while for computer manufacturing capability to catch up
> to some of our artifacts (ie. rendering engines), but that doesn't stop us
> from conceiving and building the artifacts. The only limits are E. Dykstra's
> seven non-computable tasks.

> The problem is that the IAB and the IETF have forgotten this and are
> treating, long established, arbitrary convenience limits as if they were
> laws of physics (they aren't). When that fact is pointed out to them, they
> shout it down with religious zeal and the opposition is so strenously
> harassed that they are encouraged to leave participation in the IETF. IOW,
> it is a very hostile environment.

> Given this environment and those conditions, it is small wonder that the PSO
> is exclusively populated with those of similar mind-set. They've
> brain-washed each other that way. To then hold up that body as a true
> representation of all the experts in the world, in that speciality, is, to
> say the least, absurd and disingenuous in the extreme.
> --
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