Re: [ga] List decorum

[Dave Crocker <dhc2@dcrocker.net>]

At 04:37 PM 4/14/2001, Patrick Corliss wrote:
> > False and malicious.  That is slander.
>
>I am very reluctant to pick up on this thread

Given the rest of your note, your reluctance could not have been very strong.


>but I believe you opened this
>particular can of worms when you challenged DPF's harmless comment as follows:

harmless?  does that mean one should not respond to misstatements unless 
they are deemed to provide clear and present danger?


>On Tuesday, April 03, 2001 5:01 AM (AEST)
> >  It might be interesting to
> > discover who these people are, since there are so few people at the
> > meetings, and therefore almost no one likely to be there with no vested
> > interest.
>
>I have read and re-read this paragraph many times and can see your 
>intention was
>to suggest that the ICANN meetings are empty.

Since I never said or implied any such thing, I cannot account for your 
creative interpretation.  You will need to look inside yourself for the 
source of that.

On the other hand, yes, my writing was convoluted, so I'll restate my 
points in simpler, alternative sentences.  With any luck, a) you will 
understand them, and b) you will be less inclined to invent meanings:

1.      So far, any group of people attending ICANN meetings is too small 
-- and are selected non-randomly -- so they are not a statistically valid 
sample of any "population".

         Hence we must all be very careful about claiming that activities 
of any attendees at an ICANN meeting "represent" any global population.

         No, that does not mean anyone should ignore those 
activities.  Rather, we must view them carefully.

2.      Most of people who attend ICANN meetings are there on their own 
initiative.  That is, very few can cite a formal chain of authority that 
empowers them to act as an official representative.

         Hence, when someone at an ICANN meeting claim that they are 
expressing the needs and wishes of a larger group, they are really just 
expressing their personal, informal opinion about the larger group.  They 
have no objective basis for claiming more.

3.      The "vested interest" statement meant, quite simply, that almost 
everyone at these meetings has a vested interest.  (Humans do not process 
double negatives well; and now we have a demonstration of the reason we are 
taught not to use them in writing.)  The presence of pervasive vested 
interests can be used to suggest that we seek to know everyone's biases, or 
else to suggest that we ignore everyone's biases.

         The former means that we will spend a great deal of time insisting 
that people divulge all sorts of personal and professional details.  The 
latter means that -- gosh -- we instead simply focus on the merits of 
arguments.  I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which 
is simpler and more productive.


>In fact, it is almost certainly true that attendees DO have an interest in 
>the outcome.  Hence the childish outbursts complained about (because they 
>were concerned at the expected outcome).

There is a difference between having an interest and having childish, 
unprofessional conduct.  The point behind the use of the term childish 
refered more to the childish style of analyzing the situation than to the 
public behavior (although that was pretty childish, too.)


>This almost inevitably raises the question of conflict of interest and I 
>am glad
>to see you deny that you are a "paid agent provocateur".  Of course as a 
>master
>of the language, you will know that there are two implications (1) that 
>you are
>paid and (2) that you are an agent provocateur.

thanks for the slander.  always appreciated.  and if you are going to refer 
to someone's playing games with language and logic, please do not be shy 
about taking credit for yourself.


>Your denial only applies to the conjunction of those two statements.

Again I will request that you refrain from inventing meanings.  I made no 
such "admission".

You also seem also to be ignoring my observation that my comments over the 
last year have been consistent with my comments over the last four 
years.  There was no client then.  Quite the opposite.

         But, please, perhaps you can invent some explanation for that?

d/


----------
Dave Crocker   <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking   <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel: +1.408.246.8253;   fax: +1.408.273.6464

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