Subject: Re: STD

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:44:12 -0700

Brian E Carpenter <brc at zurich dot ibm dot com> wrote:

> Whatever one may or may not think of Jefsey's logic, please
> confine yourselves to discussing his logic and not the man
> himself.

I am perfectly willing to do this as long as the rules are enforced
equally.  Nobody is better, or more prolific, at inserting "Jefsey the
man" into these discussions than Jefsey himself.

In particular, in respect of Brian's request, I would hope to hear no
more of the following self-referential topics:

1)  "Franglish" or other reference to broken English -- as an excuse for
misunderstanding others, or being misunderstood by others.  That is not
the problem at all.

2)  "non-English mother-tongue speaker" -- as indication of a superior,
more cosmopolitan, or more thoughtful world-view.  Not all native
English speakers are monolingual, and not all are culturally isolated as
implied.

3)  "27 years working with networks" -- as evidence of greater expertise
than others with respect to the Internet and language tagging.  Each of
us has a résumé, but what we have to say *now* is the important thing,
not what we have done in the past.

4)  "defending the needs of users" against, supposedly, the narrow
interests of big business -- as justification for blocking an
evolutionary change to existing language tagging practice.

In addition, I would hope that a policy against ad-hominem arguments
directed against others would apply as well.  Discussions that call a
person's motives into question on the basis of the company or
organization for which he or she works should be restricted.  Each
individual's logic should be discussed and debated, not the man himself
(or woman herself), and not the company he or she keeps.  Participation
in the IETF, as we have heard, is by individuals, not by representatives
or delegates or spokesmen.

Let's focus on the drafts, and have a productive discussion.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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