At 1:19 AM 7/22/96, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:

Honestly, this boycott campaign looks out of place on Cypherpunks, at least to me. I mean, we are for freedom of speech, aren't we? Sternlight is talking about on-topic things. How come that renowned defenders of freedom of speech resorted to name calling and attempts to push their opponent out of the public forum?

Note that I have not called for a boycott of Sternlight. The voices you here adding their name to a list are biasing the statistics. Those who don't want to respond to Sternlight, or me, or Vulis, Bell, or VZNuri/LD, should simply *not respond*! A novel idea, eh? I think I have been relatively polite to David, though I sure do wish he'd "pull his punches" with his gratuitous insults (e.g., by ending posts with dismissive remarks about the moral beliefs of his opponents, to name one example). I call these "ad hominem" remarks, in that they call into question the motivations or the basic competence of others to comment, though perhaps David believes that since they are "true," they cannot be ad hominem. {It ain't ad hominem, it's truth.) Perhaps a better word is "disrespectul," in the sense that I get the impression that David thinks nearly everyone who engages in argument with him is either childish (a term he characterized my views as :-}), or foolish, or disingenuous, or oafish, or deceiving, or... Some examples: "...so your contention is false on its face." "Some live in the conversation in their head and require that everything be spelled out. Very well, then:" "Isn't that nice. Some creep is proud enough of his skill at accessing the trivially available InterNIC finger data that he posts it to invoke harassment. And being a coward as well, he hides behind an anonymous remailer." "Another attempt to accuse, read minds, and impute motives." ..... Actually, I started to go back through the Sternlight CP posts I have saved (*), and found a curious thing: the intelligent comments vastly outweighed the "one line repartee" insults! I believe the majority of Net participants (here, in the crypto newsgroups, etc.) lose sight of the good comments because of the flamish ones. (* Indeed, I may have skewed my sample toward less-flamish posts, as I delete most of the simple insult posts.) I believe David would be better served by not yielding to the temptation to add throwaway lines, such as he used in replying to me: " Where I come from we call that "theft". Your ethics may vary in California." This is unneeded, and adds to a tone of ad hominem attack. It is roughly equivalent to making snide remarks about the motives of Kallstrom, Denning, Freeh, etc. Not very persuasive. In fact, in one analysis of the nature of flaming he noted: "And when on occasion (as happens) I rise to provocation, my take on it isn't that the other guy posted "flame bait" but that I allowed myself to be out of control. It's always possible to respond with the standard weapons against provocation when such is deliberate: rapier-like wit, reductio ad absurdum, literate sarcasm, or simple silence aka the filter file. Actual contumely in a response is seldom necessary, except perhaps by reference on rare occasion. We're not children here." Good advice. I agree with him here, and will not try to collect more examples of rudeness...Perhaps we react too strongly to the "Sternlightisms" and lose sight of the better points? Still, in my several years of seeing his posts in sci.crypt, talk.politics.crypto, talk.politics.org.eff (?), and elsewhere, I've seen that often his policy points get lost in the clutter of arguing with others on non-substantive points, of getting pulled into nonsensical crap about "SternFUD," "Bowdark," the "UnDoctor," and whom he has *Plonk*ed. Personally, as a neo-Calvinist who believes that those with whom I disagree on matters of politeness and basic morals are best punished by silence from me, I have often simply ignored threads that involve this kind of pettiness. (But, like David himself said, sometimes I, too, get pulled in...) There is a spectrum of rudeness and "disrepect." I certainly don't hold myself up as a standard of politeness. At one end are some truly rude folks, much ruder than Sternlight, me, or even Perry ("Llywarch Hen" and Vulis come to mind, recently). At the other end are some truly polite folks, such as Hal Finney and Bill Stewart, who make their points while avoiding personal characterizations or cleverly-worded insults. Rather than wasting list space with talk of "pledges" and boycotts, maybe a better approach is for us all to concentrate on better posts.... --Tim May (P.S. I don't intend to pull my punches on the "controversial" posts I like to write, such as about guns, or Ritalin, or "queer rights." While these posts apparently are "offensive" to some here, this kind of post is perfectly "fair game" as I see it.) Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."