Jim's posting practices [ Was: Re: to Jim.]

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Trei, Peter wrote:

> You are confusing two distinct issues: Form and Content.

Your first mistake. They are not distinct. One can not have one without
the other.

> On the Content side, you are essentially correct. I and many others
> find the beliefs you espouse on physics, law, and mathematics 
> idiosyncratic,  peculiar, and often just plain wrong.

And I challenge you to demonstrate the errors. To date not one of these
supposed failures has been demonstrated.

As to having ideas survive it is the reason I post in public forums,
private forums are worthless for this.

> However, as to Form, you're mistaken. Cypherpunks is NOT an 
> anarchy - it's a forum for communication. 'Communication'  shares 
> roots with  'Common' and 'Community' . More than one party is 
> involved. For effective communication to occur,  certain agreed 
> (often tacitly or by default) protocols and standards are adhered 
> to by the parties (note the plural) wishing to communicate.
> 
> This is where you are failing ('What we have here is a failure to
> communicate' :-)

No, a failure to conform. To in fact conform to an arbitrary standard with
reason to its existance. The fact is if you refer to the archives I've
posted forwards in a variety of styles. Without fail each and every one of
them (some of them being suggested now as 'accepted' alternatives - which
is a hoot for me) has come under criticism. In many cases by the same
parties.

> To be specific, your methods of citation of outside sources are
> both burdensome and ineffective.

In your opinion. You say 'potatoe' and I say 'potato'. They are in fact
standard accepted citations methods.

> Consider a very recent example. This morning, you posted an
> note titled: 'CDR: IP & copyright - Somebody with a clue?
> 
> The message consisted of:
> 
> 1.  4 lines of message:
> 
> 	The original article is over on /.. Apparently Baen Books is willing
> to
> 	put their wallet where there mouth is to prove that the current IP
> argument
> 	is doomed. It will be an interesting experiment.
> 
> ...which would have been greatly improved by the sentence: "Baen is putting 
> some of its books on the net for (cheap) downloads."

Get a fucking clue.

> 2. A one line URL (a useful one, BTW).
> 
> 3. 12 lines of sigfile, including a non-working hostname
> (www.ssz.com).

Actually it does work just fine.

> 4. An attached HTML page, which does nothing but put up
> a screen saying 'Baen Free LIbrary', along with a broken
> image link. 

Shouldn't have been any attachment, just the URL. Oh well. Shit happens.

> Jim: Can you explain why you did this?

Can you explain why I should? Why are your beliefs as to posting style,
content, what I or any other member of this find of particular fucking
interest? Demonstrate why any of my actions to date have caused you ANY
sort of harm? Because without harm you've no business asking, let alone
telling them what to be doing or how.

You're exactly the sort of person Cypherpunks are trying to stop.

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           smaller group must first understand it.

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                                           George Zebrowski

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