🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <199807142230.AAA30365@basement.replay.com>,
R Brown <me@NOSPAMistar.ca> wrote:
|This posting deals with a number of related issues expressed in
|several current or recent threads.
|
|0 summary
|
|1 preface
|
|2 AUP: generally, and/or for volunteers
|
|3 specific bits of nonsense
|[...]
|(Astute readers will note that in the preceding several points, I did
|not cite external materials explicitly (by quotes or web-links) myself,
|but effectively just expressed my views of what they would say.  This
|is, in principle, because I'm commenting here primarily on the discussion
|rather than directly on the subject of the discussion, and, more
|practically, because those materials are generally sufficiently clearly
|described as to allow a qualified person to find them. My interest
|simply doesn't extend as far as doing fresh specific research for TFN
|to confirm that many unresearched comments of others are of little merit.)


	Somewhere around the beginning of this posting I
	began to think that although the agenda was certainly
	familiar enough, the style of presentation was not.
	I wanted to know who this person was, so I set about
	the task of finding that out.


	Right away the alarms went off when I saw this in
	the news header lines:


Path: gts!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!baron.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!newsfeed.xcom.net!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.alt.net!anon.lcs.mit.edu!nym.alias.net!mail2news
Message-ID: <199807142230.AAA30365@basement.replay.com>
From: me@NOSPAMistar.ca (R Brown)
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	Here's somebody who is posting anonymously, I
	thought - doesn't make much sense in this context.
	Modulo the "NOSPAM" in "me@NOSPAMistar.ca", I
	opined that etiher there was a forged address or
	a large ego involved.  Tests then showed that the
	address was in fact a forgery - other things would
	need to be looked at to determine the ego issue.


	So, I attempted to take the posting at face value.
	First was to look at the style of presentation -
	here was a person well skilled in the art of written
	words, and the arts of persuasion.  As I read through
	this I began to see that the writer was in fact
	attempting to establish credentials of subject
	authority only on the basis of their assertions &
	the manner which they were made.  This struck me
	so much that I was rather taken aback to find at
	the end a further attempt at anonymity cloaked in
	what amounted to a sneering disclaimer:


|practically, because those materials are generally sufficiently clearly
|described as to allow a qualified person to find them. My interest
|simply doesn't extend as far as doing fresh specific research for TFN
|to confirm that many unresearched comments of others are of little merit.)


	Um, I was not impressed.  Here's a person whose
	skills of persuasion would far better serve the
	TFN community in corporate boardrooms by making the
	case for financial support of our efforts, rather
	than being underutilised in what effectively is
	another person's media-unaware opinion dressed up
	in policy-advisor language.


-- 
  ,u,	 Bruce Becker		Toronto, Ontario	1 416 699 1868
a /i/	 Internet: bdb@gts.org	Uucp: ...!gts!bdb
 `\o\-e	 To a fish, water and god are the same thing.
 _< /_	 					- Mao TseTse Redbook