[rpd] [pdwg-appeal] SoftLanding BIS notice of intent to appeal

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jan 19, 2018, at 10:10 AM, Jackson Muthili <jacksonmuthi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 8:34 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:
> 
> Never before in any region have I seen a declaration of consensus against such strong and sustained opposition.
> 
> 
> Opposition staged to hijack the PDP by one person and a few of his confederates.

Continuing to repeat this mischaracterization doesn’t make it true.

First, I am not a confederate of Andrew. I happen to agree with him on some of the issues around this proposal.

> Of course it is no coincidence that you chose to hijack the process through its loopholes here in our region and not outside in your region and I trust in the appeal committee and the board to uphold the brave and courageous decision by chairs.

I’m not attempting to hijack anything. I am legitimately participating in the PDP raising legitimate objections to a proposal which I truly believe to be harmful in its nature for reasons I have repeatedly expressed.

Your statement of “your region” and “our region” seems to be aimed at setting up an “us against them” mentality where there is no such valid model. I am an operator within the AfriNIC service region with real networks and real systems deployed serving real African customers. While I don’t personally live within the AfriNIC region, my participation here is not that of a tourist.

Once again, instead of addressing the substance of my issues, you engage in ad hominem attacks against me personally. This is inappropriate and not within the AUP for the mailing list.

How about you actually engage and discuss the substance of my objections to the proposal itself? Still nobody has done this. I have to assume that this either means that you have no answers to my objections and are hoping to obfuscate this fact through the emotional content of your messages, or, that you are so blinded by your misinterpretations of my motivations and the emotional reaction thereto that you are incapable of engaging on the actual issues of the policy.

In either case, you are only discrediting yourself to any dispassionate observer in these discussions.

> While I recognize and fully understand the desire to act against Andrew’s rhetoric and do not condone his behavior in any way, we must not lose sight of the fact that there are others also in opposition to the policy on a variety of grounds. The vast majority of those objections were never actually addressed during the PDP other than to either falsely claim they were inaccurate or inapplicable, or, to simply dismiss them as “not substantial”.
>  
> 
> They (you included) signed the same document sent to them by the same guy and containing similar rambling.

Nope.

I signed a somewhat different document. Yes, I started with the document sent to me by Andrew because I believe in reusing good code vs. reinventing the wheel when it makes sense. Are you telling me that you’d never make use of someone else’s work if they offered it and it was 90+% of what you needed? That you’d always start from scratch even if you could save significant time by making good use of what is offered to you? That’s absurd.

> It seems you think people in this region are either blind or foolish.

I would argue that your belief that my reuse of Andrew’s text in a document I prepared (though I modified it to fit my specific issues with the policy) somehow discredits the document or those who used it rather proves that you fit into one of those categories. Circulation of a pre-written petition is a common and well known technique for making it easy for multiple people to express a common opinion. It does not discredit the people who sign the petition, it lends credence to the content of the petition by the number of people willing to sign it.

To claim otherwise is absurd.

I will note again and for the record that you still have not addressed any of the substantive objections raised in the petitions.

I agree, most people in this region are not blind or foolish. Only those who are unwilling to address issues on the merits of the policy and/or the issues themselves rather than continuing to try and detract with emotion and ad hominem attacks against the individuals raising issues you wish to avoid addressing.

Owen

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