[governance] Response to personal attacks Re: PIR Case/or the .org sell
parminder
parminder at itforchange.net
Sat Nov 30 15:22:43 EST 2019
On 30/11/19 6:07 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> Thanks Sheetal, That would be ideal.
>
> Members should also ideally refrain from -
>
> Calls to exclude specific organisations from civil society or this caucus
>
> Attempt to fall back on appeals to mailing list co-cos in case a wrong
> argument is called out
>
> The arguments made that had to be rebutted were ill informed and made
> with no particular technical or business knowledge of the situation,
Sheetal/ Bruno
This is a repeat ad hominem attack even after Sheetal's note, after the
same person having expressed strong agreement with another person making
ad hominem remarks against Norbert.
Are the co-coordinators taking notice?
parminder
> and calls in response to exclude either ISOC, PCH or Bill Woodcock
> from this list are frankly an abuse of mailing list procedure.
>
> Thanks
> —srs
>
> —srs
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 2:57 AM +0530, "Sheetal Kumar"
> <sheetal at gp-digital.org <mailto:sheetal at gp-digital.org>> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> I'm not going to comment on the substance of the discussion here
> as a co-ordinator I feel obliged to step in and address an issue
> which has so far excluded people from entering into discussions,
> or continuing them. The issue is one where people feel attacked,
> whether all parties included feel the accusation is justified or
> not. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to work together.
> And as a result, it makes it very challenging to forge consensus
> and find areas of agreement. One of the stated objectives of the
> IGC is " to develop common positions on issues relating to
> Internet governance policies, and make outreach efforts both for
> informing and for creating broad-based support among other CS
> groups and individuals for such positions." Instead, what ends up
> happening is the conversation goes quiet, everyone gets on with
> what they're doing in their own corners and we achieve little, or
> nothing, together. I'm not saying that we need to find consensus
> on this particular issue, but if every discussion about a
> contentious issue goes this way then that would be very
> unfortunate. It even risks putting people off sharing information.
>
> In the future, I would ask if people want information in order to
> be able to make an informed decision or contribute to a
> discussion, they are clear about that. And if you have that
> information, please consider offering it in a spirit of humility
> with the objective of moving a conversation forward together. You
> can always get in touch with Bruna and I if you feel you are being
> unfairly treated. I happen to think that this discussion on this
> topic has been very rich so far, clearly full of informed
> opinions, and could be very constructive. If you think it would be
> useful for a facilitated discussion to happen, we can always
> organise a call or find another way to have the discussion. I'm
> actually going to share a suggestion on a way forward on this
> topic which Bruna and I have discussed on the other thread.
>
> And in my own personal opinion, we should all care about who each
> other is. Humility and compassion are important in achieving 'good
> results' in any rational debate. What these situations prove is
> that we're not just having discussions about technical issues in
> the spirit of an intellectual exercise. We are all emotional
> beings, with our own faults and strengths. It might help us all in
> the long-run to think that way.
>
> Best
> Sheetal
>
> On Fri, 29 Nov 2019 at 19:24, Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net
> <mailto:woody at pch.net>> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Nov 29, 2019, at 4:45 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch
> <mailto:nb at bollow.ch>> wrote:
> > I felt personally attacked and hurt by that posting.
>
> Why? Do you, in retrospect, feel that you _were_ trying to
> have a conversation in good faith?
>
> > ...which is supposed to be a "civil society" community, which
> > certainly implies in particular that it should not be an
> environment
> > where "business” people...
>
> Just so we get this straight, you’re saying that
> public-benefit, not-for-profit NGOs should be barred from
> participation in “civil society” because… what? Who exactly
> is legitimately civil society by your lights? Only people who
> agree with you? Anyway, this is a no-true-Scotsman.
>
> Does appealing to third parties to exclude someone who
> disagrees with you from conversation, without addressing their
> thoughts, strike you as conversation in good faith?
>
> > ...allowed to dominate the discourse and its informal rules...
>
> I’m one of an exceedingly small handful of people representing
> the unfortunately minority view that there are multiple sides
> to this issue. How does that constitute “domination of the
> discourse?” Might I not need to be of the predominant view to
> dominate the discourse?
>
> > The Charter of this community explicitly forbids personal
> attacks
> > (like e.g. "You’re going overboard in your effort to create
> FUD." and "You don’t appear to be
> > trying to have a conversation in good faith.")
>
> Both are commentary on _what you said_, not _who you are_.
> Personal attacks, ad-hominem attacks, are attacks against a
> person, not commentary about ideas. I don’t know or care who
> you are, I’m only interested in what you think, and whether it
> can be used to inform and refine what I think. I’m trying to
> draw you into reasoned discourse about ideas. You’re trying to
> exclude me from conversation.
>
> I don’t have any burning need to defend ISOC, and am not
> intending to do so; our lawyers have had to send their lawyers
> too many nastygrams over their misbehavior over the years for
> me to have any interest in representing them as _good_;
> however it disturbs me greatly to see people latching on to
> one tiny aspect of a large and complex situation and in doing
> so march toward preclusion of the best path to reform that
> ISOC has had in a long, long time, without bothering to
> discuss the complexities of the situation.
>
> A “personal attack” looks like posting a link to someone’s
> biography and demanding that they be silenced because of who
> they are. A reasoned discourse looks like an exchange of
> views on the topic under discussion.
>
> > In regard to substance, I now think that what Bill wrote in his
> > postings in this thread is largely correct.
>
> Perhaps next time you could reflect on the substance before,
> or instead of, attacking.
>
> > For me, being both part of communities of people who
> > strongly believe in the importance of non-profit-oriented
> organizing,
> > who got betrayed, and being also a member of ISOC, which did the
> > betraying, the issue is quite personal and emotional for me
> in more
> > ways than one.
>
> I have, myself, been outraged by ISOC betrayals at various
> points in the past, but in the interest of my own sanity, I
> get over it and get back to work. On the other hand, seeing
> an opportunity for ISOC to disencumber itself of some of the
> major causes of its problems gives me hope. I’d rather not
> see that opportunity squandered on account of
> not-invented-hereism.
>
> > I will certainly accept as a possible source for an
> > assumption the intuition of someone who has a lot of
> experience dealing
> > with the particular topic area (such as in this case the
> intuition of
> > someone who credibly claims "thirty five years of experience
> dealing
> > with domain names"). That doesn't imply that I would
> necessarily agree
> > to also base my thinking on the same assumptions (in fact I
> see nothing
> > wrong in basing my assumptions on an intuition shaped by
> observing that
> > very many individuals and communities of people have been
> royally
> > screwed in unexpected ways, in very many different contexts, and
> > typically with no reasonably available effective recourse
> whatsoever,
> > by trust and promises getting carelessly broken on the basis of
> > profit-oriented business thinking
>
> Yes, and I agree with that. However, rapacious capitalism
> operates within the constraints of the context of the
> possible. Every rapacious capitalist does not simply price
> everything at a ridiculous price which precludes it from
> selling; doing so yields no sales, and no revenue. Instead,
> they try to guess (or ascertain through experimentation) the
> price which will yield the maximum net revenue. In the case of
> PIR and .org, minimizing expenses has been one path…
> Maximizing gross revenue is the other side of that coin.
> Maximum revenue is the maximum product of quantity and unit
> price. An absurd unit price will reduce the size of the
> potential market to just the intersection of those who can
> afford the price and those who desire the product. And, in
> the case of domain names, those who desire, specifically, an
> available domain name. The market has pretty well established
> that the retail price that maximizes revenue is in the
> neighborhood of USD 10 / year. At that price, essentially
> nobody is dissuaded from buying a domain name, and therefore
> the second-level namespace gets fairly thoroughly utilized.
> Hypothetically, a first-year 10% increase (to USD 11) would
> have little impact on gross revenue (less than 10% decrease in
> number of sales). A second-year 10% increase (to USD 12) would
> have a bit more impact, perhaps lessening the gross revenue.
> By the time you get to USD 16, after five years of maximal
> increases, quite a few potential customers will be dissuaded,
> and will think “I may as well just register in .com instead,
> for $10, and pocket the $5 difference,” and the product of
> price and quantity would be considerably lower than at $10, or
> $11, or maybe $12.
>
> The strategy that’s pursued by pharmaceutical speculators
> relies upon _inflexible demand_. That is, they’re “investing”
> in the rent-extraction rights of things for which the demand
> does _not_ change with price. In their case, because some
> people who go without will die. Therefore, everyone who’s
> capable of doing so pays whatever price is required of them,
> no matter how ridiculous. Nobody is going to die if they have
> to move off a .org domain name. And the people who have the
> most to lose, also have the most money to spend.
>
> That’s why the rule precluding differential pricing is so
> important. It allows all of the .org registrants to stand
> together as a class, rather than each being offered the
> maximum individual price that they can stand. If that were to
> be allowed, ICRC.org would be priced at millions of dollars
> per year, while domain speculators would pay only a few
> cents. I’m very much against that, as a matter of equitability.
>
> > "anything that can go wrong will probably go wrong
> somewhere, somehow,
> > and possibly massively, unless effective measures are taken
> to prevent
> > the bad things from happening”
>
> Sure, but that has to be balanced against the possibility of
> good outcomes as well. Otherwise, no risks are every taken,
> and nothing is ever achieved. My ENTIRE POINT is that the
> possibility of reforming ISOC seems to me to be a worthwhile
> one, and, under Andrew’s leadership, to have a significant
> chance of success. That seems to me to be a risk worth
> taking, if the cost is a few dollars a year for ten million
> .org registrants. If there were ways of funding actual core
> infrastructure and operations that way, rather than depending
> upon grants and donations, I’d be all over it, for instance.
>
> > I did want to respond to that particular posting and in
> particular to its personal attacks against me.
>
> If you can identify a personal attack against you, you’ll have
> my full apology.
>
> -Bill
>
>
>
> --
>
> *
> *
> *Sheetal Kumar*
> Senior Programme Lead | GLOBAL PARTNERS DIGITAL
> Second Home, 68-80 Hanbury Street, London, E1 5JL
> T: +44 (0)20 3 818 3258| M: +44 (0)7739569514 |
> PGP ID: E592EFBBEAB1CF31 | PGP Fingerprint: F5D5 114D 173B E9E2
> 0603 DD7F E592 EFBB EAB1 CF31|
>
>
>
> ---
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