[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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