Subj : 1:10/345
To   : David Calafrancesco
From : Michael Grant
Date : Tue Nov 27 2001 05:00 pm

Hello David.

27 Nov 01 22:35, you wrote to me:

 CC>>   But in the end, regardless any type of timing, the mail will
 MG>> The timing is not even the issue. The fact remains that Dale Ross
 MG>> took a posting in a public echo of a point of view that he did
 MG>> not personally like, and turned it into a connection issue. There
 MG>> was no technical reason to cut Ross Cassell's link, but only a
 MG>> reason based on personal animosity and politics.

 MG>> Behavior in echos is properly handled by moderator action, and
 MG>> not buy punitive actions wrt echomail or netmail links. Make all
 MG>> the rationalizations you want, it's still a morally repunant act
 MG>> for a mail mover; and is absolutely unjustifiable.

 DC> Have you heard of Policy 4.07? If you haven't, go read it again. It
 DC> clearly states that choosing to route for one, doesn't imply routing
 DC> for all. Nor does it mean you must connect in a secure fashion to all
 DC> comers just because they ask for a connection.

I never claimed it did; but when one agrees to accept a link, they ought not to 
use the threat of disconnecting that link to force one to be silent wrt their 
political views. This is in effect using links as a weapon; and /that/ is what 
I find morally repugnant.

 DC> If that was the case then many of the Z1B hubs would not have
 DC> been removed without warning from their connections with the ZC
 DC> a few months back. I don't recall you telling Janis that cutting
 DC> those connections (all connections BTW) was morally repugnant.

If you are talking about Matt's Filegate feed; Janis has told me a different 
story. Her system is overloaded, and she asked Matt to accept a feed from 
another Filegate hub, and he took it as a personal affront. I have seen 
firsthand evidence that her system /is/ overloaded, as I recently connected 
with her to hatch into the MYSTIC FDN and was told in no uncertain terms that I 
cannot recieve any fileechos from her system. Recently as well, her system has 
suffered a crash, and she was down for about a week or so.

Dale, OTOH, has clearly stated his reasons for this action, and they are purely 
political in nature. Further, his statements to the effect that he has been 
preparing for this leads me to believe that he has been looking for a reason, 
any reason, to spring this on Ross. His aim is to silence Ross' criticism, and 
to force him to to choose whether his freedom to express his opinion is more 
important to him than his concern for the welfare of his downlinks. Dale is not 
only holding Ross hostage with this threat, but is also holding all who connect 
to Ross Cassell as his downlinks hostage to his personal whims as well.

 DC> Your inability to find fault with anyone but the Z1B or R12 is
 DC> frankly morally repugnant to me, yet I let you stay in this echo
 DC> and continue your ways because while you skirt the line, you
 DC> don't cross it enough to generate moderator action.

A simple search of the archives of several echos will turn up disagreements I 
have had with others you percieve that I side with. I've had public 
disagreements with Roy Witt, Andrea Santos, Ross Cassell, and even Jack Yates; 
but I do not let disagreements rule my mail moving practices, and I do not 
constantly attack the Z1B; in fact, I've been quite silent in this echo and in 
others on the Z1B for quite some time, and have even left Dale Ross alone until 
he came up with this latest bone-headed move.

I speak up when I feel something is wrong; I will do that no matter who it is. 
I see much wrong with the practices of a few in R12, so I speak up about them; 
but I do not think everyone in R12 is the same as those individuals; in fact 
there are people listed in R12 that I deeply respect.

I had hoped that the Z1B's practices were improving of late, I had thought I'd 
percieved a willingness to re-build the bridges that had been burned in the 
past; and it may even suprise you to know that you'd earned a little respect 
from me for having a word with Todd Cochrane for his outburst; that's one 
reason I chose to abide by your message to me as moderator. It's too bad that 
you've now lost most of what you gained in my eyes by stooping to a personal 
attack against me.

 DC> Nowhere has Dale stated that the connection is severed. Nowhere
 DC> has he stated that it would be cut solely for what has happened
 DC> in this echo.
 DC> There is a lot of history of animosity between Dale Ross and
 DC> Ross Cassell. Lots of history.

I know the history; I've been here all along; far longer than I've been posting 
in this particular echo. There's been wrong done on /both/ sides, but far more 
has been done on the Z1B side, IMO. perhaps if Z1B hubs hadn't encouraged the 
RC12 to sever a full echomail feed from Brenda Donovan, when she did nothing to 
deserve such treatment, and perhaps if you hadn't made false accusations 
suggesting that my REC would deny ERN services to nodes who didn't pay fees for 
an echomail feed, and perhaps if you hadn't so obviously politically aligned 
yourselves with R12, taking a "them vs. us" attitude and suggesting that /all/ 
NAB hubs are evil and untrustworthy, I would not feel this way. Look even at 
the recent slander of myself by Dale Ross, alluding that I would support packet 
ramming. Is it any wonder that I think that certain Z1B hubs let politics rule 
their mail moving practices, when they actually think that a mail mover would 
even want to /consider/ something like that?

Even the Z1B attacks on Ross Cassell have been largely of a personal nature, 
and have had little to do with his mail moving abilities or practices; because 
his practices are overall generally good; and unlike some Z1B hubs he doesn't 
play politics with the mail. There is plenty I don't like about the NAB as 
well, but they've never done things nearly as bad as the Z1B has; if they did, 
I'd just as surely have spoken up against them as well.

 DC> If dropping one link out of
 DC> hundreds that exist in the network would remove the fighting and
 DC> other crap that goes on in this echo (and I don't even venture
 DC> into the rest of the zone echos anymore so have no clue what is
 DC> going on out there) then perhaps that would be the best course
 DC> of action.

And where does it end? The next one that comes along that Dale Ross doesn't 
like also gets cut? Why not? He would have gotten away with it before, so why 
not again?

(BTW, Ross Cassell has been doing very little attacking of the Z1B in other 
echos for quite some time now. He's been arguing as always with R12 members, 
but it's /supposed/ to be the case that R12 is /not/ the Z1B. Of course all of 
that's changed now that you are making him into the boogey man...)

 DC> My personal opinion is that Dale would be much happier if he
 DC> just put a filter in that removed all messages from Ross.

Or just ignore him and hit the "Next" key. Perhaps if the Z1B hubs weren't so 
swift to rise to the bait, most of these flame wars wouldn't have to happen. It 
takes two to tango, and certain Z1B hubs always seem more than willing to 
dance...

 DC> Or not. But certainly if they are going to continue to generate
 DC> friction then they don't need the added friction of having to
 DC> exchange packets if one or the other chooses to not continue the
 DC> connection.

How does the exchange of packets cause friction? Largely it's an automated 
process taken care of by the hub's software. Why do you wish to politicize 
that? You don't even have to look at the mail; just move it. If it moves well, 
without technical problems, all is well. If there are technical issues, they 
ought to be worked out quietly and privately without someone's nose having to 
get out of joint because a paranoid hub thinks a genuine simple request for 
information constitutes a personal attack, or can't accept that /maybe/ they 
made a simple mistake, like we all do.

 DC> As the ZC has shown us, a hub can choose to sever a connection
 DC> with little or no warning at any time for any reason.

I know that there's a reason; and you haven't posed any proof of your 
assumptions. In the case of Dale Ross, there certainly /also/ is a reason, and 
it's a bad one.


--- GoldED/386 3.0.1-dam3
 * Origin: MikE'S MaDHousE: WelComE To ThE AsYluM! (1:134/11)

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