Long-time readers of this list will know that in over four years of
MIME-related discussions, this is the first time I have EVER expressed
anything other than a desire for every interested person to participate
in these discussions. There were some irrational and annoying people
involved in the MIME discussions from a very early date, and I always
struggled to be polite to them. You, sir, have overstepped the
boundaries of reasonableness so often that I am finally convinced that
you have either no real comprehension of the underlying technologies or
no real desire to be constructive. I have better things to do with my
time than answer you, and I will follow Dave Crocker's lead and try to
simply ignore you from now on.
If I were you, I would take a moment to reflect soberly on the following
fact: You have now managed to present your case (if you have one) so
incompetently, and so offensively, that both the author of RFC 822 and
an author of MIME have decided that you are simply not worth listening
to any more. I don't know about Dave, but this is the first time I have
EVER taken such a public position with regard to ANYONE. I know you'll
think we're just being wrongheaded, but maybe, just maybe, you should
consider the possibility that your attitude and your arguments have
played some small role in our reaching this conclusion.
Some years ago, if memory serves, I completely lost my temper on a public list
and said a bunch of things that I should not have said. There was a response
in kind, of course, and things went downhill from there. We all ended up in
urgent need of an irenicist, Nathaniel graciously stepped in to provide this
service, and I'm very grateful to him for having done so.
It would be nice if I could return the favor now -- I certainly would like to.
Unfortunately I cannot, since I am in complete agreement with Nathaniel's
position here.
I can forgive Masataka's ongoing attempts to gather support for his proposed
solutions to various problems, even when significant support for his proposals
never seems to materialize, let alone a rough consensus.
I can forgive Masataka's continued disruption of the standards process for no
good reason other than to be disruptive.
I can forgive Masataka's constant use of vitriolic rhetoric on this list and
elsewhere, even when it led to him calling me "immoral" in a vicious and
unwarranted personal attack on the ietf-charsets list.
But Masataka is also an unrepentant facticide, and facticide is the one thing
that is frankly unforgivable in discussions of standards and specifications. In
some sense standards and specifications are all we have, and if we don't
respect the things they say there is no point in any of this.
I had a similar exchange with Masataka on the MAILEXT some time ago. I
eventually got fed up and told him that further conversation along the same
lines was pointless. I also said that I would no longer reply to his messages
until he first bothered to read and understand what the various specifications
actually said and then demonstrated his new-found competence in subsequent
postings.
With this filter in place I have not seen the need to respond to him since.
Ned