I believe this action by Harald Alvestrand is entirely correct.
While one can never tell what someone else's actual motivations are,
Mr. Flamings actions are exactly the actions of someone whose purpose
is to reduce the effectiveness of the IETF. Many of his postings are
inflamatory with no corresponding benefit. His "technical
contributrions" contribute nothing but confusion. They are carefully
crafted to look vaguely reasonable at first glance but any detailed
analysis shows that they do not provide any useful solutions to any
technical problems the IETF is facing and are labeled in a misleading
fashion. Anyone repeatedly posting about "IPv8", etc., to the IETF
list with no explanation when what they are referring to is not an
IANA/IETF IP version number, etc., is causing confusion.
The IETF is the most open standards organization I have ever
participated in. It leans over backwards to accomodate people. It has
already tolerated orders of magnitude more injurious postings from
Mr. Flaming than any other standards organization I am familiar with
would have allowed.
The high frequency, misleading and inflamatory content, and
repetativeness of Mr. Flamings postings have, in my opinion long
justified action by the IETF chair.
No doubt this message of mine will provoke some response implying that
I'm a ninny for whining and not just ignorning Mr. Flaming's messages,
just hit D, etc. Well, it is possible for an organizaion to bleed from
a million mosquito bites. Certainly everone can make their own
judgements on these matters. Harald Alvestrand has been selected by
the IETF community for the position where he has the burden of making
the judgement for the IETF list. I, for one, fully support him.
Donald
cc: I have left in Mr. Flaming as a cc address for the sole reason
that many people filter there mail and kill all mail with him in an
address field so they will not be bothered by this.
From: "Jiwoong Lee" <porce(_at_)ktf(_dot_)com>
Message-ID: <029601c15ad6$67ec11b0$ae0a060a(_at_)porce>
To: "Harald Alvestrand" <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no>,
"Jim Fleming" <jimfleming(_at_)prodigy(_dot_)net>
Cc: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
References:
<2590168928(_dot_)1003735697(_at_)askvoll(_dot_)hjemme(_dot_)alvestrand(_dot_)no>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 17:49:05 +0900
Wheter Jim's point of view is right or wrong, part of his postings are
related to a topic
- Discussion of IETF administrative policies
, which is declared to be an appropriate posting in IETF Discussion List by
RFC3005.
Some postings are professional since they are dealing with technical matters
of Internet.
Some postings are informative since they contain hyper links that are
internet-technical, while most
of them are imflammatory.
IPv8 (or whatever) seems related to ther work of the Internet Engineering
Task Force, on the basis of the first statement of overview of
IETF(http://www.ietf.org/overview.html), saying:
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international
community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers
concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth
operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.
, without regards to the fact that the IETF 'has chosen' other alternative.
I guess his postings are not laming IETF's constructive work and procedures
for now.
If posted opinion is right, the society will accept it. If not, will not.
Jiwoong
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harald Alvestrand" <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no>
To: "Jim Fleming" <jimfleming(_at_)prodigy(_dot_)net>
Cc: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 4:28 PM
Subject: Public warning: Please cease inappropriate posting
Jim,
after having reviewed the multitude of email that you have sent to the
IETF
list over the past week, I find that it does not conform to the guidelines
in RFC 3005 for appropriate posting to the IETF list.
Your postings are unprofessional, noninformative, inflammatory, and to a
large degree (such as dealing with "IPv8") unrelated to the work of the
IETF.
You have established a pattern of such postings; when the previous
outburst
subsided in early August, many of us hoped that you had found reason to
cease this inappropriate activity, but plainly, you have not.
If this pattern continues, action according to RFC 3005 will be taken.
Harald Tveit Alvestrand
IETF Chair