On 2/25/2014 11:52 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
for those who think the question was inappropriate, a
comparative question about the following two entirely
hypothetical cases:
...
Case 2: You have asserted that a protocol feature being
reviewed in a WG does not work. Have you implemented
and tested it and, if not, on what basis do you make
that assertion?
For this thread, it's been interesting to watch the way people have been
skipping logic steps, conflating issues, inventing issues, wandering off
into hypotheticals, or entirely missing basic issues.
When a suggestion is made and there has been no offer of expertise to
justify it, the reasonable challenge is "What is the basis for believing
that the suggestion is appropriate?" or an equivalent that targets the
pragmatics of the suggestion. It's entirely impersonal and entirely
relevant.
What's happened here, instead, including your above examples (until the
second part of the question in Case 2, is to challenge the person making
the suggestion.
Absent an assertion of authority by the person making the suggestion --
and it was absent in this case -- questioning the background of that
person is an ad hominem.
If the speaker is not arguing from authority, questioning their
authority is somewhere between suspect and harassment.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net