In message <CAKvLzuFA0y8mOzPiiy4tHBCRUNUBbQgJc-DD54E-S+0TW=StiA@mail.gmail.com> denis walker <ripedenis@gmail.com> wrote:
Many of your comments are insulting and unprofessional. Much of what you've written below is utter nonsense.
Since this is directed at me, very personally, I claim the right of reply. If we're going to talk about discourtesy and unprofessionalism, then by all means let's do that. Denis, you have been uncourteous, unprofessional, and dismissive of me and all of the several informal proposals that I have floated on this list from the beginning. Not a single one of those proposals has ever received even any reasoned debate nor any fair hearing here, much less an actual show of hands. Nontheless, I have noticed that each proposal that -you- have authored and/or that -you- have a personal interest in has somehow managed to always float to the top of the stack for the group's consideration. Now why would that be, exactly? Where I come from "professionalism" involves a bit more than just being slavish, subserviant, and deferential towards those in positions of authority. It also entails the avoidance of even the apperance of a conflict of interest. Apparently, that particular aspect of professionalism has not yet migrated over to your side of the pond. And thus we have a situation where the chaiman of a RIPE Working Group is also and simultaneously an active and vocal advocate for his own pet propoosals, even as he is dismissing others out of hand that don't appeal to his personal predilections and preferences. This is not the kind of even-handed "neutral referee" role that I personally would have hoped for or expected of a Working Group chair, and it does not comport with "professionalism" in any of the senses in which I understand that word. For my own part, I confess that I am blunt and direct in my style of making my points. This is something that I am not at all prepared to apologize for. I call a spade a spade, and this alone rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But I have not and do not argue in bad faith, or in favor of any position or proposition which I do not fully believe in. When I am direct, it is typically because I see the Right Answer as being both obvious and unavoidable. I am no longer surprised that persons I have argued against often wish to take issue not with the substance of my arguments, but with the manner of my presentation. So be it. What I can say, and what I do say, by way of defense in the present context, is that I have no ulterior motive, no hidden agenda, that I have earnestly and with candor stated my true position, and that unlike you, denis, I have no immediately apparent conflict of interest when it comes to the ordering of, or the consideration of proposals pending before this Working Group. Regard, rfg