[Linux-aus] Re: Shutting up now, sir

[Leon Brooks <leon@cyberknights.com.au>]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 08:40, Bret Busby wrote:
> Again, that clearly demonstrates that Linux Australia is
> really only for conference attendees.

Now that we've cleared that up, how about some constructive suggestions?

> And, once again, people can communicate, and, can debate issues and
> vote on the issues, across the Internet, using simple tools, like
> email, etc.

Yeah, but... holding a conference like that is still kind of fruitless.

> Perhaps, one day, you will realise that, when you are 
> left behind by everyone else doing it.

If you're cuing up an "I told you so", I feel impelled to warn you that 
the demons will all be donning skates long before you get to use it.

> And, your response above, demonstrates quite clearly what I had said
> - the committee appears to sometimes take the approach - "like what
> we do, or get stuffed - we don't care.".

Not exactly. I think I'd call that "tangentially true" at best. LA 
doesn't exist to spend its days dwelling on points of order or 
rearranging a system which evidently already works in order to please 
one or a few people while at the same time disappointing hundreds.

We're not even saying "like what we do", we're saying "understand what 
we do" because then you'll have a hope of making useful decisions in 
connection with it.

It seems quite prominent from your earlier comments that when you 
powered up the world's only unlicenced nuclear whineotron to make them, 
you hadn't read, scanned *or*even*asked*about* the public record of 
LA's decisions. Indeed, the only clear evidence in your choice of words 
that you've read any of the supporting documents is picking out that LA 
is incoporated in NSW.

This is what documentation is for:

  * It helps to prevent you from embarrassing yourself on this
    list (again);

  * It prevents you from soaking up bandwidth, storage and
    people's time getting the rudiments of an insight the hard
    and controversial way instead of easily and peacefully;

  * It prevents you from coming across as a know-it-all, and this
    is more important than it seems, because the Good Book doesn't
    mince words when it classifies same: "let none of you suffer
    as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a
    busybody in other men's matters."

Because you haven't even started in on basic etiquette when criticisng 
others, you've really opened yourself up wide to criticism from others, 
and Stewart is well within his rights to insist that you pull your oar 
out until you've learned to row properly.

> And, the spam problem has persisted with the list, with others, not
> me, commenting about it, recently.

Yes, we recently got one advertising a women's/minority directory. I 
suppose that must be Pia's fault.

> The rest of the message from Stewart, as above, just demonstrates the
> encountered belligerence from some of the committee,

Bret, which member of the Committee has *not* been "belligerent" towards 
you yet? And have they not been more than adequately compensated for by 
a number of non-Committee list members quite bluntly requiring you to 
put a sock in it or take a hike?

I'd be the last one to advocate mob rule, but think about this: the 
archives show no significant hostility since about February - until you 
started posting unhelpful, destructive messages, and since then the 
hostility levels have exploded. Now go back through the archives and 
find out what triggered the *last* blast of hostility. It is 
*NOT*A*COINCIDENCE* that the last trigger for a serious outbreak of 
hostility was one Bret Busby. And you did it again with SLPWA. And you 
did it again with PLUG. And where else?

Now think carefully about this: is the problem with this one man, or 
with everybody else? What are the odds?

> which is why, 
> perhaps, in decade or so, Linux Australia may actually start to
> think aboutconducting meetings by email, and, by voting over the
> Internet, when email is superseded by videoconferencing types of
> communication across the Internet.

I'm guessing that you're thoughtless enough to have bitbucketed messages 
from me. If that's the case - more fool you - you won't have read that 
the major purpose of the SGM is to correct these things, and that this 
was raised well before your first ever LA troublemaking.

In short: it's being fixed, and you can't claim the thinnest sliver of 
responsibility for that. Part of the purpose in revolutionising LA, as 
was done last January, was to clear the way for these kind of changes 
to happen.

> Perhaps, one day, there will be a national Australian (not just NSW
> oriented) body, to deal with the interests of the Linux community
> across Australia, that is not conference-based, and one that is
> amenable to constructive criticism, and one that accepts dissent, all
> being the same body...

Go and form one yourself. Knock yourself out. Register it Federally. 
Have a blast!

It's your only hope of /ever/ having it happen, and - my goodness - 
won't there be ever so many schismatics who can't see the light of 
reason even when it's stuffed up their nose and so have to be exiled?

If you can ever get past your ego and realise that you're not having so 
much trouble because of all these other idiots, but because of your own 
little self, you might even be able to make it work.

Meantime, I have off-list complaints about your attitude running out of 
my ears (or mailbox), so can you please go and read the LA docs 
carefully so that you have some real background, wait while due process 
does its thing, and stop posting unhelpful whinges until, say, March?

Cheers; Leon

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Committee Member, Linux Australia