[db-wg] 2022-01 New Version Policy Proposal (Personal Data in the RIPE Database)

In message <CAKvLzuFA0y8mOzPiiy4tHBCRUNUBbQgJc-DD54E-S+0TW=StiA at mail.gmail.com>
denis walker <ripedenis at 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