What should I do?

[Michael Everson]

On 17 Apr 2009, at 17:50, Xavier Legoff wrote:
> I posed one question: was I or was I not to address the points that  
> I could consider as pertinent the offensive posts written by Mr.  
> Everson, and now also by Mr. Seng.
>
Nonsense. Your post made false statements. "our multilinguistics  
background makes us confident that true linguists would never accept  
exceptions that they could not control through the application." I  
pointed out that I was a "true linguist" and that I disagreed with  
your assessment. I would wager that most if not all of the  
participants in this WG recognize my contributions in the field of  
internationalization and interoperability to be positive ones.
> You have not answered that question, but you do list such out in  
> your own way. I will address them in the text shown below. I refer  
> myself to the understanding of the IETF as published by ISOC (we  
> reproduce the relevant parts in Annex). It is indeed, more realistic  
> and accurate than the pure voluntary basis ideal.
>
What a waste of time.
> The IETF has strong participation from the computing, networking,  
> and telecommunications industries, from companies large and small,  
> and is responsible for developing the Internet’s technical  
> foundations through its open global forum.
>
Do you even know who Vint *is*? Telling him want the IETF is.... is  
monstrously rude at best.

[blather deleted]
> This is the reason as to why we want to make sure that the IETF  
> produces high quality, relevant technical and engineering documents,  
> because they will influence the way people design, use, and manage  
> the Internet in such a way as to make the Internet to be neutral  
> towards everyone interests.
>
As a human artifact it is unlikely that the Internet could be "neutral  
towards everyone's interests".
> The WG will stop work and recommend that a new charter be generated  
> if it concludes that any of the following are necessary to meet its  
> goals:
>
> (iii) A change to the basic approach taken in the design team  
> documents (Namely: [] elimination of character mapping in the  
> protocol)
>
> We completely oppose mapping at the protocol level (including all of  
> what actually can be equaled to mapping to nil).
>
Good for you. Consensus, however, does not agree with what you oppose.
> >or is assuming responsibility that you think an IETF working group  
> should not have
>
> We do not say that it should not have it. We say it has no  
> competence or legitimacy thereof.
>
And anarchy shall reign in France.

Vint, this is not the first time that this person (or other members of  
the real

> This WG did not even understand the term “semiotics”, or considered  
> it as off topic.
>
Which it is. Semiotics is "the study of signs and symbols and their  
use or interpretation." This is tangental (at best) to the technical  
work of this WG.
> Nothing prevents ISOC from hiring some external experts, but this is  
> not the case yet. When JFC stated that this WG had no linguist, you  
> replied that that was something unfair to say because we had Mark  
> Davis who knows linguists.
>
Mr Morfin does not know what he is talking about. What you or he means  
is that the WG does not have people who agree with you.
> Languages are mind to mind protocols.
>
Good gods. Spare us this poetry.
> Characters and phonemes are their basic information unit.
>
Incorrect. Characters are not the basic information units of language  
(except in Blissymbolics). Characters may or may not have a  
relationship to phonemes. Perhaps you should go and read Saussure's  
"Cours de linguistique générale" or something.
> The equivalent of the bit as seen in communications theory (0 1, red/ 
> green, short/long). Discussing characters, as this WG does, should  
> involve grammarians.
>
No, just people who understand the writing systems of the world. The  
WG is not bereft of such expertise.
> If the IETF enters into this field, it should additionally assume  
> the world's language maintenance.
>
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! This is very, very funny. I  
would like to be appointed Alphabet Tsar.
> Our reading of Unicode's contribution is as follows. The WG wants to  
> use it to fix our missing Internet presentation layer problem. It  
> was not designed for that. Therefore, they tried hard to nearly make  
> it just once (this is internationalization) but did not do so with  
> all the multiple flexible diversity as demanded by a transition  
> towards multilingualization.
>
"The multiple flexible diversity as demanded by a transition towards  
multilingualization" is a string without content.
> Our reading of the strategic situation can be found in your  
> announced "overwhelming consensus" in favor of this WG disallowing  
> the Arabic TATWEEL character at protocol level and the critics we  
> receive because it is not even French spelling.
>
That was a polite way of saying you didn't know what you were talking  
about.
> * we did not observe that consensus
>
We did.

> * engineers have no capacity to change spelling in any language

The Tatweel has nothing to do with spelling.

> * disallowing at protocol level is mapping to nil at protocol level  
> and requires a Charter change

Members of the WG disagree. You are offering nothing of use to this  
WG. You are attempting to prevent the timely introduction of solutions  
to this problem with content-free complaints.

> * most of all, we feel that everyone following this debate  
> understands that it is a "Lorenz butterfly" and it is likely that  
> TATWEEL may eventually end as a st[or]m which will break the  
> continuity of the Internet neutrality. This is something we do not  
> want to be responsible for.

Chaos theory is irrelevant to the task here. Be serious!
> >or that the working group should be pursuing Jefsey Morfin's  
> Multilingual DNS ideas
>
> There are no “Jefsey Morfin's Multilingual DNS ideas”.
>
I tend to agree. :-P

[more blather]
> > Continued postings that divert from this goal will lead to  
> cancellation of working group list posting privileges.
>
Looks like it.
> We understand Mark Davis' interest and why you may want to support  
> it. If it is your intended goal to impose a single mapping, and at  
> the protocol level (instead of mapping recommendations at the  
> application level).
>
> If this is the case, we will certainly continue to introduce our  
> opposition. As individuals we are small, but our number is large and  
> we are utterly determined to protect our interests.
>
> Sorry.
>
No you're not.

Vint, for my part I do not envy your position as chair. I see,  
however, little good faith in the messages of this participant or his  
colleagues.

Forgive my acerbity.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/