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Ärende: FidoNews 28:50 [03/06]: General Articles
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                        GENERAL ARTICLES
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Small people, narrow minds
By Ward Dossche

  No man is an island,
  Entire of itself.
  Each is a piece of the continent,
  A part of the main.
  ...
  Therefore, send not to know
  For whom the bell tolls,
  It tolls for thee.

                 From "Meditations 17"
                    John Donne
                     1572-1631


In the 20+ years I have experienced a lot of change and a lot of often
crazy things happening to Fidonet.

What happened however the past summer and the ensuing months beat it
all.

Being on an island on a big lake somewhere in Montana the past summer,
I had only limited connectivity and limited bandwith (also limited
time mostly after midnight) to collect Fidomail. Remember, I was
working with American kids all the time so nobody accuse me of being a
USA-hater.

On the occasions that I was able to connect and collect mail I got an
odd notion that something wasn't the way it should have been --
apparently the echomail conference FIDONEWS had been put on
"read-only" in a unilaterally action by the self-appointed three
people whom call themselves "The North American Backbone", for ease of
reading further abbreviated as NAB.

Not only that, they also hi-jacked the FIDONEWS-publication against
all existing custom and started distributing a bogus-version by an
editor who gave-up after, I think, the second edition.

All that would not have been necessary had these three people worked
in a different way but to the neutral on-looker it was quite obvious
this was a prime example of an old fued flaring up and the only way to
deal with it was by drawing blood -- Björn Felten's blood.

As I have a cell-phone in the US with a Montana 406-areacode, I
figured to pass it on to Janis Kracht so she could call me in the
event of trouble. That phone rang quite often, but never Janis. The
excuse she used was that she didn't want to bother me during my
vacation -- after having been given the number with a specific request
to call in case of trouble? I never bought that explanation...

Björn has been accused of a decade of USA-bashing -- and personally I
wonder when he did that because actually he's very much pro-USA. But
if you consider well-founded criticism of a President's ridiculous
policies as USA-bashing, well -- then I've got some more where that
came from. It's difficult to close one's eyes for the US military
industrial complex which needs a war or an international conflict in
order to keep producing, or the former secret US-torture in prisons in
countries where you have idiots in charge, or the base at Guantanamo,
or the incredible US budgetary deficit while still getting an AAA
credit-rating -- from American credit rating agencies -- if all that
is USA-bashing, then I've got horrible news -- none of that is
exaggerated.

Expanding on that -- if every time the past 20 years that I got an
insult coming my way, and I don't want to invoke Godwin's law so I
will not clarify what type of insult it was, I was given US$1.00 I
could afford for myself and my wife a very lush first class all
expenses paid vacation somewhere far away from here. Just to say that
an insult originating in Z1 is a manifestation of "Freedom of Speech"
protected by the First Ammendment of the US Constitution.

The three people whom quickly were nicknamed "the Troika" (although
"Politbureau" would've been more appropriate) considered themselves
almighty, but in their almightiness didn't realise they had just
committed the grandest act of stupidity ever in Fidonet..

Fast forward a couple of months and having my belly full of all the
non-productive talks, I figured well -- yeah -- maybe we could use
another editor, maybe we could use another moderator and I started
thinking like Nick Andre being the most A-political person that I know
would make an excellent editor and Joe Delahaye would make a good
moderator. The drawback being that both are Z1, but then they also are
Cannucks and I've met them both -- I even helped Nick order food in a
French speaking restaurant in Québec -- having shared a meal or a beer
helps a lot in human relations. I trust them blindly.

Anyway, negotiations continued up to a point where it was obvious that
for starters the NAB-decision to do what they did, did not have a
broad following among their constituents and clearly was intended as a
manifestation of power.

"We can do this whether you like it or not!" but other than pissing a
lot of people off in other zones, nothing was achieved.

Further the NAB does not understand the disruption, the breach of
faith and the loss of confidence they have caused. At least some kind
of acceptation of guilt would have been welcome but only a vague
statement was all that the threesome could agree to.

In view of the very badly timed interventions of other people and the
constant drivel over and over and over again by Ross Cassell harping
on about the same thing with a predictability of a Swiss clockwork, it
became increasingly impossible to deal with this.

It was obvious for all to see, the good of Fidonet had not been in the
minds of these three individuals, they just wanted to bring down Björn
and they figured I was the correct tool for that.

Well, NAB, here's a bit of news: I am not your tool.

So I decided to await the outcome of the FTSC-vote of Ross Cassell
which I figured was going to be a very predictable "No" for Björn.
Nevertheless he might want to surprise me, so I waited with the
benefit of doubt in mind, but in the end he voted the way he was
expected to vote.

After having made the office of IC obsolete, after awakening sysops
and *Cs which were inactive for years when it suited the purpose (and
not before), after having attempted to flush Fidonews down the toilet
you guys individually or collectively have brought Fidonet in such a
position that it is a goner. You bear the collective guilt for having
disrupted the net so badly that cooperation with you largely has
become impossible -- Bob Seaborn, you still have my respect, I want
you to know that !

The way I see it, Ross is the raging bull who lacks the intellectual
properties to understand the harvest of what he did sow. Janis
understood the game had gone too far and wanted to turn the clock back
at a moment when the damage had been done -- what she offered was too
late and too little.

And yet, with the writing on the wall as obvious as can be, I am being
asked to sacrifice Björn on the altar of the NAB. To regain the peace
we had, I briefly toyed with that option a while ago but as the
previous summer's experience with the FIDONEWS-echo and -publication
has demonstrated, the NAB are on their own mission and blatantly
disregard what other people think -- because they can -- or so they
think.

Reversing the situation to a pre-schism era is one thing but there is
no guarantee that it will not happen again -- as there is no guarantee
it will function again the way it did. With lessons learned about the
treatment we can get, there is no reason why we would like it to
function again the way it did in the first place.

I do not understand how these three people without formal broad
support collectively figured that what they did was a bright idea.
They obviously never gave any thought to the repercussions nor did
they have an exit-strategy for when their action would run afoul.

That exit-strategy gradually proved to be me -- and I refuse to play.

The final drop that made the bucket here spill was that a short while
ago I sent a netmail into Z1 via each of the three gateways that I
serve -- Ross Cassell, Bob Seaborn and Janis Kracht -- in other words:
the NAB. I voiced certain complaints/remarks/suggestions and lo and
behold -- one took the bait and acted upon the netmail before the
destination had an opportunity to open it.

Acting upon in-transit private-flagged netmail, which hence is not
addressed to the person commiting the infraction, by my rulebook is
XAB warranting a formal complaint and dismissal from the nodelist --
at least that was the way it was in the old days when one still could
trust and respect partners. Now I don't even care filing the formal
complaint, with proof in hand, because "I scratch your back while you
scratch mine"-politics will make certain nothing happens.

After careful consideration, my position is now very clear.

I did not start the mess involving FIDONEWS, therefore I do not have
to solve it. You, NAB, take care yourself of the problems you created
yourselves.

As for Fidonews, I fully endorse Björn Felten in all of his mandates.
Don't like it? Vaya con Dios!

I am sorry about this, Nick Andre and Joe Delahaye because I consider
you among the most honourable and trustworthy people in Fidonet, a
strong reminder of the late Warren Bonner. I believe you both would do
an excellent job and I recommend you to Björn to consider you for his
mandates whenever he would be calling it quits.

Personally I believe the NAB should disband itself and individually
draw the logical conclusions for the real mandates they occupy.

Ward Dossche
2:292/854 & ZC2



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