From: Robert Benschop (rbenschop_at_telebyte.nl)
Date: Sat Sep 25 2004 - 06:18:27 PDT
On 25-sep-04, at 13:55, Frank Gruendel wrote:
> You might or might not be aware that you will get a discount of
> 5 USD when purchasing his eMate cable if you provide proof that
> you donated at least 5 USD to NewtonTalk, a list he is currently
> banned from: http://www.pda-soft.de/ematecable.html
> This is something I couldn't approve of more. I have done the
> same occasionally (although so far I have never been banned
> from NewtonTalk).
A small precision might be in order here: this donation wasn't in place
when Ferdi was removed from the list.
Victor might or might not elaborate on his decision to do so at the
time, but I did ask Victor to remove Ferdi because both on- and
off-list he wasn't nice company.
This is why I'll write a short version of what I think happened.
At the time there were often raging fights on the list between Woo Lee
and Ferdi Ozguner, to the level that people left just because of it.
Woo didn't accept Ferdi's selling practices and would attack him
because of it, Ferdi didn't accept Woo's and would launch
counterattacks.
And though Woo Lee often went out of line in his attacks to Ferdi at
the time, Woo has been known as a member that has contributed a
tremendous amount to both the list and members of the list.
Ferdi on the other hand was on the list to make a profit only, there
has never been any proof or indication of anything otherwise during
that period. Moreover, he took any attack on his selling practices
extremely personal, resulting in personal insult and such.
So when the fight got really out of hand I asked to have Ferdi removed
because it became quite clear that either one of the two, or both, had
to go.
Now my personal take on the quote of Frank above is that Ferdi would
like to back and tries to be nice, to me personally that doesn't amount
to a lot since it has happened only after the fact.
And judging from the personal email exchange between Ferdi and me (of
which I cc'ed some to Victor at the time) where I would keep urging him
to tone things down a bit (or rather, a lot) I have come to the
conviction that he can't rally control his temper.
I've rarely conducted such aggressive email exchanges with anybody else.
Which makes him not really person I would want to keep on the list, I'm
not interested in constant bar-brawls.
(By the way, Victor is the only person who makes this decision, so
whatever opinion I'm voicing here is just a personal one. It doesn't
have any direct bearing on the list policy.)
And just one last word: Frank isn't only a very respected member of
this list because he's been generally incredibly helpful and generous,
but also because he's a nice and levelheaded person that contributes in
a positive way to the general discussion.
So we're talking about two persons making donations to NewtonTalk
possible, but in my book they're quite far apart.
I hope this makes some thing just a but clearer. If not in the general
interest of the list reactions please off-list.
Robert Benschop
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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