Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re:Flares and personal opinions
From: full-disclosure () lists netsys com (David Benfell)
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 02:37:02 -0700
--r5Pyd7+fXNt84Ff3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:41:03 +1200, Nick FitzGerald wrote:
"Berend-Jan Wever" <SkyLined () edup tudelft nl> wrote: =20 Nothing personal dude, but ... =20
Nonetheless, I felt he raised some valid points, even if I don't entirely agree with all of them. Simply because this is an unmoderated list does not mean that normal rules of list etiquette do not apply. Among them, as you pointed out, is the one about HTML e-mail. Having participated in a few flame wars myself, I'd hate to simply say that it's rude to flame. If we didn't care, we wouldn't get mad. And security is something to care about. So I'll say this about flaming instead: When you flame, at least say something substantial. Simply saying that something sucks really doesn't cut it. Explain why it sucks, so we at least have something to argue about. The posting about the anonymizing web sites is a classic example. He just said it's broken, with hardly any explanation of why it's broken. He didn't explain his testing procedure, nor did he explain what results he's looking for, contrasting them with the ones he actually got. Finally, he didn't explain how these results undermine their utility in anonymizing web access. Next, don't bother with old news. Old news is old news. It's dead. Just because you can't bury it doesn't mean you should drag the rotten corpse around and force the rest of us to take a whiff. The postings about the Bugtraq lists are old news. Those lists have been around for years. There's nothing new about how they're being administered so we really don't need to hear your general complaints about them here. Notice I said general complaints. If they're doing currently doing something specifically wrong with a specific issue, that's fair game, as long as you explain yourself. Next, keep personal attacks to a minimum. If somebody is being stupid (as opposed to ill-informed), it's reasonable to whack them with a clue stick. But remember, we're here to exchange information, so explain yourself. Simply saying someone is a stupid dumbfsck is not nearly so impressive an argument as explaining point by point why everything they said is simply wrong. There's an underlying theme here. Explain your position. You might be right, you might be wrong. Either, really, is okay, because even when you're wrong, we can show where you're wrong. Or maybe we're wrong in thinking you're wrong, in which case, you can argue back. We learn that way. The idea is that there always needs to be substance. As fellow humans, we might care about your emotions, but as administrators and programmers, we need information we can act on. Your anger is not something we can do a lot about. My last point on flames would have to do with frequently asked questions which are documented. Remember that just because you know where to find the answer to that question doesn't mean I do. And sometimes I can't figure out what search terms to use to get reasonable results from Google. Also, some documentation, including a lot of man pages, seems to presume you already know the answer. Good technical documentation is hard to come by, partly because most technical writers are hacks working for marketing departments. Documentation written by programmers, on the other hand, often suffers for a variety of reasons. So RTFM is often not an adequate response -- make allowance for that possibility. When flaming, it is important to do it well. Otherwise you may look like the bigger fool. And if done well, flames still contain valuable information that can be useful in ferreting out the greater truth surrounding any particular issue. And that is why we're here. --=20 David Benfell, LCP benfell () parts-unknown org --- Resume available at http://www.parts-unknown.org/resume.html --r5Pyd7+fXNt84Ff3 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iQEXAwUBPTFGPXw5zqzgtjVOFAIwrAP/aUjM2nP/VCGQwsWAwi1pWua2n9HiR26N 7KW1lxgYTCOCMonlocMqQIPIodE4frLLDgSiQRKzpVT7skDqFrX0ihlhkCJ2mstW 0BT1f5+3LSFxb3zSy3Uand3OlbZo9gADfwv+MzDsWI/Q/QPVf2L6RSH9RblkL5DQ pQoPxzIib64EAJgwdqkPkRq9++iuClbMal3NOyi//TB9vlENHm38i4pHBtVhQ9u4 A0hPPzFzPq4lMh5sz53y+PLIz0FNCS08Ff8obmhUA+Xu24SocAKNMmQAwddTf4iV u4TjbiI/JIcHxt+5MfJo5SpyhMikYn8VwU0i5ysJX8PJH1tPrvQDqveV =WP3x -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --r5Pyd7+fXNt84Ff3--
Current thread:
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list, (continued)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Kurt Seifried (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Ron DuFresne (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Blue Boar (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Marc Slemko (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Ron DuFresne (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Lupe Christoph (Jul 12)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list martin f krafft (Jul 13)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list V K (Jul 13)
- Re:Flares and personal opinions Berend-Jan Wever (Jul 13)
- Re:Flares and personal opinions Nick FitzGerald (Jul 13)
- Re:Flares and personal opinions David Benfell (Jul 14)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Marc Slemko (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list martin f krafft (Jul 13)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Ulf H{rnhammar (Jul 13)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Blue Boar (Jul 11)
- Re: Announcing new security mailing list Steve (Jul 11)
- Flare Berend-Jan Wever (Jul 11)
- Message not available
- Flare Vanja Hrustic (Jul 12)