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Date:      01 Jan 2003 16:28:01 -0800
From:      swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
To:        freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Bystander shot by a spam filter.
Message-ID:  <ngd6ng1jla.6ng@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <20030101152046.D32360@papagena.rockefeller.edu>
References:  <20030101152046.D32360@papagena.rockefeller.edu>

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Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> writes:

> Cliff Sarginson wrote:
> > And it is in our time to name names.
> > I would like to thank Gary Swearingem (that maybe an "n" and not an "m") 
> > for his persistence in refusing my attempts at apology.
> > He alone, has reduced the FreeBSD community by one.
> 
> I don't see why you're forming an opinion of the community by reading
> -chat.  It's quite unrepresentative, and the individual you named
> isn't even a committer.  You may as well form an opinion of the "linux
> community" by reading slashdot at -1.

Oh goody... Cliff makes a private matter public.  Why?  To shame me?
(Of course, I feel sorry for being partially responsible if Cliff
fulfills his claim, but I am comfortable in thinking that he deserves
99% of the blame.)  Or does he mean to punish me by damaging my
reputation among FreeBSD people by what people will wrongly assume in
reading his brief non-explanation?  (Unfortunately, I must now ask -chat
readers who care to consider MY explanation, as if I can put this cat
back in its bag.  No doubt I'll wind up doing my own damage to my
reputation in some minds, but I can't let this go by without comment.)

He didn't form his opinion based on -chat; he just chose to take it
public here.  Most of our interactions started in -questions, with the
most "interesting" stuff being kept off the lists.  This current tantrum
was triggered by my response to his four-word private message to which I
privately replied (in essense) "No, I don't want to be friends; I don't
like dealing with you most of the time, but I'll try to treat you like
anybody else on the lists."  I even praised him for wanting to be
friends and said that there are plenty of others to befriend.  But I
didn't have to be clairvoyant to see an unhappy future in that course,
and I think he should accept my kiss-off with more grace than he has.

He had threatened before to quit and I tried to befriend him, talking
about our common Dutch heritage and some other non-FreeBSD stuff, etc.
Last New Year he claimed to have turned over a new leaf and I noticed
the change in his postings for a while.  Later we somehow got into
talking a bit about politics and he just came out of the blue with some
uncalled-for ugly anti-American rant to which I took great offense.  I
told him I that our friendship was over and have since ignored most of
his posts and private messages. (Which might explain why I remember no
apologies -- not that they'd change my opinion of Cliff.  As "W" tried
to say: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Sometimes I wander if he just likes to keep me wasting my time on such
foolishness; if so, he's fooled me way too often.)

Have a happy New Year and happy new year.

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