josh said:
the problem is
no, the problem is that you are rabidly intolerant of anyone who disagrees with your basic premises, especially if they can muster arguments cogently, and you will stoop to character assassination and full-blown censorship and all types of ugly tactics to avoid having the clothes of your emperor exposed. _that's_ the problem. your self-concept is wrapped up in doing e-books, and you take criticism personally, and very badly, and turn with a vengeance on anyone who gives it. and here's a wrap-up of the arguments that i make: a. the x.m.l. approach is full of implementation holes. b. when those holes are filled, it'll be overly complex. c. the complexity will drive away scads of volunteers. d. it will also make library-maintenance a nightmare. e. x.s.l.t. conversions are largely vaporware at present. f. even after they move out of vapor, they'll be plagued. g. trailing-edge users will get nosed out in the process. h. resultant confusions will drive away more volunteers. i. few of the benefits x.m.l. promises will materialize. j. the benefits won't come close to justifying the costs. k. somebody will have to come in and pick up the pieces. l. much simpler methodologies will actually work better. m. the workflows of the past don't scale to the present. n. some volunteers have worked themselves to burn-out. o. that burn-out now makes them incapable of reflection. p. without reflective thought, the project is floundering. q. floundering is the worst thing that can happen _now_. r. google, toronto, and million-books make e-books fly. s. all the errors in the library need to be fixed right now. t. the energy and resources of new people is not nurtured. u. we can use the help of end-users in attaining our goals. v. we need to make all end-users feel a part of the project. w. people question the past without knowing their history. x. a trailing-edge focus is the reason for the success of p.g. y. the viewer-program is the most important puzzle-piece. z. rabid intolerance retards progress, and mean people suck. i'm often scapegoated as "the problem" here, but the truth is that before i came, and every time i go away -- whether it's by my own volition or as a consequence of being "moderated" -- this listserve largely withers into a mass of nothingness. in an attempt to "avoid the troll", other p.g. listserves were set up that excluded me or which i had no interest in joining, and those listserves have -- without exception -- faded away. one of the only things that unites people here is picking on me. (indeed, the only other one coming to mind is picking on pg2, and even that one didn't produce _nearly_ as much unanimity.) i say things that you don't want to hear. i say them because they are things that you _need_ to hear. i am your wake-up call, and you dearly want to keep sleeping. "moderating" me will not work, because it is of no consequence to me that you do not want to hear what i say. i say it anyway. so if your refusal to hear it persists, you will have to ban me. but even if you ban me, i will not be quiet. because the world needs to know that you people -- who should be "the experts" -- don't know what you're talking about, and they need to know that you cannot deliver on all your promises. so i will tell the world. i tried to straighten you out here, in the privacy of your own listserve, but if you won't hear my message here, i will make it public instead, so its amplification via the public makes it audible to you regardless... so you pick your poison, private or public, it makes no difference to me. indeed, it'll waste much less of my time to go the public route instead... you're not doing me any favor, at all, by "allowing" me to stay here. i'm doing you the favor by being here. i've got better things to do... -bowerbird