Well, now that I've got your attention....

:-)

Dear Friends,

Not long ago, I proposed here the conversion of this newgroup from un-
moderated status to moderated status.  I'm sure that many of you who
have participated in this newgroup before the past month or so probably
felt that my suggestion (and my offer of my own services as moderator)
and, in particular, the timing of that suggestion and that offer were
not altogether motivated by the concern I expressed regarding net
`newbies', and their occasional postings to this group, asking for
free advice on this or that trivial programming question.

Be that as it may, it is with some regret that I must let you all know
that I am hereby withdrawing my offer to act as moderator of this group
in the event that it should ever be converted to a moderated newgroup
(which I still hope that it will).

My reasons are twofold.  First and foremost, due to the fact that I am
now in the process of undertaking several new projects in addition to
several that I was already engaged in at the time I made my suggestion,
I find that I simply do not have the time to perform this valuable service
of behalf of the net-at-large and my friends here, no matter how much I
would like to be able to do so.  (I should say also that the recent in-
crease in traffic here in comp.std.c++ also makes the task look considerably
more formidable that it once did.)  My second reason for stepping back
from my earlier offer is the reservations, expressed by some, to the idea
of having me, in particular, as moderator.  I do not begrudge any of the
people who have expressed these reservations for having done so, and
given my own personal circumstances, I am inclined to agree that another
party (or several other parties) would be more practical choice if and
when a moderator is required for this group.

Actually there is one other reason that I now withdraw my name from con-
sideration, but I hope that you will all understand that it is, at most
a minor consideration.  By removing myself from a position of even
_potential_ responsibility for the future direction and fate of this
newgroup, I again place myself down among the ``common folk'' here who
are completely at liberty to speak their mind freely, and without concern
for appearances.

I wish to do a small bit of that now.

It has for some time been abundantly clear that our newsgroup has been
invaded, and that it is under attack from one particular individual who
shows neither concern for the charter of our newgroup (i.e. the _productive_
exchange of opinions, debate, and discussion) nor for the facts.  Like
many of you, I have held my breath (and my nose), hoping that this would
all prove to be a temporary affliction, and the individual in question
would eventually tire of the kind of bickering and name calling that he
has introduced to our group (and which he has succeded in getting even
other participants here to take up between themselves), but as you all
see, that hasn't quite happened yet.  I suppose that (in lieu of moderation)
we must all just wait, and hope that it still may.

Although many here have been given ample cause to be both offended and
enraged, I wish to note that among all of these I feel that those of us
who have, over the years, counted ourselves as among the most persistant
critics of the design of the C++ language have been the most ill-served
by the abundance of ranting, paranoid diatribes that we have seen here of
late, because the one common thread of these (if there is one... which is
sometimes hard to tell) seems to be a disdain for the C++ language.  In
other words, one good way to convince any large group of people of the
merits of any given proposition (e.g. that C++ was well designed) is to
have an obviously frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic speak _against_ it.  (Note
that this also has the additional side effect of quieting down any of
the serious-minded detractors; They hold their toungs for fear of being
associated in any way with the paranoid delusions of a madman.)

So although there are many, many people who have been direct and personal
victims of this one person's personal attempts to use our newgroup to
persue his own personal vendetta (justified or not) against certain people
and corporations that he feels have wronged him in one way or another in
the past, I just wish to say that I also feel that _I_ have been victimized
here, right along with some of the people who I have engaged in stormy
technical disagreements with here over the years, and I, like them, hope
that this will all soon end.

Before I close, I do wish to respond directly to one of the things I have
read here recently, even though this (i.e. responding directly) is some-
thing that I had hoped to avoid doing, in general, because of its tendency
simply to feed the sick ego behind many of these messages (and thus start
the cycle all over again).

>How long do you think someone would survive being a member of the
>C++ standards committee if their opinion was that the language was
>seriously flawed, that far too much time an energy (and money) had
>been wasted on it...and that other more productive solutions exist...

I have been on the committee for some time.  I survive.  I even manage
to prosper on occasion.

(What Mr. Phlemming fails to realize is that people in our society are
perfectly free to be vocal critics of anything they want, as long as
they make _some_ minimal attempts to be civil, and at least remotely
rational, and as long as they do not attempt to begin all of their
arguments with meaningless phrases like ``Some people tell me...''
or ``Some people say..'' which can _only_ be construed by reasonable
listeners as ``I'm making this up, but...'')

>...which have been actively withheld from the public's view by members
>of the ANSII committee...???

Mentally stable individuals are generally able to grasp the fact that
there is a big difference between someone who is merely promoting what-
ever it is that they happen to be into (e.g. C++ compilers, tools, books,
or whatever) and someone who is ``actively witholding'' alternatives.

As should be clear by now, there _is_ someone is this group who is
definitely trying to sell us all something... i.e. _his_ world view,
and _his_ solution to all of the world's problems... from programming
languages to networks... and who is in fact actively engaged in trying
to suppress any semblance of normal discussion here in this newgroup,
and no Mr. Phlemming, it isn't Bjarne Stroustrup, and it isn't AT&T,
and it isn't the CIA or the Mafia, or even Jack Ruby.  It is you.

A final footnote:  Please folks.  Let's all stop responding to Mr.
Phlemming's elementary mind games.  Once you notice that 99% of his
sentences end with a question mark, and once you realize that 98% of
his questions are along the lines of ``Have you stopped beating your
wife?'' (which is one of the first trick questions they teach you in
law school), then it will become much easier to resist the temptation
to respond to Mr. Phlemming's obvious and childish attempts to incite
maximal controversy, and to place himself in the limelight of his own
delusional fantasy world (which, judging by the amount of time he must
spend online, must consist almost entirely of this newsgroup).

P.S.  Mr Phlemming might, for all I know, have some legitimate basis
for his apparent personal vendetta against AT&T, Bjarne Stroustrup,
and the other people that he seems to have so callously attempted to
slander here (including my friend and fellow C++ critic Bill Plauger,
and my friend and competitor Tom Plum) but if he does, that still
doesn't give him any more right to bomb our newsgroup (as a way of
solving his personal greivances) than he has rights to bomb some
randomly selected Federal building.
--

-- Ron Guilmette, Sunnyvale, CA ---------- RG Consulting -------------------
---- E-mail: rfg@segfault.us.com ----------- Purveyors of Compiler Test ----
---- finger: rfg@rahul.net ----------------- Suites and Bullet-Proof Shoes -

In article <D7GJCo.G64@world.std.com>, tob@world.std.com says...
>
>"Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@rahul.net> writes:
>[ To the effect that c.s.c++ is under attack by Jim Fleming ]
>
>Yes, I concur entirely. His intent to disrupt is pretty clear. But he
>can't force anyone to listen and not to killfile him.
>
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The flip side is that YOU can not force people not to listen.

BTW. My intention is to help develop the "best" ANSI Standard
for the C++ Programming Language. I am waiting liek the rest
of you to see the DRAFT which will be ready for public comment
soon, real soon...

BTW. How are you going to handle public comments? With kill
files? I do not think kill files are part of the ANSI vocabulary.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

>In trn,
>
>/jim.fleming@bytes.com/fcK:j
>/^References: .*@News1.mcs.com/chK:j
>
>should set things up permanently to avoid Jim and responses to him, for
>those that want to. (I wrongly left off the required "h" qualifier
>earlier)
>
>> A final footnote:  Please folks.  Let's all stop responding to Mr.
>> Phlemming's elementary mind games.
>
>Precisely.
>
>        Tom
>
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Can you be a little more clear regarding "folks"?

Are you really adressing the 25,000,000 readers
of Usenet?...or just "your" folks...?

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

--
Jim Fleming            /|\      Unir Corporation       Unir Technology, Inc.
%Techno Cat I        /  | \     One Naperville Plaza   184 Shuman Blvd. #100
Penn's Landing      /   |  \    Naperville, IL 60563   Naperville, IL 60563
East End, Tortola  |____|___\   1-708-505-5801         1-800-222-UNIR(8647)
British Virgin Islands__|______ 1-708-305-3277 (FAX)   1-708-305-0600
                 \__/-------\__/       e-mail: jim.fleming@bytes.com
Smooth Sailing on Cruising C+@amarans  ftp: 199.3.34.12 <-----stargate----+
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\____to the end of the OuterNet_|

"Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@rahul.net> writes:
[ To the effect that c.s.c++ is under attack by Jim Fleming ]

Yes, I concur entirely. His intent to disrupt is pretty clear. But he
can't force anyone to listen and not to killfile him.

In trn,

/jim.fleming@bytes.com/fcK:j
/^References: .*@News1.mcs.com/chK:j

should set things up permanently to avoid Jim and responses to him, for
those that want to. (I wrongly left off the required "h" qualifier
earlier)

> A final footnote:  Please folks.  Let's all stop responding to Mr.
> Phlemming's elementary mind games.

Precisely.

        Tom