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Paul Merrell

Fallacy: Ad Hominem - 0 views

  • Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person." An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting).
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    The ad hominem fallacy is a tactic frequently employed by IBM and its followers, most notably by Rob Weir, against those who disagree with IBM's positions and goals. Those who advocate for repairing the badly broken ODF standard or prepare bug reports on that standard are among the most frequently targeted victims of IBM's ad hominem fallacy attacks.
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    As will be seen in other bookmarks, many IBM staffers' arguments relevant to office document format specifications have been based on variations of the ad hominem fallacy, more commonly known as the "personal attack." .
Paul Merrell

Fallacy: Circumstantial Ad Hominem - 0 views

  • A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person's circumstances (such as the person's religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.).
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    As will be seen in other bookmarks, one of IBM staffers' frequently employed tactics is the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy. Often, the IBM fallacious argument takes the form of suggestions or innuendos that a speaker is biased by their employer's identity or innuendos suggesting that someone is acting in an IBM competitor's interests.
Paul Merrell

IBM's Rob Weir on the ad hominem fallacy - 0 views

  • Ah, and there is the source of your confusion. Excel 2007 SP2 does not write out document that conform to the ODF 1.1 standard.
  • I lay out the facts, the logic and then draw conclusions. I put my reputation on the line in every post. You could dispute the facts I present. You could argue against my logic if you wish. But you have done neither. You merely resort to ad hominen attacks. I'll take that as an expression of your frustration at not finding a hole in my argument.
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    Here, we learn that Rob Weir understands that ad hominem attacks are usually a fallacy, a way of changing the subject rather than addressing the merits of what was said. We may therefore deduce that when Rob Weir employs the ad hominem attack himself, he does so knowing that he is arguing a fallacy.
Paul Merrell

Notes on Document Conformance and Portability #4 - 0 views

  • It seems you like to ignore requirements in order to defend Microsoft
  • Do you get paid to spread FUD like this, or is it merely a dilettantish pursuit?
  • I am unable to even imagine that you would be ignorant of basic standards terminology. So why do you persist in intentionally misleading your readers?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • But at all relevant times you knew that you could not respond on the merits if Alex took the time to write the same analysis I did. I call foul. Foul 1: You accused Alex of ignorance and deceit. Foul 2: You had no informed basis for those insults.Foul 3: You knew you had no informed basis for your insults.Foul 4: You have put me to the work of repeating the conversation we already had. Shame on you, Rob Weir. The position you took was unprincipled. You are the one who has intentionally misled Alex's readers. You are caught. If you are a principled person, you will immediately retract your insults and apologize to Alex Brown for your deceit in as public a manner as you inflicted your deceit. If you do not do so, the undeniable record lies here of a man who is not man enough to take responsibility for his wrongs and apologize.
  • Ah, Marbux, what circus is complete without the clowns?
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    Here on a single page, we see several Rob Weir ad hominem attacks, including his ad hominem circumstantial innuendo suggesting that Alex Bown's motive in writing a bug report is to defend Microsoft's implementation of ODF. There is also a notable accusation that Brown is intentionally misleading his readers, which attacks Brown's honesty.
Paul Merrell

Schematron-Report patented? - O'Reilly Broadcast - 3 views

  • Were you in that public benefactor frame of mind when Microsoft offered you money to edit Wikipedia pages for their standards, or when they were paying you to promote their disgraced OOXML standard?
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    IBM's Rob Weir does it again. What's to be done when your company is caught patenting methods implemented in an open standard for years? Change the subject in an attempt to kill the messenger who bears the news. Score another vitriolic ad hominem attack for Rob Weir. 
Paul Merrell

How Microsoft Ratted Itself Out Of Office | BNET Technology Blog | BNET - 0 views

  • Also, you have the problem that OOXML does not define details like scripts and macros, the very essence of integrating documents with business processes. So although you may now know how Office stores bold and italics, but these are not exactly the crown jewels of Office compatibility.
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    Here, IBM's Rob Weir takes OOXML to task for not specifying scripts and macros. But nary a mention of the fact that OpenDocument suffers from the same weakness. Yet another IBM double standard. He also tacks on an ad hominem attack against Gary Edwards, in lieu of addressing the merits of what Edwards said.
Paul Merrell

Balance of interest ~= Broader representation - O'Reilly Broadcast - 0 views

  • Rick, on the other hand, by my count, with his various calls for greater "balance", has racked up the impressive total of zero new members. Standards activist? Certainly not an effective one.
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    Rob Weir racks up another ad hominem attack, this time against Rick Jelliffe.
Paul Merrell

Twitter / Rob Weir: @jackschofield Sorry you m ... - 0 views

  • @jackschofield Sorry you missed the postscript with the OOXML data. ODF still smaller by 18%. Calling names is boorish and unprofessional. 8:32 AM Oct 4th via TweetDeck in reply to jackschofield rcweir Rob Weir
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    Now we learn that IBM's Rob Weir can't stand the heat of his own most frequently deployed weapon in debate with those who want less interop talk from IBM and more interop walk. See other quotes and links in this group."Calling names is boorish and unprofessional," he pronounces. A great quote to replay the next time Rob wilds the ad hominem fallacy as his weapon.  
Paul Merrell

The conspiracy to save ODF from being so crappy - O'Reilly Broadcast - 0 views

  • I hope you will verify these facts, if needed, and correct your misstatements regarding OASIS process and the ODF's TC's work. Then you can go back to telling us again how you and Alex are not spreading lies about ODF. -Rob
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    Here we learn two things about IBM's Rob Weir. First, score another ad hominem attack for him because of his innuendo suggesting that Rick Jelliffe and Alex Brown are liars. Second, we learn that Mr. Weir expects a retraction to be made when inaccurate statements are brought to a blog author's attention. Having been recently outed for rewriting history to call Alex Brown and Wikipedia names and having confessed to silently editing his blog in relevant regard, will Mr. Weir correct his own blog article? See http://www.adjb.net/post/No-one-supports-ISO-ODF-today.aspx and Weir's confession in the comments on that page. Or are retractions yet another case of an IBM double standard?
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