Reports only show data from a specific tim e period?

[Paul L. Allen]

Matt Pounsett writes: 

Oh, and how *deviously* he writes.  Such a clever turn of phrase to
make it look like I'm wrong, but when parsed carefully shows that it
means the opposite.  Have you considered applying for a job in the Bush
administration, Matt? 

> Again.. nobody said anything about supressing information.

Let me see.  Nagios has information covering 24x7 and he wants to display
statistics based only upon the information that is generated during
working hours.  That means he wants to SUPPRESS the information that is
generated outside those working hours from appearing in the statistics.
It doesn't take a genius to figure that out whether he said it in those
precise words or not - his query is about how to suppress information
from appearing in the statistics.  Whether he is doing it for valid or
nefarious reasons, and whether he is doing it at the request of those
who get to see those statistics, is neither here nor there - he DOES want
to suppress information.  You claimed otherwise and you were just plain
*wrong* (and refuse to admit it). 

But that sentence from Matt is only on a par with Clinton saying that
because Monica gave him a BJ he didn't have sex with her, or Bush
saying that because he said something along the lines of "Saddam was an
immediate danger" he could legitimately deny it when a reporter stated
Bush claimed Saddam was an "imminent danger" because he never used the
word "imminent."  Can Matt do better and take us into the realms of
a clean air act that harms the environment or protecting forests by
opening them up to logging?  He surely can. 

> He was looking for additional statistics covering a more specific 
> timeperiod than is currently available.

That's a good one.  I had to read it three times before I figured out
how it was possible to interpret that in a way that was factual.  You
have to take a fairly perverse approach to parsing English to squeeze
the truth out of that one, and most people will simply interpret it as
Matt providing more "evidence" that I'm wrong because the guy didn't want
to suppress information, he actually wanted additional information. 

The natual interpretation is that the guy wanted *additional information*
and so I was dead wrong to say the guy wanted to suppress information -
even though he does.  A simple mechanic knows that the purpose of a
muffler in the exhaust system is to *suppress* noise even if it is the
case that everyone wishes the noise to be suppressed.  People who buy
power strips with surge suppressors (they're advertised as such) want
the surgers to be suppressed.  Just as mufflers suppress unwanted noise,
and surge suppressors suppress unwanted surges, the guy wanted to suppress
some unwanted information appearing in the statistics.  So Matt has to
resort to semantic trickery to try and make his bogus claim about
suppression not being involved seem true. 

With more care, and interpolating "additional statistics" to mean "an
additional set of statistics viewable by a select group" we can see that
Matt admits the truth that the goal was to *suppress* data from statistics
viewed by a specific group of people.  With the right parsing, Matt's
statement is true (but sloppy English), and does not contradict what I
wrote.  With more natural parsing, it appears to justify his bogus claim
that no suppression is involved. 

Very creative.  When I first read that sentence I nearly re-read the
thread to see how I could possibly have missed the guy wanting additional
information.  When you have to stoop to the sort of trickery Matt has, it
is a clear sign you're in the wrong. 

> I'm sorry you can't see the value in this,

I can see value in it to people who like lying to their clients in order
to make unreliable equipment and services they provide seem more reliable
than it really is.  I can't see any point in doing this if the equipment
and services are reliable or if you wish to be honest with your clients.
There may be an innocent explanation that justifies doing something like
this, but you have not offered it. 

If the equipment and services are reliable 24x7 then you do not need to
suppress the information.  If they have significant, repeated outages
outside of working hours then you have serious problems that need to be
addressed and the clients are entitled to know about them and should know
about them.  Let's face it, if you have serious problems when the machine
is under minimal load then there is something drastically wrong. 

Oh, I just thought of a case that justifies it.  ADSL lines in the UK
frequently have outages, most outside of working hours.  That's not our
fault, and the stats would look better if we excluded those outages.
Whooops - I forgot something.  Our clients WANT to know about out-of-hours
ADSL outages so they can hammer the supplier and demand compensation for
the outages, even if the out-of-hours outages didn't actually disrupt
anything. 

> but continuing to try to explain it to you is too far off topic,

Yes, it is a good idea for you to stop digging while you can still see the
top of the hole many feet above your head. 

-- 
Paul Allen
Softflare Support 




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