The comment provided with this paper seems to be potentially defamatory.

I think comments of this type should not be allowed on eprint. What do others think?

I note that the comment has now been changed...

The comment may have been changed, but if the defamatory clause you had in mind was that regarding the rejection at SASC 2007, then IMHO the defamatory tone is still there (besides, I thought rejection was usually decided by the PC reviewers, not the chair).

O'Neil has also been very rude to me through a sockpuppet account on Wikipedia. See also his behaviour in the SASC forums.

mscott, if you were referring to a statement that the chair published the same results under his name (see the 2nd version 20070927:155650), then this could be defamatory. eprint is not a good place to allege plagiarism, its function should mainly be to distribute research quickly. a ban on such allegations, however, might be too much of a nuissance for the eprint editors to enforce?

I have just noticed this thread. Although the situation was quite upsetting to me, I must agree with the above comments. I have changed the note. I should have done it earlier. The whole thing has since been directed up the right channels anyway. I sincerely apologize if I have upset or offended anyone personally.

Best regards,
Sean O'Neil
[defectoscopy.com] - comparing apples with oranges