From lojbab@lojban.org Mon Jan 02 16:33:31 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Mon, 02 Jan 2006 16:33:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from eastrmmtao06.cox.net ([68.230.240.33]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Eta7A-0007F8-Je for llg-board@lojban.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2006 16:33:29 -0800 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (really [24.250.99.39]) by eastrmmtao06.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.05.02 201-2131-123-102-20050715) with ESMTP id <20060103003056.SHGN9108.eastrmmtao06.cox.net@[127.0.0.1]> for ; Mon, 2 Jan 2006 19:30:56 -0500 Message-ID: <43B9C64B.5050805@lojban.org> Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:33:15 -0500 From: Robert LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: llg-board@lojban.org Subject: [llg-board] Re: Two organizations References: <20051219070640.GB3514@ccil.org> <43AB97DF.8030703@lojban.org> <20051226195753.GB5289@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <20060102042644.GJ4087@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <20060102173819.GL29659@miranda.org> In-Reply-To: Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 58 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board Matt Arnold wrote: > By the way, a google search for "up to the elephant's belly" returned > no matches. What does it mean? It is a longstanding Lojbanic cultural phenomenon to reference the poem/tale The Blind Men and the Elephant with regard to individuals deciding what Lojban is or should be. (At one time I had made some progress on translating the poem, but I lost what I did, probably into the maw of the archives, as with much of my old translation efforts.) >>>We can better spend our time on things that the LLG itself will do. >>>After all, we're the LLG board, and we're beholden to its members. >>>Not the future-members of another organization, even if they are a >>>superset of our own members. >> >>Yes, I agree. > > There is a good reason that I have been discussing Arnt's proposal > with the LLG before going straight to the beginners-list and > lojban-list. This organization, if it is to bear any resemblance to > the International Esperanto Association, I don't think that is what others have in mind. LLG corresponds to the UEA. The new group corresponds to the rather disorganized community of Esperantists that identify themselves as such but are NOT voting members of any formal organization - that group is MUCH larger than the UEA. The UEA, and the Esperanto groups of the various countries (ELNA is the one in the USA, I think), are much like LLG - they are registered or incorporated legal groups that operate like businesses. They have to be. Handling money incurs legal obligations on the part of those who do that money handling, and usually also incurs tax obligations unless you've made arrangements to be tax-free. Multi-national organizations have an even harder time, since they have do be responsive to the laws of all the countries in which they officially operate. This is why LLG, while in principle an international organization, is pragmatically a Virginia corporation. It is simply beyond our scope to set up a multi-national legal organization, and I doubt that there are enough Lojbanists interested in organizational matters to make such a thing viable. > would take over authorities > and responsibilities previously assigned to the LLG, such as > publishing books, organizing Logfest, and the www.lojban.org wiki. The new organization would have NO "responsibilities" per se, in that "responsibility" implies some legal commitment, and thus inevitably a legal organization. Rather, it would have spheres of activity which would be associated with it, and not with LLG (and indeed LLG will officially be hands-off). Those spheres would be the areas where the community and LLG agree believe that decisions should be made by those actually using the language. > Jay > noticed this immediately, and I noticed it too. Arnt, the link to the > International Esperanto Association came from you. Is that what you > intended? > > May I be frank? So long as we keep the language definition and > development firmly within the control of the LLG through BPFK, maybe > we need to give up one or two of those other functions to a larger, > more representative -- and more active -- democratic body. If it is larger and more representative, it will not necessarily be more active, because most Lojbanists are NOT "active" and aren't inclined to become so. At this point, I will pass along Nora's observation, even though she is not on the Board: In many ways we already have this "other" organization, and indeed several "other" organizations. There is the Lojban List membership, the beginners list membership, the "membership" of those signed up who work on the wiki, the "membership" of those who participate on IRC, the quasi-"membership" who may be working on translations largely in ignorance of anyone else who is, and eventually the "membership" of the MOO. Indeed any other Lojbanic activity where a) participation is entirely voluntary and self-selected and b) there is some sense of shared community among those doing that activity has a "membership". Bob: What there is *not* is an umbrella organization that is associated with all of these various informal opt-in activities, that people can voluntarily join and thereby feel that they are a serious *member* of something. "Membership" is thus an expression of community solidarity, and it is something different than mere "interest" or the orthogonal "support". In the absence of such an organization, people have presumed that joining the membership of LLG is the way to express that commitment. (They also wonder why others who are NOT actively doing something with the language are also "members" of LLG - they don't feel any sense of community with them). (Many) active Lojbanists seem to want to be able to say "I am a member of XXX", and have XXX acknowledge them as members, communicate to them as something distinct from others who are not members, and feel some sense that they control or guide XXX. At one time, we could have said that Lojban List served this function; but nowadays, there are too many activities and no one can keep up with all of them. Before we became so Internet-focused, JL subscription served this function. The concept of Ju'i Lobypli was to be a mouthpiece of communication to this larger "membership" and if JL was being actively published, its subscription list could be called the "membership". le lojbo karni's subscription list was defined as those who were not "members" in this sense, but who had "interest" in the language. In a Lojbanic world that was NOT completely centered on the Internet (something Nora and I would like to see), I would urge the return of this association. XXX would produce JL and publish it online to its membership (and people could subscribe to a printed-and-mailed copy via LLG). (LLG could again separately produce a short LK for people who were interested, but NOT active in the language.) JL would let people know what is going on in the various XXX projects/activities, perhaps try to recruit people to get involved, and of course have at least some sections of actual language teaching and usage. (hmm, perhaps not all that different from Matt's podcasts, but in a form not limited to one medium). Differing from Arnt, I think that JL at this point should have two sections, perhaps one entirely in Lojban, and one that isn't. At some point an all-Lojban regular publication will be viable, but we can't yet manage regular publication in any language, and JL needs to be regular in order to be a community organ. (I could envision there being a JL editor and a separate JL-Lojban editor, such that the former would build regular issues around the latter, with all-Lojban publication either becoming the norm or spinning off into a separate regular publication when in fact regularity has been achieved.) (It is not clear whether JL would be published by XXX or published by LLG *for* the members of XXX. I am inclined towards the latter - we want JL to be a publication that is *committed* to coming out regularly and everything I have described about XXX is entirely opt-in without commitments. The writing of material for most material for JL would be an XXX activity, and the JL-Lojban section could be an XXX function. If at some point XXX was sufficiently coherent to be able to produce stuff regularly, it could take formal control of JL. But in fact I don't think it needs formal control, since the essence of XXX is informality. In the context I have been describing, one thing that And Rosta wanted was the ability to set up a group within XXX that could explore UNOFFICIAL language variations with others who shared his point of view (not that I think there are many who do) - his ultimate goal may be a Lojban-mod-2. LLG can't easily be supporting unofficial language variations and also be promoting a language standard. byfy by contrast is supposed to be a formal project, something which in theory if not in practice people cannot just opt in to. It has a set list of those who can vote on proposals, and in an ideal world, that group would be diligently working to get the task done at a higher priority than other Lojbanic activities, because unlike the typical opt-in Lojbanic effort, they made a commitment to be involved in byfy, and were appointed by the jatna based on recognition of their commitment along with their skill in the language. (My perception of what we actually have had is mostly Jorge debating with pycyn, where Jorge is a byfy member and pycyn is not a member, has said he doesn't want to be a member, and Robin doesn't want him to be a member, but he is still more active in byfy discussions than any byfy member besides Jorge and maybe Robin himself - I think that the open debate has hurt byfy participation by overwhelming others who feel an obligation to try follow what everyone else is doing or risk being left out. This is a microcosm of the larger XXX community where some people feel excluded because they miss out on what is happening on IRC.) When the baseline gets done, whatever succeeds byfy as the standards group for the language will in fact hopefully be smaller in membership and much more focused, and importantly - much more formal. And with anything that smacks of formality or legality or business, that is clearly something for LLG to manage, even if those who are on the byfy successor will undoubtedly be selected from those most active in XXX. Given what I have described, if there is a formal charter for XXX, it is one that LLG will have to create and approve, because formal voting is precisely what XXX is NOT supposed to be about. The charter has to be written in a way such that people who are signing up to be members of the XXX community are signing up based on their agreement with that charter. To sign up and THEN vote is a chicken-egg scenario, so XXX cannot write its own charter, since it has no one to vote on the rules for voting. It is not practical for a group of individuals to create a charter and set up XXX with no involvement from LLG because LLG is seen by the community as the voice of "official" Lojban. Without our explicit endorsement, XXX would be seen as a splinter group, which likely would be a self-fulfilling label. At this point, XXX needs to be under the LLG umbrella in order to have legitimacy, and to keep the "movement" united. However as an informal group with opt-in membership it will (hopefully) eventually be much larger than LLG. It may at some point need to have a formal structure of its own simply to be coherent, but I don't think it needs one now - if XXX has any elected officers, they will have no duties, because XXX is at this point orthogonal to duties. Note that in this context, "voting rights" are meaningless, because the organization has nothing it HAS to vote on. Someone is a member because they say they want to be a member. If necessary we could say that someone's membership automatically "times out" and ceases if they participated in no activities whatsoever. I want to avoid connecting membership with dues or anything financial, because the moment you get money involved, you get legal responsibility involved, you basically have replicated LLG. Better to have XXX have a mechanism to invoke a request for funding from LLG, and have LLG handle the finances. (LLG can have a special fund for supporting XXX activities and XXX can solicit member contributions to that fund, but financial contribution should not be a requirement for membership). (I do see there being a role for "voting" on issues as opposed to policy. The community can express a group opinion. But commitments to implement opinions takes legal entities.) > That's not doing nothing. Creating publications is doing something. > I'm thinking along the same lines but larger, to include every type of > potential venue for communicating in Lojban. > > - organizing Logfest. Organizing a Lojbanic gathering can be done by anyone. What made Logfest special was that it was "official" and the fact that it was connected to the "official meeting" was the draw for more than half of the attendees, as evidenced by the falloff in attendance since the annual meeting was separated from LogFest. I would like to see Logfests in all areas of the country (world?) AS WELL a national and eventually international gathering. But I for one am not likely to travel to gatherings out of the local area unless I have some other reason to be going there - that is one reason why I like the idea of hooking the main Logfest up to a major SF convention - it gives people some other reason to come besides Lojban (as well as eliminating the extra logistics involved in not holding it at my house, logistics that no one wants to work on), and at this point without the annual meeting, we need something to draw people. For most people the cost of travel and hotel and meals is itself too much. The growing part of the Lojban community is still largely the domain of "poor, starving students". And then there are people like me who have their own kids in college. > - scheduling phone chats. > - scheduling IRC meetups. > - creating and administering the Lojban MOO and roleplaying micronation. > - chartering branch clubs such as the one here in Detroit, and the > potential one in California. Again, each of these things can be done by individuals. XXX is merely an umbrella for such individual activities to bring them to the attention of others - key to such attention focusing is a means to bring them to the attention of the community, whether it be JL, Lojban List, or my own preference of a generic announcement list (we actually made one of those, but no one ever subscribed or posted any announcements) that would be closed to discussion. > Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. I started a weekly > Monday-night gathering at a local restaurant. It's as informal as you > can get without dissolving completely. We have no charter. No mission > statement. No membership roll. Only one thing: show up at the same > time and place. Sounds excellent. I think a charter is useful for saying what it is the organization is trying to do. But it doesn't need to have much "organization". > And yet! And yet! You would not believe how much formal organization > and voting goes into showing up at the same time and place! No > incorporation or committee of a half dozen people can decree the time > and place and expect the attendees to be available for it. So it is > with meetings through IRC, VoIP and Logfest. Precisely why LLG needs to shed most of its inactive "voting" membership who really belong as members of XXX. >>I would definitely describe people who promote Lojban on SF conventions as >>"activists". :-) > > Point taken. I prefer "lojbangelist". At which point you will seriously drive away those people who resent evangelism. I have promoted Lojban, but would NEVER use a word like that precisely to avoid all the bad connotations. But LLG shouldn't care what individuals call themselves, if they are clearly speaking for themselves and not for LLG. XXX needs to avoid situations whereby people speak for the group rather than themselves. lojbab