From lojbab@lojban.org Tue Oct 16 09:41:44 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-members); Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:41:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eastrmmtao102.cox.net ([68.230.240.8]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IhpUD-0006n3-Vk for llg-members@lojban.org; Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:41:44 -0700 Received: from eastrmimpo02.cox.net ([68.1.16.120]) by eastrmmtao102.cox.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.01 201-2186-121-102-20070209) with ESMTP id <20071016164132.XLW3884.eastrmmtao102.cox.net@eastrmimpo02.cox.net> for ; Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:41:32 -0400 Received: from [127.0.0.1] ([72.192.234.183]) by eastrmimpo02.cox.net with bizsmtp id 14hV1Y00P3y5FKc0000000; Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:41:31 -0400 Message-ID: <4714EA1F.7030303@lojban.org> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:43:11 -0400 From: Bob LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: llg-members@lojban.org Subject: [llg-members] Re: LLG AGM 2007: The Most Common Word In The Language References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 420 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-members@lojban.org X-list: llg-members Matt Arnold wrote: > Here are two points in favor of pro-xorlo action. Here is the first one. > > Lojbab has questioned whether we need new language learners when BPFK > is incomplete. We do. That is *not* what I said. I said that "recruiting is of low importance". The language is arguably in a beta-test mode. There are people who like to be involved in such processes, and we accept them and value them. But they are a small minority of our target audience. >They will ignore 99% of that incompleteness. Nora and my experience for over 20 years has been that the vast majority of our audience will not attempt to learn and use the language if they think it is likely to be changed, and that if they get involved and then things change, they are likely to give up and drop out. My strong commitment to the baseline scheme derives from this history of people dropping out in response to changes. It is merely the perception of change that is sufficient to cause this effect. > And yet I do not need 99% of the work of the BPFK in order to enjoy my > participation, or in order to do contribute social capital to this > project. ... > The other 1% is xorlo. I use it and need it because I happen to > personally find pre-xorlo gadri nearly useless to communication. Robin is the only one who has commented on my (non-xorlo) public statement, and his questions seemed to be on my lujvo, and not on my gadri. Apparently gadri choices don't interfere so much with communication as you assert. I will accept that one's confidence in using the language depends on whether one thinks they understand the feature that they are using. >When > a new learner (who, I hope we have established, is not useless to us) > begins, virtually the first thing they encounter will be gadri. In > practical terms they are functionally illiterate without gadri. And in practical terms they will communicate quite effectively even if they get them wrong. The nuances of gadri choices aren't that important for most communication. One can compare with "the", which is the most common word of English. Yet English learners who misuse or even omit "the" are usually understood just fine. > Given that you appreciate my participation, consider the harmful > effect of turning off new Eppcotts. The kind of people who are willing > to ignore BPFK but for whom gadri is a dealbreaker. I don't wish to turn off *any* potential Lojbanist, but your argument is a non-starter. ANY feature could be a "dealbreaker" for a potential Lojbanist, no matter how common that feature comes up in usage. You are talking about aesthetics, especially when referring to new people who don't have a sense of the history of how we got to where we are. I sincerely doubt that a tiny fraction of potential Lojbanists have been turned off by the current gadri design as compared to, say, the rafsi/lujvo-making scheme, or even the la-in-names problem, and there is no reason to believe that the Eppcotts of the world will be focused on the gadri and not on the lujvo or the names. > That is what's in it for me in supporting BPFK. I need you to get what > you want, so that I can get what I want. What I am suggesting in this > email is that this is a symbiosis, and that you need me to get what I > want, so you can get what you want. That sounds much like the tit-for-tat horsetrading that you are accusing me of advocating in your second point. > Here is the second point. > > You have heard the argument that the BPFK needs to consider every > change all at once, as a group, so that they can say "you can have > your way in this part of the language if I can have my way in that > part of the language". Which is more or less what you said above with your "symbiosis" argument. > The mistake is putting together gadri with obscure words as if they > were bargaining chips of equal value. The value of the chips will vary with the negotiator, and is not fixed. Likewise, the obscurity of the words varies with the language user. I suspect that my recently posted text used a lot of things that you find obscure, but it was perfectly natural to me. > The most important words at the beating heart of the language are {lo} > and {le}. No. They may be the most common words, but they aren't the most "important". Some sort of gadri is needed for the grammatical function, but it is arguable that if the language had only one gadri, the language would still work more-or-less the same. > If someone wishes to dispute that absolute claim, feel free > to soften it; it cannot be softened enough to make a serious > difference to the outcome. The BPFK is also working on a lot of > obscure words which are trinkets by comparison. I suspect that, in many cases, the words are obscure precisely because they have never been well-defined. > Anyone who has done actual negotiation knows that to win, You appear to have JCB's concept of negotiation (and politics) - that the goal is to "win". In consensus politics, the *sole* goal is to achieve consensus. There are no losers and no winners if consensus is achieved (alternatively, everyone is a winner). And on byfy, as well as when I was President of LLG, I do not negotiate for myself and my own interests, but for the whole community. If I had wanted to "win", I would have done something other than start working on Lojban. > you have to know what the other person wants and withhold it until you get what > you want. All someone has to do to get their way with every obscure > word is threaten to withdraw support from xorlo. In which case no consensus is achieved and everyone loses. There is too much pressure on byfy to achieve results for that to be acceptable. And you make the presumption that every supporter of every position on every obscure word feels equally strongly to how you feel about xorlo. > Then, after BPFK work > is done and deliberation on the full baseline begins, they could get > their way on the entire bulk of it by holding hostage the one part > that is the most important to the entire Lojban community. They could in theory. But would anyone want the condemnation that would accompany such a stance? This is not like a jury, the only other experience most people have with formal consensus politics. Jury deliberations are secret. byfy negotiations aren't. There is provision for a hung jury; LLG has no such provision. Even with these limitations, we still trust the unanimous jury system more than we do any alternatives. > As a member of the Board of Directors of the Logical Language Group, > to respect the BPFK's eleven-to-zero current tally in favor of xorlo, If you force me to vote no on xorlo merely to make that statement wrong, I will do so, even though I am likely to accept xorlo in the long run. > to respect the existing usage of the active part of the Lojban > community, I guess that is a difference between us. I don't respect "existing usage" more than I do "past usage", and I am more interested in "future usage" which I hope will make present and past seem infinitesimal in quantity and importance. lojbab