From dlb@patriot.net Wed Sep 22 15:39:59 2010 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-members); Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:39:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp.patriot.net ([209.249.176.77]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1OyXyl-0006hz-Ul for llg-members@lojban.org; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:39:59 -0700 Received: from www.patriot.net (webmail.patriot.net [209.249.176.31]) (Authenticated sender: dlb) by smtp.patriot.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 465BAF5808C for ; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:39:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from 70.26.86.37 (SquirrelMail authenticated user dlb) by www.patriot.net with HTTP; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:39:49 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <60023.70.26.86.37.1285195189.squirrel@www.patriot.net> In-Reply-To: <4C9A6079.4040408@lojban.org> References: <4C97E2AD.5060500@lojban.org> <4C97EE1F.2080901@gmail.com> <4C9A6079.4040408@lojban.org> Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:39:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [llg-members] Re: 2010 Annual Meeting - byfy From: dlb@patriot.net To: llg-members@lojban.org User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.9a MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-archive-position: 976 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: dlb@patriot.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-members@lojban.org X-list: llg-members > The Board does **want** the sense of the membership as to > 1) whether they think this is the sort of thing LLG should spend its > limited money on, > 2) whether paying for work that has generally been done by volunteers > will discourage others from volunteering (or encourage others to ask for > money for their work, which then gets us back to the "limited money" > question. > 3) what sort of qualifications should there be for being paid for such > work > > and other considerations of that sort. OK, my 2 cents of non-sense: 1) I can see nothing better than to spend money to move forward on language issues. Volunteer effort can only go so far; we are reaching or have past that point. 2) I have been on standardization committees for the IEEE for most of my three decades of professional life. They have gone from wholly volunteer to partially paid. I have found that paying for someone to do the grunt work and therefore expose issues has galvanized volunteer effort, not the other way around. Life in the 21st century is rapidly coming to be constrained, not by money or by communications, but by time. No one has time enough to do everything we want to do. If the things that hold the effort can be accomplished and allow people to do the parts they love, then I think things will keep on going (see Robin's note about his own loathing of accounting, which I heartily share). 3) The only qualifications should be the ability to do the tasks and the willingness to do them for the pittance we can afford. I am happy to leave this up to the people involved. I don't think we should burn our entire budget on contractors, but I also don't think that will be a problem. What we should *not* allow is ourselves to be artificially constrained by rules about where our money should go. The money should go where it can best further the work, and I for one trust the Board to be able to determine that. Stupid or spendthrift people don't get involved with this project. Dave Barton