Message-Id: <9208221332.AA29424@relay1.UU.NET>
Date: Sat Aug 22 15:04:31 1992
Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.oz.au!nsn
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!LOJBAN>
From: cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.oz.au!nsn
Subject:      Re: Lojban coffeeshop
To: John Cowan <cowan@snark.thyrsus.com>
In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Fri, 21 Aug 92 13:09:31 -0400."
Status: RO

Lojbab:
>I'm going to ask that people not go too far away from the original idea
>without getting their agreement (which I suspect is not too likely), or the
>resentm,ent (already significant) of non-netters toward the domiantion of
>Lojban by net people will grow, which noone wants.

Not that I could supplement Veijo's perceptive response to this (we're hardly
a community, and we're already splintered), but yes, there's resentment on
both sides, and we'll all have to work to smooth that out, to get a unified
Cafe Jbolaz out of this.

>The plan is that there be 1 coffeshop, and that the description be suitably
>refined in English.

Cool. Veijo's navigation of Virtual reality can be done once the description
is in place, and the description should not be exhaustive.

>People will develop refined descriptions of 6 characters
>(or some other number if we abandon the 6 cultures idea - but I don't think
>you can have a 'cultureless person' and have the character detail that I think
>the others want in the shared characters)

I think it's perfectly possible, but then, I think we're also looking for
different things in character definition. What maketh a Hindi speaking
character? I know personally 3 native Hindi speakers: two Engineering
students and a Law student, one from Fiji, one from Singapore, one local.
Now what do I extract from them to create, say, la jbosanjiv. , and
what am I mising by virtue of the fact that I talk with these people in
English, within an Anglo culture? If these characters aren't assimilated
into some medium we're familiar with (regrettably or not, this'll have to
be a more or less anglo cultural medium --- leave the "or less" part to
us na'e glico) they'll be caricatures. And of course, as background, they
don't have to be that detailed anyway.

If we're to avoid a palace coup, sure, keep them Hindi and Arabic in name;
but don't expect the character description to be too adamant about their
cultural identity. Exoticising these people is unsatisfactory. They *will*
be somewhat assimilated, into be it merko or jbomerko. This is nothing
to be ashamed of. Talking about the Arab's fiery temperament or the
Russian's cool intellect as cultural traits would be.

>If people think they can develop interesting culture-free characters, I for
>one will await the first posted character description meeting the challenge.

I'm going to get back to you on that one... I suppose what we all need is
a character description we can shoot down, otherwise I don't think any
of us really know what (concretely) we are talking about.