Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 12:53:00 -0500
From: lojbab@grebyn.com (Logical Language Group)
Message-Id: <9302171753.AA05930@daily.grebyn.com>
To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU
Subject: Re: temporary absense from net
X-Mozilla-Status: 0011

I choose to leave John out of some of my cc's, but he does sometimes get on
my account on grebyn and read my incoming, even when I don't explicitly relay
to him (it is after all an LLG account, not my personal one), so I never
really count on privacy.  My intent was to indictae that I had bnot consulted
with him before telling you what I did, and I may or may not be reading his
attitude correctly.

Guy Steele dropped Lojban List a few months ago, but I suspect that it was lack
of time, not interest.  He met with Athelstan and Nora and me when we went to 
Boston in '89 and also did a review on JCB's last edition of L1.  I haven't
heard from him, but he may be another casualty of "The Books - Stupid!"
syndrome.  Lojban List has been slowly losing people the last year, because
people not actively interested in reading text and advanced discussions like
we've had at times get no lighter stuff to attract them.  (At one time Cowan
could be counted on for occasional tidbits of lightweight linguistic info
and anecdotes and examples, but not since he took on responsibility for 
doing everything that Lojbab isn't doing, as he seems to.  He no longer wants
to write the occasional gratuitious advertisement on Linguist list or sci.lang
either - the piece that answers some question, but giving further the Lojban
perspective on that question.  Probably 1/3 of our mailing list has come from
such netvertisements.)

Another "name", though less visible, is Andrew Koenig, who I'm told is a big
C++ guru.  I know little about him, but he has been a steady low-key supporter
since the beginning (as has Guy Steele).  I understand that Chip Salzenburg
is a net.personality of note, but I don't know if this extends to professional
esteem.  he is also a supporter.

If "Basic Lojban" is a subset of the full language, I agree and favor it as a
pedagogical tool at least.  Trying to identify such a subset would be difficult.

I do not expect your paper to be the same as Cowan's or mine.  This may or may
not mean that some reworking is necessary for flow, etc. when they appear in 
a book with other things (your writing style differs from mine, and people
including me find it dense at times - but then mine can be too for others).
But you by far more than anyone else have thought about the place structure 
issue (from an orthodox point of view as well as from a jimc point of view)
and hence are the person to set down a basic doctrine for people to shoot
arrows at (as well as the person to explain just what you did in assembling 
the lujvo place structures that you did).

lojbab