From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Oct 05 12:52:38 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_2_0); 5 Oct 2002 19:52:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 92894 invoked from network); 5 Oct 2002 19:52:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 5 Oct 2002 19:52:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao01.cox.net) (68.1.17.244) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 5 Oct 2002 19:52:37 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao01.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20021005195237.PPVM1310.lakemtao01.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Sat, 5 Oct 2002 15:52:37 -0400 Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20021005154636.0324bec0@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2002 15:54:59 -0400 To: "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: a new kind of fundamentalism In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.0.20021003113205.031bfec0@pop.east.cox.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 16419 At 05:32 PM 10/5/02 +0100, And Rosta wrote: > > In the absence of the Elephant, I think that the jboske debates are best > > conducted by creating a pseudo-elephant using the wiki. Perhaps Jay could > > create a template based on the Elephant example in the wiki, and an > > Elephant section of the wiki, and people wanting to debate jboske issues > > could start to fill in the template for each issue. When we have the > > Elephant done, such information can probably be transferred into the > > software without much work. > >I'm not sure how much of a priority it is. There was a time 12-18 months >ago when I felt there was a crying need for it. Now it would merely be >helpful, rather than the preserver of sanity it would have been 12-18 >months ago. There is still a crying need for it, because the bottom line is that I doubt that 10% of list subscribers read the jboske messages thoroughly enough to understand if/when something has been learned. You said elsewhere that much is learned from the discussion, but it seems like it is only learned by those participating in the discussion, which means that the others who use the language never find out. The discussion thus arguably has no effect at all on usage (and therefore on the actual language) except insofar as the few participating in the discussion eventually use something from the discussion in their Lojban. The advantage I see to the Elephant is that it records each issue in a structured manner so someone can come along later and see whether anything was resolved. (Now maybe my concept of the elephant is not everyone else's, but that is what I would use it for). > > But what is really needed for the rest of us, is what pc was originally > > doing with his "records" - creating a short summary of what was debated > and > > the conclusions that were reached, perhaps with an example. (pc's records > > at one point started to become contentious enough that they restarted the > > debate, which is I think when he stopped writing them, so records will > only > > work for issues on which consensus has been achieved, or where there are > > clear options that can be described with the annotation of "agree to > > disagree". > >As I have since suggested in another message, a better way to go, >I think, would be to put statements of particular positions and >proposals on wiki pages initially under a Contentious Grammatical >Issues heading, and then subsequently, if agreement is reached, >under a Resolved Grammatical Issues heading. That sounds like an informal version of the Elephant. But I would suggest abiding by our non-standard distinction between "grammar" and "semantics". Any discussion of semantics is not a "grammatical issue" - the Lojban grammar is baselined and frozen and semantics discussions do not affect that baseline. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org