From nobody@chain.digitalkingdom.org Wed Dec 20 12:11:48 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:11:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Gx7mX-0001D2-Of for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:11:18 -0800 Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.168]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Gx7mK-0001CZ-Me for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:11:17 -0800 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id m3so2193387uge for ; Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:11:03 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=Z5dzGEigpO64IyWNapjpv5cOHwOcQ8qBbpAofJD9+azZ7ZtwgXhH90PUrl1T1/G1QDuUCFVW3k6jsiPAYsf69PA+1/sW3rxN7Yw9gVEb25GpCtQ2YtQISNlkxKCPuYpChYii5oQ7mfB10vO+qZu8eL/sBw0oCAQVlR3VqiOswhs= Received: by 10.78.181.13 with SMTP id d13mr2261huf.1166645417949; Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:10:17 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.78.144.4 with HTTP; Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:10:17 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:10:17 -0500 From: "Matt Arnold" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: BPFK In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: X-Spam-Score: -2.5 X-Spam-Score-Int: -24 X-Spam-Bar: -- X-archive-position: 13373 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: matt.mattarn@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list I have recently accepted the job of jatna for the baupla fuzykamni (Language Definition Committee). I've been interviewing BPFK members a lot in the past few days. The problems of BPFK are not at all that the commissioners are lazy! They care about it. The lack of work stems largely from disincentives. #1 Few of them are willing to be thorough on a document that won't pass, because that work is seen as going to waste. They don't know the likelihood that this will happen because they can't predict the political will of the community. #2 Several of them don't want to participate in a debate that will be meaningless because the process is weighted in favor of yes votes. They are weighted in favor of yes votes in order to have momentum and move out of doldrums. But a lot of the doldrum is due to these two disincentives! The solution is to know the overall political will of the community, and to have a browsable, accessible map of the various positions so that one's effort at debate won't vanish uselessly into the mists of history. That system has been called an Elephant. For those who are not familiar, please go here for a description: http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Elephant I believe BPFK work needs to be building a Document of Record on the range of expert positions on the issues and the pro and con arguments. Most Lojban enthusiasts will agree a well-defined language (or "debugging", if you will) should be the single most urgent step in the Lojban language project so that all other projects can go forward with confidence of having a firmer foundation. Toward that end, the completion and implementation of the Elephant is the Manhattan Project, the most single urgently-needed tool. I will be happy to take people's positions, sign up on the Elephant with their identity on their behalf, and copy and paste their contributions if they don't want to learn a new system. Please step forward if you have software skills. -Eppcott To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.