[bpfk-announce] Re: BPFK

["Matt Arnold" <matt.mattarn@gmail.com>]

This is in response to offlist comments by Lojbab. Bob, I'm sending
this to you and to bpfk-announce; the list was having problems but
tell me if you only receive this through your personal e-mail.

1. Utilizing Me For Busy Work
2. Definition Of "Active" (In This Context For My Purposes)
3. Do We Even Need Recruitment?
4. My Understanding Of What It's For And How It Works
5. Ways Forward

1. Utilizing Me For Busy Work

I need clarification on the difference between writing a proposal for
a section and shepherding it. Is it just being curator for the wiki
page through the wiki interface? Don't worry about it, I'll take care
of it. That's not language design work, that's curator / secretarial.
Leave the wiki editing to me if you want. In addition, I am very happy
to transform formats, transfer content to different mediums and user
interfaces, and perform other curator / archival services for
absolutely any Lojbanist.

I do the same thing for the Penguicon wiki with geeks who refuse to
use that wiki. For the Penguicon Google Calendar and Google
Spreadsheets where we've been getting work done-- there are those who
won't use Google services as a matter of principle. No problem; they
just send me their content and I put it up there. Let it be the same
with you. One of my super powers is that my taste in user interfaces
differs from most *NIX geeks I know, so that my skill sets and theirs
have a complementary lack of overlap. I'm happy to create logins for
myself on a hundred different systems and carry out your wishes.

2. Definition Of "Active" (In This Context For My Purposes)

I consider the ones I hear from _at all_ to be "active people in
Lojban." If you're around at all, I'll be talking to you on a regular
basis about "hey, what have you done for BPFK lately?" You'll be
unable to slack off without being reminded of it. The reminders will
be as regular as you are comfortable with, so you will either
eventually do work or tell me to go away. I even got some of your
phone numbers and mailing addresses at Philcon, which I would use with
your permission, and I'd like more of them. I'd like you to each tell
me the communication method that works best for you and that you are
least capable of ignoring me in. You don't _have_ to take BPFK that
seriously, although I beg you to, but I just want to know the degree
to which each of you will take it seriously.

It's that important. It's really, really important to finish BPFK, as
the foundation for most other things that can by done in the entire
language project. It seems to be somewhat of a bottleneck in which we
are told in many other projects "we're not ready to do this because
we're not sure what a lot of the words mean in sufficient detail." You
each have my intense appreciation for _anything_ you do to move this
forward.

3. Do We Even Need Recruitment?

Although I would like more, I'm not sure yet that the solution is to
get more BPFK commisioners than the ten of you. (Arnt, Jay, John, Bob,
Nora, Pierre, Robin, Jorge, Mark, Theodore.) It could be that we have
all the talent that we need, so long as they will do the work, no
matter how slowly, just so long as it's steady. Further members would
just make consensus more difficult to achieve.

4. My Understanding Of What It's For And How It Works

*deep breath* So far as I can tell, BPFK it is for creating a set of
approved documents. These will contain definitions of all cmavo in
reasonably thorough detail, and correct issues with some gismu where
the existing gismu definitions are insufficient in some way. The pages
will then be published as an alphabetically-ordered reference lookup,
electronically and as an attractive bound paper book with all the
cognitive ergonomics my graphic design skills can provide. (Yeah, I'm
learning LaTeX.)

A "section" is a group of related cmavo needing the above process to be done.

A "proposal" is a document, expanding the understanding of the words
in a section with examples, as thorough as reasonable, of how they can
be used, or offering changes to solve the problems with them, if any.

5. Ways Forward

I propose that "checkpoints" be discarded for now. I would like to
focus on a smaller subset of the language at a time than BPFK has
previously done. I would like everyone to form teams of two or three
to work on a section. Choose someone with whom you have a fairly good
understanding or good ability to attain understanding.

I would like for none of you to be inactive at any given time. Others
will not be inactive, they'll just be on a team for a different
section. I'd like the maximum being worked on at a time to be six
sections total, each with a different team of three or two, or maybe
one person if he has proven himself diligent.

I will keep asking you how close you are to being done with your
section. When you are done, I call a vote on your current section and
the whole BPFK goes and reads it. Inevitably everybody argues. If
suggestions are made that improve the section, the document is changed
and I call a vote again.

If it is a complete gridlock on a clarification/expansion (not a
change to the existing language), what if we do as follows? What if
anyone who argues has to team up with those who agree with them to
write an alternative proposal? If for whatever reason they cannot,
they lose.

- If there only exists one proposal,
- and its opponents consider it less attractive or useful than they would like,
- but at the bare minimum it is pragmatically functional enough to be
speakable and non-contradictory,
- and more than 75% of BPFK members are in favor of it who vote before
the deadline,

... then I give the dissenting coalition an extension within which to
show a good-faith effort to make progress on writing an alternative
proposal. If for whatever reason they cannot, or if progress on
writing their alternative stagnates with no progress for weeks, then I
end their deadline extension and the only existing proposal passes.

A higher burden will be placed on altering part of the language as it
already exists. The existing language feature, if it is acknowledged
to have the bare minimum pragmatic functionality to be speakable in
principle and non-contradictory, will be considered its own "proposal"
and the burden of proof would fall such that the status quo would stay
the same by default.

What do you think?

- Eppcott