[lojban-beginners] Re: the black hole of keyworditis, was Re: confusing gismus

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

mungojelly@ixkey.info wrote:
>  From the perspective of Lojban as a whole, though, that is somewhat  
> peripheral.  What's centrally important is the meanings of the gismu.   
> That's the heart & soul of the language; everything else is just an  
> empty frame until it's filled with the semantic qualities of those  
> words.  Right now the heart & soul of Lojban is trickling constantly  
> down the black hole, and [pe'isai] it's time for us to plug the drain.

I have long reiterated that the keywords were NOT definitions, and were 
never intended to be.  They were designed to be short and unique for 
typing into LogFlash when memorizing the words.  The place structures 
are key, and when there are semantic issues not resolved by the place 
structures, we intended that they be explained in the notes at the end 
of each gismu entry out beyond column 160.

But since the concept of baselining, which originally was intended to be 
only the words and the keywords, has been applied to the entire file, we 
currently have no official mechanism to record clarifications.  I got 
chewed out by the community for making minor changes to the file on my 
own authority around 10-12 years ago, and so far as I know, no one has 
had the authority to make changes since then.

I presume that there are unofficial collections of semantic 
clarifications of gismu somewhere in the wikispace, but I don't do 
anything involving online editing if I can help it, so I have little 
idea what is in the wikispace.  But that is where I think such things 
should be for now.  Eventually, if byfy can finish its more important 
work, it can look at editorial clarifications of the gismu list.

lojbab