Re: Panisset

[nsn (Nick Nicholas)]

Logical Language Group stood up, stood up some more, and spoke thus:

>If it looks to be complicated to do the copying, I might as well take the
>job back here.  

No, don't. Way too expensive. I *think* local distribution can still be made
to work. I would like your list of addresses of locals (that Major aluded to),
so I can fish out whether anyone has better guaranteed photocopying, but I
do still think I can get away with it.
>From @PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Feb  9 18:18:04 1993
	id AA16693; Tue, 9 Feb 93 18:17:52 EST
   with BSMTP id 0623; Tue, 09 Feb 93 02:16:49 EST
Date:         Tue, 9 Feb 1993 02:15:50 -0500
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Subject:      GENERAL: language stability and *mo'e
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001

Don't panic because of a message implying that everything is changing.  That
is precisely NOT what is happening.  Indeed, nothing has changed.  There
is a proposal that would add one new cmavo, in the process changing somewhat
the meaning of the cmavo that is currently used in the posited situation
(because someone noticed that in effect it was being used in two unrelated
ways, and hence ambiguously - a no-no in this project).  In order to make
room for that one new cmavo, a third cmavo will likely change to a new
value, but it will be a cmavo that has seen little use (which is the whole
point of moving it from a one syllable to a 2-syllable word).  John Cowan
proposed that the third cmavo actually be deleted, but that proposal has
been opposed.
   Note that I use the word "proposed" throughout the above.  This is still
being discussed.  Lojban List among other things is a forum wherein we can
discuss proposals for changes with the community that would be affected by
them.  It is you people who have the ultimate right to make such decisions,
not me, nor Cowan.  Not all things proposed, even by "Central", are adopted.
In any event, change that has been proposed is not added to the language
until we have a baseline change, which among other things means that new
documents will be available (at least electronically)



(line noise, sorry)

There have been no changes to the grammar since about 1 1/2 years ago because
of the baseline policy.
   ON the other hand, people on Lojban List, who are privy to discussions of
proposals, have a tendency to want to try out proposed new usages.  We hence
see some proposed usages appear in Lojban text on the list.  One of
the things we are going to have to try to do is make sure that anyone who
uses a proposed change, identifies it along with posting his/her text, so
that people who aren;t reading all the messages know that a non-baseline
usage is taking place.
   There is currently a lot of pressure for a new baseline, because the number
of changes since the last baseline have been numerous, even though only 1 or 2
are likely to affect the usage of even the more advanced Lojban student.  We
are trying to hold off on such a new baseline until the dictionary is done,
to avoid an extra documentation update cycle, and to reduce the risk that we
have to hurriedly adopt changes to rebaseline once again for the dictionary
- our current slow change cycle allows us to think and rethink all changes to
make sure that they are what is really needed.  But those changes that have
been proposed (some 28 at last count) ARE still only proposals, and everyone
will know clearly when they take effect.  (I should note that most of those
changes are expansions to the language to reflect something that someone
tried because it made sense, but it was illegal under the grammar - there are
only a couple of CHANGES that are not additions in that set of 28,).
   The other part of the flap, perhaps heightening the tension, though not
emphsized in Nick's message or my response, is the pending rafsi change/b
baseline.  The rafsi  list has never BEEN baselined, though in practice we have
not often considered changes to it.  With the upcoming dictionary, we did a t
thorough reanalysis of the rafsi last JUly and August, and proposed a rather
large set of changes to the community on Lojban List.  Many of those changes
were objected to and were removed from the proposal, though most of them still
remain.  But we have not published the final list for the very reason that
Simon James seems to have focussed on - not everyone in the community has
access to Lojban List (and maybe some do not read it all the time even when
they are subscribing).  Thus, until we can publish the whole set of changes
for everyone, we publish it for no one, so that people's printed documents
stay good enough that the result is understandable.  The set of rafsi changes
IS big, and we decided that re could make such a change only once; thereafter,
the rafsi list will be formally baselined and probably none of the changes
that we proposed would have been adopted in the face of a baseline, since a
baseline among other things imples a commitment to NOT change where change
can be avoided.  We are planning at this point to publish the rafsi changes
in JL18, and they will be posted to the List and the PLS at that time.  (We
also hope to be adding a new archive site with ftp access by then, too.)
  Hopefully, what all of the above convinces people of, is that we are VERY
sensitive to how stable the community feels the language is, and do not make
changes lightly.  Most changes are additions rather than 'changes' in something
already there (the rafsi reanalysis being the major exception in the past 3
years), and changes that actually affect existing usages are especially rare,
and require a serious identified problem to be considered at all.  Indeed, the
set of changes adopted in the 1991 grammar baseline (also around 28, if I
recall) was so unimportant that we never got around to publishing paper copies
of the updated YACC grammar (the changes were listed in JL, however), though
the current baseline is on the PLS.  In spite of this, I believe that
Athelstan's translation of Saki from JL10 still parses under the latest trial
grammar, with something like 4 cmavo changes.  I'm not unhappy with this level
of stability over 3 years of very intensive analysis.

   There may be additional grammar changes proposed from time to time, and
people should respond to them both from the standpoint of their internal
merit, and on how they perceive the change as affecting their view of the
language's stability.  Nick seemed to respond in his message that the proposed
change was OK by the first standard, but that he is starting to get an image
of instability on the language definition.  My responses have been ad hoc
attempts to reassure him and others that we are in no way entering a new
phase of re-examining and changing things already decided, and that rather,
the current proposal is an attempt to reconcile a little conflict between
two of our documents that wasn't noticed until now.

  Hope the above, although written on the fly like the last two messages,
helps clarify the situation somewhat.  I encourage Nick and Simon, and others
who feel nervous about language stability to post those concerns when they
feel them, even when I respond with a rather spastic defense of our policy;
we are listening, and need to know when people feel the changes being proposed
are burdensome, or confusing or ...

lojbab