RE: [lojban] Re: a new kind of fundamentalism

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

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