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Re: [lojban] Re: emotions

At 08:50 PM 5/24/03 +1000, Nick Nicholas wrote:

And of course, the obligatory flame:
> Message: 18
>    Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 00:32:13 -0400
>    From: Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>
> Subject: Re: emotions
>
> At 03:28 PM 5/23/03 -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
>>>> What's a dictionary for? :)
>>>>
>>>> http://www.lojban.org/jbovlaste/dict/parji
>>>
>>> Maybe he, like me, refuses to recognize words that are not Lojban.
>>>
>>> BTW, the inclusion of such things in jvovlaste means that I for
>>> one have no particular interest in using the thing.  It cannot be
>>> a standard for the language until the byfy decides to weed out the
>>> garbage.
>>
>> You've just rejected something on the order of 80 man-hours on the
>> basis of a *single* *word*.
>
> It did unfortunately happen to be the first word I've ever looked up.
> I
> can't help it that I feel extreme revulsion when it seems like my 15
> years
> of fighting for a solid baseline, with clear delineation between valid
> and
> invalid usage according to the language prescription, is being
> undermined.

Your issue (on those particular words) is with Abbat, not with Kominek
or Powell. Your solution is to propose a canonical word for parasite,
not to vent revulsion. (And I remind you of our recent discussion on
big and small tents.)


Please review the thread.
Pierre casually mentioned "selparji" as an alternative to a peculiarly Lojbanic application of zdani. 

Robin, who if anyone should know how to use jbovlaste asked "what is selparji".

[At this point I note that "selparji" is NOT defined in jbovlaste.]

Jorge then gave the URL for the dictionary record for parji.
I looked up that URL, knowing that parji is not on the gismu list, and did not notice any bright red flags. 

Clicking on the links on that record I find a page
"Record For Natural Language Word "parasite" In Language English"
which gives parji as the translation with no flags whatsoever.

I fired off a quick, late-night flame.
I went hunting, eventually found the search page, and it responds to parji and parasite both with no indication that it is non-standard, (nor, checking now, can I find the obvious way to get from the search listing to the dictionary record).
I don't view these as things that Robin or Jay did wrong. I think it is premature to dispense with the flat text dictionary file as the quasi-official standard when things are obviously at such a preliminary stage. And if "use the dictionary" means use jbovlaste rather than the flat file, then that jump has already happened. 


>> Go stick your head in a pig.
>
> As a dictionary it is useless to me until the non-standard words are
> excluded.  That presumably will be done by the byfy.

Since it's the only dictionary we really have outside the disparate
wordlists,
The official raw dictionary file is what I have used for years, and I guess I will continue to use. 


and it is not yet standardised anyway, your rejection is
premature. It's certainly more useful than the vapourware dictionary
that LLG never produced.
I find the raw dictionary file more useful, and given what has now come up, more trustworthy. 


And any publication under bpfk auspices of a
dictionary, generated by jbovlaste or not, will be reviewed by the
bpfk. jbovlaste itself (which will continue to exist in the long term)
has its own democratic process of review; this may or may not be a good
or canonical thing, this may or may not fall under bpfk or LLG
auspices, but I trust that the project administrators will issue all
caveats and disclaimers necessary about non-canonical words (as long as
the baseline holds, at least). Jay's involved in it, for heaven's sake.
And by raising the issue, presumably Jay can and will take action if he agrees that disclaimers are needed. 


> Because the policy of
> its use allows standard and non-standard Lojban to be entered as if
> the two
> were equal in value, I strongly question that policy.

Exptals are clearly delimited.


Not from what I could tell.


> It means that
> someone looking up the word for keyword X may get an invalid answer,
> and
> non discriminating users (probably most people) will take that answer
> as
> gospel.

When jbovlaste is closer to being a standard (and of course, jbovlaste
is very much evolving right now in its content), it will be trivial for
the programmers to add a little flag next to any expt'al word that
comes up on lookup. If you think it should right now as a matter of
priority, log a feature request.


I thought that Robin already said once that feature requests can go hang.


Of course, I believe that anyone non-discriminating (that isn't going
to bother to look up the Lojban gloss that comes up, e.g. to check its
place structure) has no business speaking the language. (This will be
viewed as exclusionary, I'm sure.)


Not sure how this is relevant.

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