[lojban] Re: bpfk vs jbovlaste

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 08:32 PM 5/24/03 +1000, Nick Nicholas wrote:
>Another diplomatic success, I see. :-1/2

At my current level of stress, both Lojbanic and non-Lojbanic, diplomacy is 
not going to be my strong point.  I used myself up on the debate over And's 
request.

>Look, I have nothing but contempt for exptal gismu (as distinct from
>exptal cmavo), and my vote on any dictionary produced under bpfk
>auspices would be to either leave them out, or include heavy
>disclaimers and canonical alternatives. And I'm reasonably confident
>that peer pressure from other Lojbanists will be the most effective way
>of policing this.

Therefore I posted, in order to provide peer pressure.  After all, Pierre's 
post to which I was responding in no way suggested that the word was 
non-standard, and simply said "use the dictionary".

The problem is that jvovlaste is not (yet) an official dictionary, but it 
is clear that people are already starting to treat it as one, and the 
general bent of people is that "if it is in the dictionary, it is correct".

This is why I've always made sure that anything unofficial was NEVER mixed 
with official stuff, and that separation has broken down.  I can't fault 
Robin or Jay, since as you say, they did not originally design it as an 
official tool.

But you (and they) will recall that I objected back then PRECISELY because 
I knew that it was inevitable with the excellent work that Jay does (then 
exemplified by the wiki), that people would come to consider jbovlaste 
official whether it was endorsed or not.  (Curnow's jbofi'e has had the 
same result such that people are ignoring the official parser in favor of 
Curnow's.)

>But jbovlaste was not initially intended to be an arm of the bpfk, and
>the bpfk is nowhere near undertaking any review of it. Furthermore,
>those seditious, baseline-undermining souls who have been entering
>exptal gismu have nonetheless had the courtesy to clearly label them as
>such -- for which I am grateful.

If you use the search engine for either "parasite" or "parji", what come up 
gives no indication that the word is non-standard, and that is the way I 
suspect that most people will use a dictionary.  I went back to Jorge's 
message saying we should use the dictionary and giving a specific URL, and 
I notice that there is a line saying "experimental gismu" in the 
"dictionary record", but I didn't notice it then, and it isn't exactly 
highlighted.

>If you don't understand the difference
>between experimental gismu and canonical gismu when looking up a
>dictionary, you have no business using the dictionary in the first
>place.

That's fine to say, but Pierre did not say that, and Jorge at least among 
those who have criticized me, have pointed out that "not using the 
dictionary" has already become almost a non-option, because stuff is 
entered in there that will be used by Lojbanists that no other source has.

>(What the hell, do we think people will be using jbovlaste
>successfully without first understanding such basic concepts?

Yes.

>That beginners will be using the dictionary before they read its preface?)

I just did, and I was a raw beginner in using jbovlaste.  The URL did not 
point to the preface, and I have no idea if there is one, or where it is.

I know of almost no one who reads a preface to a dictionary before using 
it.  The word "dictionary" seems to mean "solid gold reference on What Is 
Right(tm)" to most people.

Robin posted a URL a few weeks ago for a help file, which does not address 
the issue in any obvious way (I didn't expect it to, but I just 
checked).  Most people look at help files when they are confused.

>And the bottom line is, if people want canonical expressions for
>'parasite', they have to propose them to jbovlaste, and give people a
>canonical alternative.

Only if jbovlaste is official, which you just said it wasn't yet.

>The bpfk in my view has the same task with
>Jorge's non-baseline usages. I think Jorge is damaging Lojban by
>deviating from the baseline, but if I am to combat this legitimately, I
>need to provide Jorge with baseline-compatible alternatives, so that he
>can say what he legitimately needs to say. Right now, the onus is on
>the fundamentalist, not the revisionist, to prove that the baseline
>version of the language really is as expressive as the revisionists
>want it to be.

jbovlaste cannot document both the fundamentalist version and the 
revisionist version in one document, such that the typical user will not 
see all entries as being the same version.

>If you don't like parji on jbovlaste, saying jbovlaste is useless is
>not going to be particularly effective.

"Peer pressure", as you put it.

>Jay has done the right thing by cordoning off experimental qua experimental;

But it isn't cordoned off.  The words show up with nary a red flag.

>we know what status that
>confers, and we will decide what that will mean for any future
>publications, and to what extent the LLG polices canonicity or not in
>its publications.

We decided that - it's in the baseline policy statement.

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



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