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Re: [lojban] The CLL, Community Efforts, and An Apology From The Board



Those all sound like pretty reasonable things to me, albeit a teensy
bit premature.

The next step is to get the current HTML/OpenOffice version into
DocBook.  I've no idea what's going on there; please talk to Remo at
rdentato@gmail.com , or join the #cll IRC channel on freenode.

-Robin

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 04:58:25PM -0600, Alan Post wrote:
> Having access to the DocBook format of the CLL will be extremely
> beneficial to me.  I have wanted to add annotation, reword passages
> I found confusing, and in general have some way of working with it
> that allowed me to track my changes against a baseline.
> 
> Thank you for doing this, I look forward to building on this work.
> 
> As a small gesture to reciprocate, and to serve as an example of the
> sort of thing I immediately mean, pg. 79 of .i la lojban. mo
> contains a translation error:
> 
> http://lojban.org/publications/level0/brochure/comp.html
> 
> do     [cu]    na'e sutra tavla        mi      [vau]
> You are an other-than-quick talker (or) You are a slow talker.
> 
> do      [cu]    sutra na'e tavla        mi      [vau]
> You are quickly other-than-talking (or) You are doing something
> other-than-talking, quickly.
> 
> I believe both of these translations fail to account for the mi in
> the x2 place of the bridi.
> 
> I know you're not talking about .i la lojban. mo in your text
> below, but there are a small number of little things of this sort
> in the CLL as well.  When you are trying to learn, a little missed
> detail like that can really interfere with understanding.
> 
> I would like to help on this project, and I have a specific edit I
> would like to lobby for:  I have trouble navigating the CLL based
> on chapter names, because the metaphors don't resonate with me.  I
> wolud like to use the space available to improve the literal
> description of what the chapter covers.
> 
> I'd like the opportunity to make a formal proposal on that topic,
> and am happy to trade the ability to make a proposal for doing other
> non-controversial work.
> 
> As I thumb through my copy of the book, I'd really like to improve
> some of the tables as well.  The one that compares letterrals to
> letter words specifically grabs my attention as something that could
> look much nicer.
> 
> May I help?  What would be the next step in helping? 
> 
> -Alan
> 
> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 03:14:06PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > I am speaking officially on behalf of the LLG board in this email.
> > 
> > Since it's this mail that got the ball rolling again, I'll quote it
> > before my reply:
> > 
> > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 03:46:14PM +0200, Remo Dentato wrote:
> > > 2010/3/30 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> > > 
> > > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 3:14 AM, Remo Dentato
> > > > <rdentato@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > BTW, I'm still waiting for an answer on wheter I could put the
> > > > > PDF of the revised copy of CLL on the wiki. It has been months
> > > > > now and I don't even know if the they met and deliberated on
> > > > > the matter.
> > > >
> > > > Who did you ask? I don't see any objections arising as long as
> > > > you label it correctly. In any case, if there is some objection,
> > > > the worse that could happen is that it gets removed, so just put
> > > > it there, that's what a wiki is for, you don't ask for
> > > > permission for everything.
> > >
> > > The PDF was a typeset version of the revised CLL that is available
> > > on jbotcan, with exactly the same invite to buy the printed
> > > version from LLG. I just converted from HTML to PDF.
> > > 
> > > I put the PDF on the wiki after having asked on the IRC channel
> > > but I had it removed in a matter of hours with the objection that
> > > I had to ask for permission first. I can't remember to whom
> > > exactly I wrote (I should have the email trail stored somewhere)
> > > and I got the answer that the topic would have been discussed and
> > > I would have had an official response from LLG. BTW, I also had
> > > John Cowan supporting my request after I had sent a copy of the
> > > PDF to him as the author.
> > 
> > (Remo and most of the people who worked on this new CLL version
> > (hereafter "the new CLL team") and I have already discussed what I'm
> > about to say, just FYI)
> > 
> > We are very, very sorry for how this played out.
> > 
> > We completely failed the community on this one.  I also take a lot
> > of personal responsibility[1], because as secretary, it is my job to
> > make sure that everybody understands what is officially LLG and what
> > isn't, and not only did I *way* over-react, but I did so without
> > being in anything even vaguely approaching full possession of the
> > facts of the matter.
> > 
> > We actually did basically decide back in October 2009 that the new
> > CLL team's version was fine and we should do something with it, and
> > then we dropped the ball.  Again, very sorry.
> > 
> > In the process of failing to deal with this appropriately, we gave
> > Remo, at least, the impression that the LLG does not support or want
> > community projects.  Nothing could possibly be farther from the
> > truth!  People's pet projects are the *lifeblood* of Lojban.  We
> > want more, not less.  Don't come to us for permission, just do neat
> > things!
> > 
> > (Well, if you're intending to do something that might look like The
> > Official Word on something Lojbanic, as this was, please *do* come
> > talk to us; we promise to try to be much more reasonable!  Please do
> > not let us be silent; keep bugging us.  We're very busy, and we are
> > not ignoring you on purpose!)
> > 
> > Back to the matter at hand.
> > 
> > The original idea was to let the new CLL team post their version,
> > clearly marked as "not officiall".  Instead, though, I've managed to
> > rope them in to doing a project I've wanted done for *years*:
> > converting the CLL into a decent source format that will generate
> > either linked HTML or a book, cleanly, from one source.
> > 
> > To that end, here's what's going to happen:
> > 
> > 1.  I'm giving the team the official sources of the CLL.  They're
> > going to produce a set of diffs between that and what they've done.
> > 
> > 2.  The BPFK is going to deliberate over said diffs, and hopefully
> > approve them.  It should just by typos and stuff anyways.
> > 
> > 3.  The team is going to turn what they've got into DocBook format,
> > without changing any of the content/text.
> > 
> > 4.  That docbook will become the new official CLL source.  It, and
> > the HTML generated from it, will be posted to lojban.org, free for
> > anyone to download and use as they see fit.
> > 
> > This represents a complete reversal of our previous stance against
> > releasing the official source; the community is big enough and
> > robust enough that the time for us to be worried about people
> > ripping us off by, I dunno, schisiming and publishing the CLL for
> > their own profit, or something?, is long past.  We are one
> > community, and no-one's going to stop buying CLLs from the LLG just
> > because the official source is available.  In the incredibly
> > unlikely event that it *does* make a real difference to our cash
> > flow, we'll talk to the community about that, but I'm not actually
> > worried.
> > 
> > My sincerest thanks to the new CLL team for what they've already
> > done, and for taking on the further work I've asked of them.
> > 
> > They would, however, appreciate it if other people volunteered to
> > help; it's not an easy or small task.  Contact me or Remo if you're
> > interested.
> > 
> > -Robin
> > 
> > [1]: Some personal notes/perspective; feel free to skip, since it
> > got both longer and whinier than I intended:
> > 
> >   I've been bitching for *years* about how no-one aronud here does
> >   anything, and the new CLL team comes along and does a bunch of
> >   stuff (that I'd been meaning to do myself some day!), and instead
> >   of happily welcoming them and trying to get them to do a bunch
> >   *more* work :), I shut them down.
> > 
> >   And then, to top it all off, the board discussed it privately,
> >   mostly agreed that we were OK with it... and then completely
> >   forgot to actually *do* anything.
> > 
> >   I'm quite angry at myself over this, and I really can't apologize
> >   enough.  This is exactly the sort of thing that caused me to
> >   become a board member in the first place, and I hate that I became
> >   (hopefully briefly) the very thing I was once fighting against.
> > 
> >   My excuse is that I really *have* been personally overwhelmed, and
> >   simply haven't had the time to give Lojban decent attention.  I
> >   will try to do better, and to find more people to help me.
> > 
> > -- 
> > They say:  "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
> > And I'm  thinking:  "Does it even occur to you to try for something
> > other  than  the default  outcome?"  See http://shrunklink.com/cdiz
> > http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
> > 
> > -- 
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> > 
> 
> -- 
> te djuno lo do sevzi
> 
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> 

-- 
They say:  "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm  thinking:  "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other  than  the default  outcome?"  See http://shrunklink.com/cdiz
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

-- 
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