Re: [lojban] Re: [lojban-announcements] Essay on the future of Lojban, with a simple poll for the community.

[Alan Post <alanpost@sunflowerriver.org>]

+1.

And, "disagree," by way of answering the assertion Robin posed to
Lojban announce:

  I would like Lojban to remain as close as it possibly can to its
  current state, regardless of whether I or a group of experienced
  Lojbanists see that improvements could be made.

I disagree because I think that Lojban remaining as close as it
possibly can to its current state will eventually render it obsolete
by a language that doesn't adhere to that policy.

-Alan

On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 01:42:50PM -0400, Matt Arnold wrote:
> Bob,
> 
> I have been drifting out of the community for the past couple of years
> through discouragement. I used to have such grand dreams for the
> project, but most of those plans turned out to be dependent on the
> BPFK finishing Lojban.
> 
> I thought work was proceeding apace, behind the scenes, and that the
> only problem was generating enough work. It now turns out to have been
> actively held back by a dispute between description of usage, and
> prescription through centralized planning. In a community this size,
> usage is a statistically insignificant sample. We have no known means
> to measure or prove anything about usage. It is also a
> self-contradicting authority. Usage in the wild has no mechanism with
> which to resolve disputes with other usage. No wonder we were in a
> permanent bottleneck.
> 
> We let talented people go to waste for nearly a decade. This has been
> a disaster. I do not accept it.
> 
> The "let usage decide" policy was put in place to prevent a recurrance
> of the James Cooke Brown failure mode-- a failure mode which is no
> longer possible in the current environment. We need a policy that
> mitigates the failure mode we're seeing, not the one that threatened
> us decades ago. Now our failure mode is lack of decisiveness. It is
> the responsibility of centralized authority to break the impasse that
> happens when you let usage *totally* decide, rather than influence.
> 
> Robin's plan is now well underway and it will succeed. I have
> confidence that the tide is overwhelmingly on our side. That will
> prevent me going away. But I will not remain in a project that is
> committed to an indefinite holding pattern.
> 
> -Eppcott
> 
> 
> On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 4:05 AM, Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:
> >> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Robin Lee Powell
> >> <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> FOLLOWUPS TO: The main list.
> >>>
> >>> OK, been promising it for a while; here it is.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> http://teddyb.org/robin/tiki-index.php?page=Lojban%3A+You're+Doing+It+Wrong
> >>>
> >>> There are all *sorts* of finicky details we could discuss, but right
> >>> now I and others would very much just like to get a sense of where
> >>> the community stands on these sorts of issues, so, if we could
> >>> *please* keep the discussion for now (1) on the main list and (2)
> >>> agree/disagree answer to the following question, after you've read
> >>> (as much as you wish to) of the essay:
> >>>
> >>> I would like Lojban to remain as close as it possibly can to its
> >>> current state, regardless of whether I or a group of experienced
> >>> Lojbanists see that improvements could be made.
> >>>
> >>> Agree or disagree?
> >
> > Both, depending on timeframe and definitions of terms.
> >
> > Lojban needs to remain stable and resistant to change, especially in the
> > near term.  When numbers of Lojbanists and formal documentation are both
> > strong enough, then "improvements" will generally be made by usage, not by
> > fiat, with skilled Lojbanists being the only ones having the capability to
> > demonstrate and explain their variant usages in-language, and other skilled
> > Lojbanists voting-with-their-usage to adopt the variation.
> >
> > That is what the phrase "let usage decide" was supposed to refer to - the
> > asymptotic reduction of change-by-fiat to nil, in favor of natural evolution
> > through usage.  Shakespeare introduced considerable new vocabulary and usage
> > to the English language, and needed no byfy to approve his efforts.
> >
> > Thus in the near term, I agree.  In the longer term, I disagree, but require
> > that "improvements" are introduced through usage, and explanation
> > in-language when necessary, and not by fiat.
> >
> > Of course, by "current state", I mean the language that the byfy is
> > attempting to document, and not the state of half-documented-ness that
> > persists.
> >
> > lojbab
> >
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> >
> 
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-- 
te djuno lo do sevzi

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