Recent discussions of the LLG and its responsiveness or lack thereof to the community, and attendant questions about its role in language policy and in overseeing the work of the BPFK (at a deliberately removed distance; as Laozi might say, the language is like a fried fish which can be spoiled by too much poking), have prompted me to look again at the most recent concrete action the LLG has taken with respect to defining the baseline: the creation, in November of 2007, of "interim baseline" or "zasni gafyfantynanri" (ZG) status for those parts of the language the BPFK considers to have been documented and debugged to a hopefully-final form.
That policy is broken.
I was one of the conservatives somewhat hesitant to adopt such a policy at the time, which is precisely why I drafted the version of it we adopted. Statements by Robin and And managed to convince me that some kind of action on the xorlo issue was needed, and I wrote us a narrow way to implement it as a sop to the desires of those like me who were hesitant to let the membership vote on a new baseline piecemeal, favoring the model intended from the establishment of the BPFK. Other members who viewed the issue as I did were won over, and the policy was adopted and then immediately applied to embrace xorlo; that it hasn't been used since is more or less deliberate, since it is by design only applicable to cases where the need for action is relatively clear. In hindsight, though, I see two large problems with this policy as adopted:
1. The LLG's policy for the procedures by which the BPFK operates were, deliberately, specified as allowing the jatna to run things in whatever way best served the BPFK's mission. The policy defining interim baseline status, however, depends on the specific tiki-mediated straw polls that were a major part of how BPFK work was done in those days. Having suffered a particularly severe case of the burnout that afflicts most people who attempt BPFK work, I don't know how that work is organized now, but I understand it to be different and far less formal. If those involved felt any aspect of the baselined language needed revision, the jatna would have to roll back a lot of how he structures the BPFK (including by restoring an officially countable roster of members) in order to even conduct the straw poll. Practically speaking, therefore, we have no policy which currently permits such revisions even in extreme cases.
2. The original idea of the ZG was to allow the BPFK to finish its then delayed mission of completing an entire new baseline which could be adopted wholesale, while still enabling some measure of official recognition for pieces that were seen as especially urgent to give us a more fully functional language while we waited. Expecting the original design of how the BPFK would complete its task to succeed in relatively short order was optimistic then; today it would border on the delusional. The level of restriction placed on "early" changes, therefore, is no longer sensible even if the procedures referred to were still applicable.
I intend to propose a revision to this policy at the next annual meeting. I welcome the input of everybody who feels they have a stake in the shape of the baseline (whether you are or have been an LLG member, BPFK member, both, or neither) to provide input into what form the revisions should take, as I readily admit to having no particular answer of my own at this time.
- mi'e .kreig.daniyl.
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