Re: [lojban] Growth and decline in lojbanistan

[And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>]

mukti, On 16/09/2014 01:49:
> On Sunday, September 14, 2014 5:53:33 AM UTC-3, And Rosta wrote:
>
>     /What and where are these historical studies? Was 2003 the historical peak?/
>
> gleki was referring to some informal research I've discussed in IRC. I've tried to measure lojbanic activity over time by looking at things like the number of messages in the mailing lists and the number of members of LLG.
>
> Mailing list activity seems to have peaked in 2001-2002: The combined number of messages in "lojban" and "jboske" topped 7,500 during those years. 2003 was the year that LLG reached peak membership (36). Mailing list activity declined, but a lot of activity was diverted to the phpBB forum supporting the newly formed BPFK.
>
> The years after 2003 saw a steep decline in all of these measurements, bottoming out in 2008 (2,100 messages in "lojban" and "lojban-beginners", less than 30% of peak activity) and 2009 (17 LLG members, less than 50% of peak membership).
>
> Because of the sudden decline -- 2004 mailing list activity was about 50% of the previous year -- I've been tempted to read 2003 as the critical year, and to look for clues that year as to what happened: What contributed to the rapid growth in previous years, and how was that growth reversed so quickly?
>
> It looks to me like the adoption of the baseline policy 2002 -- and the consequent failure of BPFK to fullfill its expectations despite heroic efforts by both chairs -- is where the wheels came off the bus. Which is why I would like to bring proposals to the Annual Meeting to determine whether specific terms of the baseline policy are still aligned with the values and the experience of the community, or whether there's another way forward.
>
> I'd be interested to hear from those who were around throughout the 2000s: What, from your perspective, happened? And what lessons can be drawn for the future?

This is really interesting; thanks for doing this research. 2003 was precisely when I tuned out and became a merely passive Lojbanist. (My sent-mail folders show an enormous drop in lojban messages from 2002 to 2004 and thereafter.) For me the crucial change was my coming to the view that Lojbab and the rest of the ultraconservative then-majority shouldn't be denied the right to have the language they wanted, untormented by the likes of me. Also, the enormous expense of energy by progressives like me -- the vast majority of those 7500 messages per year and of wiki activity was by progressives -- achieved nothing (at the time -- we never imagined that a dozen years later a new progressive generation would read their way through the archives!), precisely because of the legitimate and utterly uncompromising opposition of the ultraconservatives. Would that there had been a fork at that time, but there wasn't the appetite for it. Once I'd tuned out, I figured there was little value to cr
eating an improved version of CLL Lojban, relative to the greater value of starting completely from scratch. I'd still very much like to see an improved version of CLL Lojban, tho.

--And.



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