Subject: Re: [lojban] [WWWW] Big update!

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 21:57:21 EST

In a message dated 12/7/2001 6:10:26 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> . I am talking about the millions of
> > people 
> > who actually use computers rather than do things to them. They are
> > stuck 
> > with what they get and they deserve to be treated as well as the few who
> > make 
> > their own or are at liberty to spend incredible amounts of time getting 
> > something better in the end. If Lojban is to grow, then it has to go
> > beyond 
> > the limited group of this latter sort into the first groups (insofar as 
> > computers are essential to its growth -- and that seems at the moment to
> > be 
> > completely). To hold this group in contempt, to treat them as remote
> > second 
> > class, to ignore or deplore their tools is very bad policy indeed. 
> 
> While it may be a bad policy, it is a dead-end situation. The people who
> are actually able to run computers and/or the internet belong to the
> second group. Computers and/or the internet and all they bring to
> information interchange and media bandwith only exists because people who
> like to "do things to them" actually do, believing that it is a Good
> Thing.
> 

But they are the last people -- or ought tpo be -- to hold the users in 
contempt, for it there were no users, if people refused to buy their stuff or 
use it, thew whole would collapse. Further, they should be the last people 
to put down the crap that users use, since they were the people who created 
the crap in the first place and who have regularly failed to improve it in 
the ways that they say it should be done. It is a symbiosis to be sure -- the 
user could not accomplish the things they can did they not have the computers 
and the products of the computer runners, and the computer runners could not 
have jobs and computers to run (at least at the scale they have now -- they'd 
all still be working off Heathkits) were there not people out there using 
their products. But ultimately it is the bottom that drives, so a little 
consideration downward is called for. To be sure, Robin has shown some of 
that consideration, which is why I am always distressed when he throws the 
potential goodwill away for no reason that makes any practical sense. 
Presumably he can do what he wants to do -- why not want to reach as many 
people as possible as well as possible, especially in a broadcasting 
advertisement job? Admittedly, the likely answer is that his peers, using 
the handcrafted tools, will be unimpressed by what he does and so he will 
lose a bit of face, but he does that anyhow (see the first round of responses 
to his work) and at least he would have done it for the right reasons within 
the job. He could just as easily say "I did it that way because it looks 
good on the most widely used browsers; sorry if it doesn't look good on 
yours." rather than "I did it the other way because it looks beautiful on my 
browsers and the one that it doesn't look good on is a piece of shit", or 
even, compromisingly, "It is impossible to get this looking right on all 
browsers and this looks asgood as it can on as many as I have; at least 
presentable on those it doesn't work as well on."

<People who "use" computers as you describe are indeed not well thought of
by people who "run" computers. Moreover, each class of people think right
to reproach the other's the distinction. You're not going to get very
far here...>

And, from the point of view of the users, the runners rank only marginally 
above supervisors, lawyers, telemarketers, and loan collectors. Remember, 
they are the ones who a) made the crap in the first place and b) keep telling 
us we are doing it wrong but fail to provide the means to do it right.

<My motto: when something has to be done, do it. If you can't (no
time, no ability, etc...), at least leave free to anyone who volunteers
the mean and the motives !>

Good motto, but have you looked at a computer instruction manual lately 
(well, no, since they have pretty much stopped having them). The users have 
in fact stood aside for a long time as patient suppliants and offered motive 
in economic terms and means in spades and have gotten taDAH Windows whatever 
the latest is called and aol7.0! Big whoop! Costs more, claims to do more 
things, doesn't do basic things any better but eats up more disk space to do 
them and so is a tad slower against the basic speed of the machine. 

<Coming back to Lojban, it happens that robin volunteered. You don't agree
with his political opinions, but this is no enough reason for trolling in
the mailing list. Come on: you already know that 1) robin won't change his
opinion, 2) if there is an ultimatum, robin will simply stop his efforts
and 3) it's the first time since long that someone volunteers for cleaning
up the web site. >

Of course Robin is a volunteer and we are lucky to have him and the several 
other volunteers who maintain all this stuff out there. 'Cause there ain't 
no way to get it done otherwise. Robin's page looks fine on my browser and 
better than the old one -- we've been out of that volunteer for a long time 
and I am delighted to have someone competent taking it up. And I don't 
expect to change his opinion. But I would hope he would at lest keep it off 
the list and maybe, since he volunteered for the job, take other aspects of 
it than the purely technical ones seriously (a lot to ask of a computer 
runner, but, as someone concerned about the growth of Lojban, in which this 
page is an important part, one that I feel has to be at least asked). 

<It is a shame this list gets polluted by such trolling which usually 
happens on usenet...>

I think that I resent the "trolling" a bit. As I understand the term (I think 
it was Robin who explained it after xod went off in a huff) this involves 
raising objections to get the fur aflying. Nothing can be further from my 
intention, as notice the stated purpose several times in the last few days 
(and on a series of previous occasions on the same topic). Note also that I 
raise the objections with regret and try to begin my comments with 
compliments on the good qualities to be found. But the fact still remains 
that Lojban cannot be both the exclusive property of computer runners and be 
at all sucessful. So, if we are not going to accommodate users, we ought at 
least not drive them away.