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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2001 11:44:52 EST

I apologize for raising this issue again on the basis of out-of-date 
statistics (and for forgetting what a difference aol changing its browser 
would make). So, the instant case was not a good example; the general point 
-- which is practical, not ideological -- remains: if we are to appeal to a 
wider population, we need to take that population's equipment into account 
and, insofar as an introductory page is primarily for those people, we need 
to make that consideration primary, painful as tthis may be to some aesthetic 
or other.

<The version which 'looked beautiful on his browsers and the one that it
doesn't look good on is a piece of shit' never became the main page. He
put it up at lojban_broken.html as an example of why Netscape 4 sucks,
an opinion he is entitled to.>

The complaint was about mentioning that at all and then sloughing off 
infelicities of what he did put up onto problems with "Nutscape" which is 
occasionally identified as a piece of crap and a violator of various "rules" 
(which are, admittedly, violated by every 0other browser as well). This was 
unnecessary even for salving ego. he is entitled to his opinion but it would 
be politic not to express it.

<The current version could well be described as (to requote):
> 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.">

Could have been, as I said, but wasn't.

<We do not need an ideological flamewar surrounding the site, when the
practical fact is that the site works.>

Note please that I have had almost nothing but complements about the site and 
what criticisms I made were minor and diffidently expressed. My comments 
were about comments made and about the attitude they exposed, which seemed 
ultimately counterproductive, even if justified in this case.

Cowan
<Too many of us have grown weary of constant adaptation to the latest
oversold piece of junk.>

This is offered as an excuse for not providing material that is accessible to 
people stuck with what came in their boxes: Windows, Netscape, Quicken, etc.
It is, of course, backwards. If you don't like providing for crap, then 
provide some non-crap to provide for. As long as the "good stuff" is not 
what people get -- or even can get out of a box -- then you will leave the 
users stuck with the crap and will either have to provide for it or leave the 
users out of the picture altogether. Since runners seem not to have gone 
toward the first option -- providing the "good stuff" for the users -- and to 
admit to not doing much to correct the faults of crap, one is left with the 
clear view that runnners have decided to leave users out of the picture 
altogether. And this, for Lojban, is a mistake. (Incidentally, from a 
profit motive, correcting crap is a good industry: fixing windows makes quite 
a bit of money and I know a guy who made full bull just on the basis of 
papers correcting the successive editions of a notoriously sloppy -- but very 
popular -- logic text.)
Please do not cite Linux and its program as an exception. As of now my guess 
is that the accompanying manuals (nice to have for a change, sorta) are a 
Frenchman's translation of a German version rendered by a Russian from the 
original Japanese -- I'm not sure where the Swedish comes in. I figure 
something should work right after six weeks, but I am disappointed in this 
belief.

Lee
<Netscape, while
once king of the hill, is already nothing but a bit player, and on
the way down. Coddling broken and insignificant software at the
expense of real standards and market leaders is stupid.>

As I said, the example was unfortunate, because the situation has changed. 
But the attitude remains (apparently) that market leaders at least can be 
ignored if they do not come up to some theoretical snuff, so all but the 
cognoscenti are excluded.