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

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 07:45:42 -0500

Let's see if I can calm down this flamewar, which seems a tempest in a 
teapot to no point.

At 11:44 AM 12/8/01 -0500, [email-masked] wrote:
>I apologize for raising this issue again on the basis of out-of-date 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.

I don't think that anyone, including Robin, suggested anything OTHER than 
making reaching a wide audience being the prime consideration in web site 
design. Indeed, Bob Chassell suggested that Robin follow guidelines on 
several sites that were created specifically to define what sorts of things 
constitute respecting the widest possible audience.

><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).

Look, he did the best he could to meet the varying standards, including 
apparently *checking* the site with the multiple browsers to verify that 
they worked adequately. Having done so, and knowing that the people in the 
current Lojban community include people who are very knowledgeable about 
web site design, he made mention of the fact that different browsers would 
show the site differently, that he HAD checked them, and done what he could 
even to accommodate the less reliable browsers. In so doing, he vented a 
(very) little steam about the work necessary to so accommodate, but 
accommodate he did.

> This was unnecessary even for salving ego. he is entitled to his 
> opinion but it would be politic not to express it.

His opinion, as I read it, is that one particular tool used by a small 
subset of the public was a pain in the butt to deal with, but he did the 
best he could anyway. In so doing he criticized the tool; not those who 
use the tool.

><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.

I think if you look back, that was pretty much what he DID say. He just 
identified which those were, which it did not work as well on.

><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.

And I think, especially having met Robin here at LogFest, that you are 
reading a contempt into his words that simply is not there.

>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.

But as was noted, and indeed as you just said a couple paragraphs back, you 
had nothing but compliments for the site, so apparently people "stuck with 
what came with their boxes" HAVE been well-treated.

>It is, of course, backwards. If you don't like providing for crap, then 
>provide some non-crap to provide for.

Cowan works (as a compugeek) for Reuters Health, which is not when last I 
heard a company that is in the business of building web browsers or 
operating systems. Robin works for some other company, which likewise is 
not in that business either. Most compugeeks are not in a position to 
develop, much less sell, better tools for public use (better tools might 
well exist, but if they aren't successfully marketed, it doesn't 
matter). A public-catering web browser these days is not a one-man 
product, nor probably less than a hundred man product, and an operating 
system is even bigger - BECAUSE of the features that the lay public expects 
of a product that will compete with the sales leaders from Microsoft.

Thus most compugeeks have no more ability to change the situation than you 
do; they just know the technical details on specifically what the problems 
are for lay users. They do need to communicate these details to others who 
need to know, and Robin did so.

>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.

I do not see this. Rather, "runners" in THIS community have said that 
users are stuck with crap, but since we cannot leave them out of the 
picture, we checked such and such user tools, and corrected the site to 
look as best it could on all of them, resolving conflicts so as to affect 
the more-used browser less severely than the less-used ones.

>And this, for Lojban, is a mistake.

It would be, but no one took that attitude.

(The real position that gets ignored, and often is even shown contempt for, 
is that taken by Athelstan on behalf of the half of America and 90% of the 
world that is not net-connected at all. But the fact that we cannot meet 
that group's needs is no reason for saying that Robin and others should not 
ply their expertise voluntarily to do what they can for those who are 
connected, leaving to you and me who are not expert to solve the problems 
of reaching everyone else %^).

>(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.)

And creating web sites for the vagaries of multiple browsers is a good 
industry as well, which many users pay enormous amounts of money for. And 
we have (more than) one person who does this kind of "correcting crap" for 
part of his living who is doing our web site for free. But he is getting 
"full bull" only from you. It isn't necessary nor productive.

><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.

The market leader is Microsoft. Show us any evidence that Robin has 
ignored Microsoft. He may have railed against it, but his attitude is NOT 
that it can be ignored, but in fact that it must be "coddled". One can 
voice disgust that one must coddle, while doing that coddling. This is not 
the same as showing contempt to those who use the coddled stuff (which 
would be self-condemning, for many of these people, because they are users 
of Microsoft even while railing against it).

You are reading attitude that is not there into comments that report the 
reality.

The bottom line is that Robin made great effort to coddle, and seems to 
have succeeded. He showed no contempt towards anyone, but only contempt 
towards a piece of software which doesn't have feelings to be hurt.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org