Subject: Re: Re: New Members, Board of Directors, other LogFest results

From: Nick Nicholas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:26:06 +1000

.i cu'u la lojbab.

>I just realized yesterday that Nora
>was supposed to do indexing for Nick's books, which she never did and I
>don't think any one else did, though I haven't looked lately.

I did the index for the brochure last year. I have not done an index 
for the lessons, and honestly, my Lojban time has long since run out 
(I haven't even written a research paper since January, and my own 
research takes priority over Lojban). If someone wants to volunteer 
to do it (never mind the LLG asking for it, I hereby ask for it), 
then I am more than happy to negotiate some format whereby they mark 
up the Docbook source in some way (even with just inserting 
"#INDEX_THIS#" next to entries), and I convert it to Docbook 
indexing; but I will not undertake to do the indexing myself. 
(Particularly as I have a 500 page monograph to do a bilingual index 
of by September.) It will have to be the Docbook source, too: 
indexing the Word document is less than useless to me.

Btw, indexing is *nasty*. Not intrinsically difficult (though you 
have to remember a lot of state), but breath-takingly arbitrary; I 
felt like taking a shower after doing the brochure index. Just so 
you're warned. :-)

'Course, as Robin has pointed out, automatic indexing is trivial --- 
as long as you don't insist on subentries classifying the keywords by 
context; but someone still has to shlub through and get those 
keywords. (Oh, I see John just said so.) If I don't get any better 
offers, I'll take the keywords. (But I'd really rather a whole 
pass-through with subentries.)

I'm not going to otherwise comment on this thread, since anyone who's 
been to a Logfest knows what I'd say anyway. :-| Except...

>>How complicated can a dictionnary spec be?
>I dunno. People seem to think we need something more than is being done,
>but there have been no articulated specifics.

Funny. I have distinct memories of spending two or three hours with 
you and Nora in Fairfax in 2000 or 2001, drawing up, if not an 
outright spec, at least the outline of one. I don't suppose there's 
any chance of it being retrieved and posted, though...

And (apologies for upcoming rant) I'm serious about my Lojban time 
having run out. There are revisions to the lessons I've been meaning 
to do since April and haven't done yet. (Nothing drastic, thank God; 
couple of minor corrections, and adding IPA.) Until I give up on 
sessional lecturing and get my monograph finalised --- both not 
before November --- I have no free time for *anything*; and even 
after that, I have four years of mediaeval Greek research to catch up 
on. So not putting my hand up this time, guys, because I won't if I 
know I won't follow through; sorry.

.i ku'i ca le da'i nu do diklo la melbn. gi'e zvati le baza citri 
bauske se ctuca be mi kei; mi carmi gleki vauzo'o
-- 
[][][][] [][][][][][][][][][] [][][][]
Dr Nick Nicholas. [email-masked] http://www.opoudjis.net
University of Melbourne: [email-masked]
Chiastaxo dhe to giegnissa, i dhedhato potemu,
ma ena chieri aftumeno ecratu, chisvissemu. (I Thisia tu Avraam)