Subject: Report on LogFest 2002

From: Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 01:05:56 -0400

LogFest 2002 got off to an exceptionally fast start this year, with a high 
proportion of people arriving early enough on Friday that there was a fair 
amount of discussion above and beyond the typical socializing that has been 
more normal on Friday night.

Friday out-of-town arrivals included Adam Raizin, Mark Shoulson, Allan 
Bailey, xod, pc, Michael and Aruna Vassar, and John Cowan to join locals 
Shawn and Alex Lasseter, Keith Lynch, Paul Francis O'Sullivan and Nora and 
myself (and our 2 kids Angela and Michael, who aided extensively as 
co-hosts even though their interest in Lojban is minimal). Adam and 
Saturday arrival Avital Oliver, both from Israel, made this the 3rd 
straight LogFest to have international attendance.

On Saturday, Avital Oliver, Robin Powell, Gary Burgess (and his family), 
Tommy Whitlock, and Auxlanger Paul Bartlett came for a total of 19 
language-interested attendees, and a total attendance of 25 (correcting the 
number I posted earlier). This is a near-record attendance for LogFest, 
and the record should be broken next year given preliminary statements of 
intent to attend.

NEXT YEAR'S LOGFEST HAS ALREADY BEEN SET TO DEFAULT TO THE LAST WEEKEND IN 
JULY (26th-27th) so you can make your plans early if you wish to 
attend. This date will hold unless something specific comes up to force a 
change, and we are unlikely to consider any change after the start of the 
new year, because at least one LLG member has to set his vacation in 
January in order to be able to attend.

It is hard to characterize what goes on at a LogFest. There are few 
planned activities. There is usually some amount of discussion 
in-language, and a lot more in English, with occasional talk in other 
languages (I heard Esperanto, Klingon, Russian, and Hebrew this year, and 
there may have been others in the various "phone games" that took 
place). Last year, xod spoke only Lojban for the entire LogFest; no one 
attempted that this year, but this may be the last year that this is true, 
since at least 3 attendees indicated their intent to be skilled enough to 
do so by next year. A couple of people this year were disappointed that 
there was not more all-Lojban conversation.

Specific activities included a Lojban lesson taught by Mark Shoulson with 
kibbitzers, and several rounds of the "phone game" both orally and in 
writing. Nora intends to type in some of the written phone game results 
once she gets done with the minutes, which she is working on as I 
write. Aruna Vassara, a local visitor and native speaker of Russian, 
decided to study Lojban seriously while she was here, and impressed 
everyone with her ambitious attempts and her quick progress. I hope that 
Evgueni will be able to recruit

We did not have the usual IRC chats with non-present Lojbanists (until 
Sunday night), perhaps because Lojban IRC activity is now such an everyday 
activity that people don't think of it as something special to do it at 
LogFest. I wish we could think of more ways to include the rest of you in 
LogFest activities, and ideas are welcome. One non-attendee did 
participate: Nick Nicholas called from Australia around midnight local time 
and talked to several of those present.

Sunday was dominated as usual by the annual meeting of la 
lojbangirz. Allan Bailey, Adam Raizin, Avital Oliver, and Aruna Vassar 
were voted in as new members, and membership is also being offered to Jay 
Kominek (who did not attend), by virtue of his extensive and active 
participation in support of the community, to take effect upon his 
acceptance. Ethan Freman and Guy Garnett, who did not attend, and who have 
not been heard from since before the prior LogFest, will be automatically 
removed as members if they are not present in person or by proxy next 
year. Veijo and Ivan Derzhanski were the other two members not in 
attendance, but both have long records of considerable activity and it was 
noted that the call for proxies went out rather close to the meeting date.

1. Primary business discussed was the publication of Nick's two books:

The "level 0 brochure" will be published upon its release for publication 
by Nick, using informal print-on-demand by members at their expense using 
Kinko or other quicky services and cheap bindings, in response to requests 
for information. This will be part of a set of changes to offload the 
support of snail mail correspondence from Lojbab to the community at large 
so that much more timely response can be made. There will be one or more 
mailing lists set up in support of this effort, and volunteers from the 
community will be sought once things are set up. The level 0 book will not 
necessarily be sent to everyone who inquires about Lojban due to 
cost. Someone (to be determined) will prepare something that can be put 
into a standard business envelope at the lowest postage rate in response to 
the lowest level of inquiry.

Nick and Robin Turner's Lojban Lesson Book needs some final corrections 
that Nick plans to make in a 2 week window at the end of September. Anyone 
with any last minute inputs on either book needs to have sent them to Nick 
before then (shall we say before 20 September) to ensure that they will be 
considered before publication. Mark Shoulson will be investigating the 
costs for formal print-on-demand services with a better quality 
binding. Alternatively, we have a quote from a major printer (Sheridan 
Books/Bookcrafters) for approximately $3600 for the first 1000 copies with 
a good hardbound binding like that of the red book. Sheridan also offers 
an order-fulfillment service which I have not yet received a quote on, but 
at the time we published CLL it was a little more than a dollar per 
book. The tentative price for the book, if we use Bookcrafters, will be 
retail $25, or $20 direct from LLG (it is not clear which price would apply 
if we use an order-fulfillment service or print-on-demand.

The Lesson Book will be published upon release by Nick, again expected at 
the end of September, as well as the repayment of approximately $1000 that 
will then remain as debt to me (lojbab) from the CLL printing. We are 
explicitly seeking (US tax-deductible) donations towards the $1000 printing 
loan, or towards the $3600 current estimated cost to produce the lesson 
book. Given the few months before publication, either or both amounts 
should be possible with the current size of the active community. I AM NOT 
YET TAKING PRE-ORDERS for the new books, only CLL book orders, donations 
for the LLG general fund, and donations for the two special purposes of 
paying off the CLL printing loan and financing the printing of the Lesson 
book (we need money in advance for both in order to publish). The Board 
would probably also consider an offer for a low interest loan to finance 
printing, but we would prefer donations, of course.

2. The next major topic discussed was that of "official projects", as 
discussed on this list over the last week. Basically, anyone will be 
able to apply as "project manager" to list a project on LLG web site, which 
will have one or more pages set aside for official projects. These will be 
submitted to the board. The board will either approve them as official, 
disapprove them or (default to) "no objection" within a few weeks after 
submission. If not disapproved, they will appear on the web page(s). The 
project manager will be responsible for giving the Board a quarterly report 
on the project (Robin will set it up so as to give people reminders) which 
the Board can use to continue or remove official status. (I expect that 
removal would be most unlikely as long as there remains positive activity 
and regular reports).

I will also convert some existing projects that have been handled by LLG 
committees (which have been quite ineffectual in the past, which is why a 
lot of stuff never gets done) to this system, and I may create a suggested 
projects list for things that I think need doing, or even things that are 
ongoing without a clear project leader (thereby seeking a responsible 
leader so we can make the project official).

All of this will open many more activities to be "official" yet carried out 
by the many of you who are unlikely to ever participate in a LogFest.

3. The third major topic was one of improving our order support. Many of 
you are aware that I've been poor to abysmal in responding to orders, 
sometimes taking months to get them out. Requests for things other than 
CLL have fared even worse, and we have not filled such orders in a couple 
of years - my limited back supplies of printed materials are for the most 
part buried under stacks of boxes of CLL, so that filling such orders is 
non-trivial even to find them. We'll be revising the order form to reflect 
this. Requests for materials which are available on the web site will be 
filled by "print-on-demand" by an "official project" group of interested 
volunteers as described above for the level 0 book and the "official 
projects" plans.
WE ARE ESPECIALLY LOOKING FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE OUTSIDE THE US 
TO ASSIST IN FILLING INTERNATIONAL ORDERS.

If costs are significant, we will be seeking people willing to donate those 
costs and/or will find ways to reimburse those costs, perhaps using PayPal.

4. The 4th major topic was proposing a method to deal with the backlog of 
paperwork that I (lojbab) have been failing to get done. Current plans are 
that Robin Powell will donate a substantial amount of money to get us a 
proper accounting package, and will pay for someone local to me who knows 
what they are doing to get the data set up and caught up to date. Probably 
this will be local LLG member Alex Miles-Lasseter.

5. The last major topic was raised by xod with support from Robin Powell 
and others. (This was a heated issue, and I am not unbiased. If I 
misrepresent positions, I welcome corrections. Begin mild political 
statement:) A significant segment of the "new wave" of Lojbanists wants to 
see LLG more solidly committed to having the language USED in 
communications rather than talked about and endlessly awaiting the 
unfinished dictionary and textbook in order to fully commit the 
baseline. Many of them perhaps see the current leadership of LLG as 
standing in the way of such a commitment. Speaking for the "old guard" 
that knows that the torch is in the process of passing on to this new wave 
of Lojbanists, I would like to think we are not obstructionists, though we 
do have an obligation to protect the interests of those Lojban supporters 
who are hobbyists that may not have the time, perhaps not the interest, and 
also perhaps not the ability, to master the language, but who still want to 
help. End statement.)

Xod called for LLG annual meetings to be conducted entirely in Lojban 
starting in 2005, which of course would probably disenfranchise those LLG 
members who have not yet become fluent enough to participate. After 
considerable debate, I proposed a gradual staged transition aimed at that 
goal, which was approved. Starting next year, the annual meeting will be 
officially bilingual with "real-time" translation available in either 
English or Lojban from the other language. There is in additional official 
encouragement to use Lojban as the language of preference, without it being 
mandatory. The meeting minutes will be issued in both languages (xod has 
indicated intent to translate this year's minutes unofficially as well, 
with our encouragement, and I believe will be leading a project to 
translate Robert's Rules of Order so that we have the needed terminology 
and procedures for parliamentary debate and decision in Lojban - see pc's 
posting for some initial ideas on this).

This issue will be officially revisited at the meeting each year, with the 
intent of moving towards a transition to full use of Lojban in all LLG 
business (which I would presume to be not limited to the annual meeting but 
to all official business year-round including those quarterly project 
reports from project leaders. A motion to translate all official material 
on the web site to Lojban as resources become available was passed).

Part of this has always been intended, in that we declared years ago that 
following the 5 year minimum baseline, any debates and decisions as to 
possible changes in the language will take place in Lojban-only, and my own 
opinion is that this part of the transition to all-Lojban, in technical 
management of the language, is more important than completely losing 
English in conducting the everyday business of the organization (something 
we of course cannot do completely, since we will still have to use English 
in dealing with outsiders like the government).

End of meeting summary.

After the meeting, people started to leave over the next several hours, 
with pc as the last departure at 930 Monday morning, thereby ending LogFest 
2002. We look forward to seeing more of you in 2003 (though we are 
starting to get a bit crowded for sleeping space).

Attached are PRELIMINARY minutes from the official meetings. Members who 
attended, please check the wordings of motions, since a couple of them were 
uncertain in Nora's notes. Let me know of any changes soon, so that they 
can be corrected before Robin puts them up on the Web site with the 
remaining older minutes.

-- 
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