Subject: RE: [lojban] corrigible vlaste? RE: Re: I like chocolate

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 14:48:49 +0100

pc:
> [email-masked] writes:
> <<
> It's really the baseline that is ill-conceived. It is inevitable that
> at the stage of development the language was at when it was baselined
> it would be full of things awkward & ill-conceived. 
> >>
> I suppose it was inevitable and the baseliners should have made some 
> provision for it, but coming from a situation in which nothing was 
> ever nailed down, but subject to change on (quite literally) a whim, 
> they erred in the othre direction. And, for all that, the results 
> have been pretty unchallenged over the years -- we don't have a 
> count, alas, but I have less than a hundred headings in my vocab 
> files, and many of those are not really serious changes but 
> clarifications and other are [well, you know, like yours].

Declaring a baseline at any time would have left some awkward and
ill-conceived elements. If it had been declared sooner, there'd 
probably have been more, if it had been declared later, there'd
probably have been fewer. But basically the baseline was a
willingly entered-into trade-off between stability and imperfection.
The general unchallengedness is explicable on several accounts
-- there aren't many people competent to challenge the results;
almost everyone would rather have stability plus imperfection
rather than change towards perfection; the existing baseline is
so underspecified that it gives people license to challenge the
results and be innovative covertly; most usage is so feeble and
so non-baseline-conformant that constraints imposed by the baseline
bite only when considered in the abstract.

> <<
> 
> I wonder whether it would be worthwhile keeping on a wiki a ma'oste
> and gi'uste where revisions can be made that correct some of the faults
> of the baselined versions -- stripping out unnecessary sumti places,
> making place structures consistent, revising definitions, etc. That
> way we have some sort of ongoing record of what the vocab should be
> like had it not been baselined, and it also means that we have a
> shared point of reference.
> 
> >>
> It might be useful to have them some public place, but I think that 
> the Wiki, which probably wants to keep its LLG approval rating, is 
> the wrong place. 

LLG has never expressed anything but support for the Wiki, and from
the outset the Wiki has had a section called "tinkering with Lojban"
where this sort of thing is recorded. Lots of people have complained
about sundry ideas discussed in those pages, but AFAIK nobody has
said they should be banned.

> I offer the Loccan archives for now and will pump 
> up a list of existing questions for a place with that. This is what 
> loCCan is for, after all. It probably doesn't even mind 
> Cloud-cuckooese, as long as there is a reasonable connection the 
> historic Loglan and Lojban.

It sounds like I should know what Loccan is, but I don't -- what is
it? 

The obvious advantage of the Wiki is its editability. 

> <<
> 
> Whenever Jorge points out flaws in the gismu, I invariably agree
> with him, but don't keep records of the revisions that his remarks
> imply. It would be useful to record these in the form of a corrigible
> vlaste.
> 
> >>
> xorxes or you worrying about a word is a good reason to look at it 
> carefully. This does NOT mean, however, that your solutions to the 
> problem are the best -- or even acceptable -- within Lojban. Some of 
> them are, after all, using a thermonuclear device as a flyswatter.

This is a minor issue, because as far as Lojban is concerned our
solutions are irrelevant unless they carry the day in the mellee of
usage. The act of documenting hypothetical revisions to the baseline
would not force anybody to actually use them or pay any attention
to them.

My experience is that xorxes is almost always right, and when he isn't
he immediately changes his mind if his error is pointed out. If I
point out a supposed error to him and he doesn't immediately change
his mind, it means that probably he's right and I'm wrong.

--And.