Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: Official Statement- LLG Board approves new baseline policy

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 19:08:11 -0000

Lojbab:
> What I am seeing in the few hostile postings on this discussion (only 
> Jordan that I have seen has publicly been supportive), is that people are 
> willing to put their small concerns over details ahead of their willingness 
> to grant some slack in the spirit of consensus. Everyone wants guarantees 
> in advance that their particular concern will be respected in the final 
> baseline (or in the case of And's argument, that the final baseline not be 
> a baseline at all). 

This is, as they say in Britain, bollocks. I've already in public and
private said I support the BF and want to help. And I haven't sought
guarantees that my particular concerns will be respected in the final
baseline; I want only that everybody's views be given fair and
reasonable consideration in the process of determing the policy that
we seek consensus around. All I have been complaining about & asking 
for is that consensus be achieved by canvassing and debating the views 
of the community in general, rather than by well-intentioned Board 
members drawing up a document behind closed doors and then asking either 
for unconditional support or outright rejection.

> The policy that the Board settled on with much 
> wrangling was to leave the details to a consensus of the byfy, and I made 
> it a point to make sure that the byfy will exclude no one who is willing to 
> work within Nick's procedures, so the byfy is potentially more 
> representative of the community than even the LLG voting membership (which 
> is self-promulgating); no one including you or And is excluded 
> 
> But we must be able AND WILLING to give up on details in order to achieve 
> consensus. The policy as adopted is an attempt at a consensus reflecting 
> known concerns of many different interest groups. No one including me is 
> satisfied with all the details, but at some point we have to be willing to 
> grant consensus support rather than hassling the details 
> 
> The vote on the policy will tell me whether the Lojban community is willing 
> to back a consensus position without arguing everything to death. If it 
> cannot do so, I am less than confident that the language will remain a 
> cohesive unity, something that we have been more successful at doing than 
> most artificial language efforts 

My complaint is precisely that the Board is not asking for consensus.
It is asking for assent to a specific policy that itself is not the
product of consensus. 

I will support the BF with the goal of achieving durable consensus
in its pronouncements.

--And.