Subject: Re: [lojban] Looking down: executive summary?

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 23:20:22 -0400

At 06:20 PM 07/16/2001 -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
>On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 06:10:08PM -0700, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
> > OK, I'm enraged, but I know I'm enraged because of stuff going on with
> > me much more than Lojban, and this has a risk of going around in
> > circles, so let me see if I understand this.
>[snip]
> > And if the Lessons are pitched at the wrong level, then I'm happy to let
> > someone else take them over; they've taken three months as is, and I don't
> > have the time for a radical rewrite.
>
>I think you've done an amazing job, thank you so much for all your hard
>work.
>
>[virtual hugs]

Which I second as well (and some things I know pc has said places him in 
the Nick-hugging category as well). The work Nick has done is indeed 
amazing, as usual for him (his prodigious work in the past has been 
inspiring to me and many others and may be what has made possible where we 
are today). I certainly am not trying to suggest that Nick did something 
wrong, nor am I considering squelching his book. And I may not be phrasing 
things in my most diplomatic manner - pre-LogFest work crunches are my 
highest stress periods of the year.

But if the lessons are at the wrong level for beginners, we can't call it a 
set of beginner's lessons, and that is what I thought he was working on 
(not having reviewed the lessons myself). If others who have reviewed the 
book feel that it is pitched at too high a level, we may have to consider 
publishing Nick's work on the Web for the short term, and doing something 
simpler for the introductory lesson book that is to be part of the 
beginners package. There may even be options that allow us to publish in 
print at two levels. The decision will almost certainly be made at 
LogFest, so it is critical that people speak up before then.

What I had THOUGHT Robin's Turner's lessons were originally, was along the 
lines of the 10 lesson Esperanto Postal Course, and therefore I had 
presumed that was the level Nick was aiming his editing of those lessons 
at. This discussion, and one comment from Nora a couple nights ago were 
the first sign I had that this was not the case. An alternate hypothesis 
came up, which is that Nick was trying for something like one of the "Teach 
Yourself [language]" books, which are a bit more ambitious than the 
Esperanto lessons; part of this depends on how Nick himself sees Robin's 
work; his comments suggest that he is trying to work at the same level that 
Robin was, so he may have seen Robin's lessons as being more sophisticated 
than the Esperanto lessons.

At which point, I throw the question open to *all* who have read some or 
all of Nick's lessons, with especial focus on the opinions of newer 
Lojbanists: is this the type of book YOU need or would like to read as a 
beginner in the language, or do we need something more basic, to which this 
book would be the follow-on.

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