Re: disk crash at xiron

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

I got a message from Jim carter today proposing the following.  Feedback 
is welcome (I've asked Cowan as well, but don't know who else is qualified
to comment on what can be done)

lojbab
>From: jimc@math.ucla.edu
>To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>
>Cc: david@math.ucla.edu
>Subject: Re: serving the needs of Lojban learners 
>Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 09:45:14 -0800
>
>As I come back from the holiday and find 225 messages in my mailbox :-)
>
>> 1)beginning Lojban 1 to 1 tutoring
>> 2)Lojban 1 to 1 correspondence at maybe up to 3 levels of
>etc.
>
>The proposals look functional, and as far as I know they're feasible webwise.
>It's hard to tell in advance, though.  Here's another brainstorm: "let 1000 
>flowers bloom".  I'm asking David Faraldo, our local web expert, to comment 
>on feasibility assuming as is likely that Viejo has a reasonably up to date
>HTTP server.  (A mailing list is getting snowed under with technical 
>discussions and the idea is to organize it so beginners get the attention
>they need and can find discussions suitable for them.  Splitting the list is
>too Solomonic, and also not really feasible for both user and administrative
>--More--
>considerations.)
>
>We're looking at what I would call a database implementing the archive you
>have described, each record of which has the following fields:
>
>    1.  Lojban text (various lengths, various author competencies).  As a 
>        pragmatic matter, more competent authors would be likely to post
>longer         texts.  In the technical harangues, field (1) might well be
>left blank.
>    2.  English (etc.) text, supposedly a translation of (1), or (1) is a
>translation
>        of (2), or some kind of comment.
>    3.  Thread key.  If this is a comment on previous postings, the key of
>the
>        original posting is duplicated here.  Otherwise a unique key is
>assigned.
>    4.  Thread ordinal.  To distinguish postings in a thread.  Perhaps "1"
>could 
>        be reserved for the initial one.
>    5.  Purpose: e.g. wants constructive criticism on the language usage, or
>        this is a comment on flaky semantics of some gismu, etc, etc.
>    6.  E-mail address of poster, includes site of origin (?)
>    7.  Date.
>
>--More--
>In the initial phase I suggest the following capabilities:
>
>    A.  A list of thread heads, i.e. the "flowers" that people post,
>particularly
>        beginners' offerings for language help.  A count of follow-on
>postings 
>        would be helpful too.  More advanced speakers who like helping
>newbies 
>        could scan these as you suggested, particularly those with no
>follow-ons.
>    B.  A kind of threaded news reader, whereby one thread could be followed
>in
>        order, and while each individual readers' place in the thread could
>not
>        be maintained without software support at his end, if any such
>exists,
>        it would be quick enough to scroll to the end of the directory and
>pick
>        up where you left off.  
>    C.  Some kind of garbage collection -- details are fuzzy.
>    D.  Some kind of topical identification would be real nice but I despair
>of
>        getting people to use coherent topic designators.
>
>For the record format, I would be inclined to have each "record" be a file in
>a directory, and to use field designators analogous to RFC-822, e.g.
>
>    From: jimc@math.ucla.edu
>    Date: whatever
>--More--
>    Subject: text for criticism
>    Thread: jimc31
>    Ordinal: 1
>    Lojban:
>    ti mupli fi lo se cusku be fo la lojban
>    Natlang:
>    This is a sample of Lojban text.
>
>When old postings are taken off the server they definitely should be archived
>permanently, as a corpus of actual Lojban usage, such as it is.  If someone
>has a 10^9 byte disc drive, keeping these online (but not cluttering the main
>serverpages) could be useful.  
>
>                -- jimc


To which his Web guy responded

>To: jimc@math.ucla.edu
>Cc: Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>
>Subject: Re. : serving the needs of Lojban learners 
>Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 11:23:30 -0800
>From: "David Faraldo" <david@math.ucla.edu>
>
>
>Seems webwise-feasible to me.  The engine would be the tricky part;
>once you've got that, a Web interface could easily be done in Perl.  
>
>I notice a lot of Jim's suggestions could be handled by Netscape's 
>built-in newsreader.  Perhaps NNTP access to the archive would be
>possible (as a local newsgroup, perhaps).  That means the reader
>would have to point Netscape to the archive NNTP server, and it 
>would take administrative time, but it'd be nice not to have to 
>re-invent the wheel.
>
>Best of luck --
>                                        -=< David >=-


lojbab