Re: reply to And #3

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>Lojbab:
>>Why do I participate - because it is on Lojban List and public and
>therefore
>>influences the public image of the language.  If I cannot overcome the
>>image of Lojban as a ultra-technical debating society, I'll never get the
>>1000 speakers I want in 5 years.
>
>I don't see how muddling these discussions helps to overcome that
>image.

This sounds like encouragement for me to drop out, based on your choi
ce of
word "muddle".

My muddling in the discussions that I do tends to focus
more on "the vision
thing" than on the tecnical stuff, and suits my role (as Cowan has called
it, I think) of beingthe Lojban "visionary".  I'll accept that label more easily
 than I will one of "authority".

>If you want more newcomers to participate why don't you post
>something directed to them, thus generating a thread _in addition_
>to the more technical debates. A great thing about these discussion
>lists is that many discussions about many different topics can go on
>simultaneously. There's no need for one to exclude another. You can
>read all of them or only the ones that interest you.

This is nice in theory, but in practice, people look at the total
volume of a list, and the extent hat their mailbox fills up between readings
and/or weedings  and uses these as a basis to determine whether to kee
p
subscribing or reading.

I for one have a tendency to read nearly everything post (like I am doing
now) or almost nothing.  I think most other people do the same.

meanwhile, not only are
"Subject" lines misleading in many postings, but the mailing list is
unthreaded, so that if you read less than a certain large fraction of the
posts you really have no idea who is responding to what about which topics.

Meanwhile a large volume of technical stuff establishes an image of the
list and of the project that intimidates the beginner, one which a few easy
posts will not counterbalance because the person won't know which of the posts
are aimed at beginners (and a subject label "beginners" will not necessaru
ily
solve this though it might help).

Then, there are a lot of people who are indeed interested in the technical
stuff at least interested enough to try to read it, but who would be more
interested in easier stuff.  With the technical stuff however, they react
passively whereas with easier stuff they react more actively.  So as long
as technical discussions dominate the list they will not contribute.
But in different atmospheres they wil more actiuvely contribute.

And finally, all this high-level technical discussion gives the imopression
that something important is being decided, something that will CHANGE THE
LANGUAGE.  This is of course counter to the baseline philosophy, and it fails
to recognize what I have said a coule of times - that without pc, and Nick,
and Colin and many others weighing in on these issues, they would not be
capable of resolving anything EVEN IF the state of the language was subject
to "resolution" (which is of course a kind of prescription, which again
copunters the spirit of the baseline).

>Your taking time in
>participating in the more technical discussions about issues that you're
>--More--
>not interested in clarifying anyway takes time away from you to generate
>the kind of discussions that may appeal to begginners.

That may be true, but >I< am not in a position to do that kind of thing
right now (and indeed am not likely to be in the near future).  I am in
hyperreactive mode, readimng everything copiously because I cannot afford
to miss orders by skimming my mail (I've missed several over the last c
ouple
of years and at least one during the book-order period my not reading my
mail carefully enough).

Moreover, I look to YOU and otthers like you to do the promulgating of the
language to new people.  When you write in the language, you make the
language far more real to more people than when you discuss arcanities.
Your discussion about the interpetation of Mark's sentence is far more
accessible than the arcanities being discussed.  I sometimes fill in on
that sort of thing when no one else is doing so, but I don't haver time
for it,  I already feel guilty enough because I have 2 or 3 ckafybarja

replies from last Sept. that I simply have not had time to go back and
read, much less reply to, because I myself am stuck with trying to follow your
abstruse logic.

Why do I do so?  because you guys seem to think that it is important that
YOU do so, and that this will have some import on the language evolutuion.
I cannot igniore this unless I know that pc or Cowan is monitoring it, sin
ce
I trust them to let me know if you guys discuss anything significant.

>I remember that
>I started to participate here responding to a challenge from you to
>translate a Lojban sentence into everyday English.

I'd like more of this.  The phone game was nice, but maybe we need a more
public version, where someone posts something in Lojban and then after a set
period of time everyone posts their own interpretations (without discussion),
followed by discussion of the various choices . Not unlike what Mark did.

>> Maybe my rejectiomn of the fine logical
>>analysis that you guys seem to want is an instinctive reaction that such
>>analysis drives peopleaway
>
>Does it really? Why? I would very likely had left the list long ago if there
>had been no such discussions. To me they're one of the attractions of
>the list. I also enjoy exercising and trying to improve my abilities to
>write
>in Lojban, but I don't see why one should exclude the other.

Time.  When one has both to choose from, the more time consuming one usually
wins.

>>and makes less august brains feel that they cannot
>>learn the language.  I know they are wrong, but we need more text to
>>show this.
>
>i e'osai ko cupra lo selsku seba'i le nu pante le nu mi'a casnu
>lo nalcinri be do

.i ku'i do'o casnu lo milxe bi'i mutce cinri be mi ku noi le nu j
impe ke'a
cu krinu ja mukti lenu tu'a mi'a xaksu lo dukse temci

> >BY all measn do so - but pray do so by USING the language rather than by
>>debating about it.
>
>i doi mikce ko ko mikce

mi go'i .i mi na ka'e pamei se bangu

co'o mi'e lojbab.

----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";
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