SUO: RE: Re: Meta*Question
Dear Jon,
OK. Stand by for what I hope will be seen as constructive criticism.
I will speak strictly personally, since it would be inappropriate
to assume others see things in the same way.
For me the issue with your postings is not to do with the proposal
that we need to look at basic scientific, math, and Comp Sci
knowledge as the start point. I agree with you, and generally in fact
with most of the points that I can discern you are making. And I am
content you slow read whatever you like onto the Ontology List. I
try to at least note the subjects you think worthy of this treatment.
For me the problem is how you do it, and in particular the bandwidth
you consume. Taking myself, I can probably afford about 1 hour a day
going through what is on the SUO lists and contributing to SUO
deliverables like the Procedures Document. I usually find that at least
half that time, and often more is spent processing your posts. This
detracts from what I might contribute myself.
If I might indulge in an analogy, part of the issue is the nature of
some of your posts, which are like an unbalanced meal, where the
content is mostly garnish with very little meat. I know I often
struggle to discern the point you are making in some posts, and often
find I have given up before I have found it. It would help me if you
followed the maxims for a good speach "tell them what your going to
tell them, tell them, tell them what you've told them".
Sometimes I am just baffled. Your recent series of posts apparently
just giving headings for terms that might need definition seems to me
to achieve very little. What I know I would have appreciated is if you
had offered to keep privately a list of terms that you thought
particularly significant and develop definitions for them that might
go towards an overall SUO Glossary as a possible SUO deliverable on
the web site.
Yet you often make what I find good and useful contributions. most of
your comments on the procedures document have been very helpful, and I
think in particular of the two posts you made working through the current
draft. These I really appreciate.
Yours in good faith.
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon Awbrey [mailto:jawbrey@att.net]
> Sent: 24 November 2003 03:16
> To: John F. Sowa
> Cc: Jay Halcomb; SUO; cg@cs.uah.edu
> Subject: SUO: Re: Meta*Question
>
>
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> John,
>
> Yes, we all have our personal ethic, norm, inner voice,
> daimon, whatever.
> You follow yours, I follow mine, mostly I'd be happy with
> that, as you say,
> "until" a problem arises. A problem has arisen. At any rate
> -- slow ball,
> fast ball, curve ball -- I see a foul, and so I must call it
> as I see it.
>
> There is a fundamental practical contradiction in the conduct
> of this Group.
>
> One of the things that I dislike about off-list chatter about
> official issues is that I that always end up having to repeat
> the same thing again on list, and I usually always express it
> even worse the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, ..., infinty^th time around.
> So I think this time I'll just excerpt what I alrady said:
>
> Note 1.
>
> sorry, slip of the fingers caused me to offlist you.
> what you say is something that i would have believed
> three years ago, but it just aint so on present data.
> there is a fundamental practical contradiction between
> the explicit rules and the implicit rules in this group,
> and until a few more people start to see it, we will get
> absolutely no real work done of any kind. i tried to make
> it obvious by juxtaposing jim's directive to me with a post
> from you of 7th degree imp-of-an-imp relevance to the central
> problem, but you picked the 'silence assents' option, which was
> the only one that i had not expected from you.
>
> Note 2.
>
> when you get done with doctrines about what "thou shalt not do",
> you are always free to undertake any constructive substantive
> activity you can think of. i am still waiting for your 2nd
> on my motion to adopt the pragmatic maxim as rule number 1.
> whether you tumble to it or not, i am doing constructive
> work under this cover, and until it becomes obvious that
> you can't build a "modern" ontology without a research
> base and expertise in multiple relevant domains, this
> horse is doa, and all i can do is try to educate the
> riders up to speed about what computer science and
> about 20 other subjects really are about in 2003.
> we have quite a long ways to go with that, and
> you 'could' help lots, but you are not facing
> the realities of what we really have here.
> it is mostly opportunities being wasted,
> not time.
>
> Note 3.
>
> totally serious -- i don't say "i move" in that
> context without meaning it. what do you think
> will happen?
>
> you know we are never going to have any progress as long
> as jim restricts discussion, at the behest of [whoever],
> whether capriciously or consistently, to the albatrosses
> of current starter docs that we have. rk's iff could be
> made sense of, bit by bit, but you have to start at the
> bottom with mac lane or something, not in stratos city.
> but jim doesn't even know enough about it to know that
> almost everything i talk about is just nuts and bolts
> workaday concrete categories done up for the millions
> without expecting them all to bow down and worship
> it instead of just working with it. i have been
> converting logic into functional and computable
> form since about 1980, but the scl crowd can't
> even figure out that the functional interp is
> sine qua non for doing anything significant.
> everybody in math and theoretical comp sci,
> as opposed to phil of math, knows this.
>
> That is just how I see it.
> My daimon made me say it.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> John F. Sowa wrote:
> >
> > Jon,
> >
> > The guidelines I follow are the same ones that I proposed when
> > the question about limiting the number of email postings was
> > discussed a couple of months ago (sometime in August, I think):
> >
> > 1. Limit the number of new topics that any single subscriber
> > may initiate to a small number per day -- no more than 2 or 3.
> >
> > 2. But allow a larger number of replies to ongoing discussions --
> > especially permit follow-up responses to direct questions
> > and ongoing debates.
> >
> > I find it very difficult to navigate the SUO archive, so I wasn't
> > able to retrieve the exact thread. But the discussion about
> > limiting the number of postings seemed to get resolved or put
> > aside, and no further discussion on this topic was pursued.
> >
> > But that is the principle I follow: don't clutter the list with
> > too many new topics, but respond when somebody addresses you.
> >
> > John
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
>