SUO: Re: Topic :> Blithe And Barely Examined Laws
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
Topic :> BABEL 4. <JA, 09 Dec 2002, 01>
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
In: Topic :> BABEL. http://suo.ieee.org/email/thrd8.html#12004
Re: Topic :> BABEL 3. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg12042.html
JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
PJ = Philip Jackson
JA: I cannot get a straight answer
to a direct question out of
Matthew West --
JA: I asked for his consideration, especially since the number of my
postings was now limited, to let me know if I was wasting my time
working throught the Criticism versus Complaint issue that we had
at one point discussed as being a valid issue, and which time would
clearly be wasted if there was no real intention to respect my input.
MW: Sorry, I must have missed this. If I miss something
again I am quite happy that you approach me off-list.
Coup over. All previous issues Moot (QV In Futulio).
Until the next coup, and the next, and the next ...
That's how it is when you sign away democracy ...
Oh yes you did ...
Que sera, sera ...
On jugera ...
Usw. ...
Etc. ...
Esd. ...
...
MW: If I shoot from the hip on this I would expect a criticism
to be identifying a defect in some artifact, and a complaint
to be with regards to some behaviour perhaps not conforming
to some norm.
Shooting from the lip is one quality of Leadership,
at least it was in the Wild Wild West, but now it's
mostly the lie of the land to find lots and lots of
read my slip service. It appears that another handy
with a gun quality of Leadership is the capacity to
make up implicit, tacit, up-fronted, pre-agreed to,
and retro-active rules at the drop of a 10-gal hat.
Yule do just fine and dandy, I reckon, Pardner.
MW: I'm afraid I see all the looking at definitions
in excrutiating detail as rather a distraction.
I will quote you on that.
Maybe not today, because
I'm at Number 10 already,
but soon, and I know you
know the line better than
those who wait, and wait,
and wait, and wait ...
MW: I think we should be looking at the big picture of the
Procedures, Policy and Code of Practice first, and only
then looking at some of the elements, and only then when
there is some obvious and statable ambiguity that would
come in the form "Do you mean A or do you mean B?"
Turnabout is fair game, I guess,
cause there you go agun quoting
me on that score, but check and
see if your safety is off, and
whether you have the amunition,
so to speak ...
MW: The objective here is to have a workable procedure and
a policy and code of practice, not to get precise about
some terms when anything in the broad range of accepted
meaning will do.
Another Motto for the Museum.
Or maybe the Hall of Mirrors.
JA: The way I see it, consideration is a two-way street.
That's not a definition. It's only a travel advisory.
<e-lipsis>
MW: Well I was dissappointed that Jim jumped in and
accepted your offer of 10 before I had a chance
even to respond to you. When the numbers came
in it seems the number I had thought of was
about right. So I asked you to reconsider.
You could have just said no, but by your
actions you seem to have accepted my
request, and I'm grateful.
I guess I just interpreted his presumptive agency
to say that one of you had become the other's asset.
It doesn't really matter all that much who covers who.
JA: Remarks that show no evidence of acquaintance with the facts are
remarks that border on the frivolous. Please read my initial note.
This was proposed as Temporary Solution_2 after an exhausting week
of discussion on the Gmane Newsgroup proposal, which I still think
would solve the Volume problem if the Group is really serious about
doing that, at least until better GroupWare comes along, any day now.
I proposed a solution that could have been implemented by the end of
the day. Somewhat too late, I realized that Matthew had not afforded
my researches the consideration of a reading, or a following of links
to where the pertinent information was given in the Holy Writ of HTML.
MW: I did consider it. The volume problem is simply that
there is no point posting more than people can process.
You might as well go into an empty room and deliver
a lecture.
Let's all make some concerted effort to update
our metaphors every couple hundred years or so,
shall we?
I am an old-fashioned type who watches one channel at a time --
though in my mind's ear I can hear my wife guffawing at her
imaginary reading of this -- okay, but when the surf's down
I do settle on one. If I call the local broadcasters and
tell them to quit sending more signal than I can process,
well, they would tell me to secure the remote control in
a rather more remote location than I can easily access.
We have lots and lots of work to do. Which is better, then,
splitting up into umpteen lists, where the cross-postings will
multiply geometrically and participants will have to subscribe
to many of them anyway, and unsubscribe on holidays, and back
on again after vacation, and a fragmentary hodge-podge of many
archives -- really, I do not think that you have thought ahead
very far on this. With the Newsgroup format, nothing comes to
you that you don't run out the front door and ferret from the
hedge, and then only headers, unless you fancy the headline.
Except that you can also post from the NewsPort, and even
delete mistaken posts with your usual <Delete> button,
so long as it's under your by-line, so to speak --
it stays in the Archive, but not on the Wire.
Best of all possible worlds to me.
JA: I proposed 10 per day, for the month of December, for these reasons:
(1) Out of consideration for the needs of "hot pursuit" dialogues --
I truly believe that 5 per day would block inquiry and cramp the
natural pace of discussion far too severely for all participants
on this list.
MW: Actually, I think slowing down the pace of discussion
so that people can keep up is precisely a good thing.
Again, if there 'were' discussion, it 'would' slow down.
JA: (2) I had hopes of getting past the more annoying
initialization process of my informal lexical tree
by that time.
MW: Annoying is right. I still have no idea where you are going with
that line. I mostly see it as a distraction at best at the moment.
It sounds like you probably have your face in a different space.
I tend to read stuff in the Archive first, filing away postings
without much thought unless I plan to respond to them. I think
that the reasons for organizing materials in the Archives a bit
better ought to be clear, and I have explained that quite a lot,
but if you do not live there then you probably will not see it.
<e-lipsis>
JA: I started with the Procedure Document and the discussion that
developed around it. My strategy was to make a note of words
that: (1) got repeated several times, (2) appeared to serve
some significant function in the document/discussion, even
when they did not appear to be especially important as far
as their ostensible substance went, (3) prompted me to ask
myself something to the effect: "Gee, I wonder if X means
the same thing as Y means by that" or "Huh, I wonder if X
has any sort of operational definition at all for that".
MW: However, in doing this you got away from
developing the document itself -- which is
after all the immediate objective. If you had
raised questions of specific potiential ambiguity
within the context of the document, we might have
made more progress towards finishing "something"
that could give us some purchase to make further
progress. I'm afraid I see rushing off into
the bushes with some terms as a diversion,
and a little self indulgent.
Matthew, a document is a very dead thing in and of itself.
It only has real meaning if it has meaning in the customs,
deeds, lives, and works of folks who use it as a catalyst,
a faciliator, an instrument of the values that they want
to realize in the real world. The text is a potential
sign of some objective, it is not an end in itself.
To think it is, now that is self indulgent.
JA: I have pointed out many times how useful it is to consult
dictionaries of standard and technical usage, frequently
taking the trouble to record the results in the Archive.
JA: I have pointed out many times that dictionary entries
afford but the first step in a process of discovering
practical, operational, testable definitions of terms.
We have a Craft that makes it its daily bread business
to find and implement practical, operational, testable
definitions of the concepts that might conceivably fall
to its purview, to wit -- well, let's leave that as an
Exercise for the Riddler. And I find it just a bit odd,
if not downright shocking, that we do not make more use
of what Craft we have learned in this Craft, if only by
way of analogical guide, to resolve more practically the
issues of these definitions. Don't you?
MW: Only when there is evidence of a problem in a particular context.
In which case the problem should be stated first. At present it
would seem that the main purpose of the procedures document is to
unearth some terms that are used so that they can be examined --
heaven forbid that we should actually get to some procedures
we can start to use!
I was not born yesterday. Now did I arrive on these SUO shores yesterday.
The evidence is in, if you but look at it, and quit trying to paste over
it with the oily cliches of wishful thinking that the problem does not
exist. I have the evidence of 3.5 years experience in this group and
what you say is just no longer credible given the depth of mistaking
one another's meanings that we see on a daily and hourly basis here.
That is what the title of this e-say says to me.
Jon Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o