LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Dboozer »

Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote:
Dboozer wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: From my perspective, that's the primary role of any organization that represents a larger community (see the stamps, trains, and coin reference above): to listen to the members of its constituent community.
I wholeheartedly agree. Indeed, that's my point: you do not represent us. You are not an organisation representing a larger community, you're a self-appointed coterie of people representing yourselves. It is important that the essentially vain and self-promoting nature of project be borne in mind. The simulation of listening to us does nothing material, but only reinforces your rhetoric that we are your "constituents".
From what I can see, LCS does not and was never meant to and never tried to establish itself as a rival "community" or some kind of governing body of conlanging. My perspective is that it was formed, in part, to try and serve as a bridge between the established conlanging community/communities and everyone else out there. I hope you can grant that the far-flung conlanging community (ZBB, CBB, Conlang-L, conlang-specific communities, etc., etc.) can be a little daunting to someone who is interested in it, let alone anyone who has never even heard of it.
According to its Articles of Incorporation with the State of California, LCS had/has the following primary "specific purposes":
* the promotion and furthering of the art, craft, and science of language creation (conlanging) through conferences, books, journals, outreach activities, or other means
Which I disagree with, as it does not need to be furthered (if anything, the contrary), but let's leave that aside: more importantly, what it's actually promoting and furthering is itself.
We can start another thread, but I've always been a proponent of conlang "evangelism" in the sense of I feel it's a good thing to let people know that conlanging exists as a viable hobby/craft/art. I presented a workshop once where a mother came up to me afterwards and expressed relief that her tween-age daughter wasn't "weird" for creating her own languages. That is worth "furthering" the awareness of conlanging in the wider world in my opinion. That is my opinion, you're welcome to yours. LCS furthers my goal, that's why I'm involved with it.

Okay, let's look at your assertion that LCS is "actually promoting and furthering itself." Take a look at the homepage at http://www.conlang.org/. Take your time... I'll wait. What do you see right "above the fold" in the middle of the page? Links to pages by Mark Rosenfelder, Pablo David Flores, Rick Morneau, and David Peterson (and me). Those look like they point away from LCS materials? How about the Conlang Blog Aggregator? 38 conlanging-related blogs have asked to be a part of the aggregator. They saw value in it for whatever reason. Are they wrong? The Aggregator can be used to, once again, explore all those blogs from one spot. Yes, I'm aware several are specific to LCS, but the majority are not. Look at the bottom of the navigation menu on the left of the page. What's there? Links to all the major online communities, including ZBB. And my own Conlanger's Library is (almost) nothing but pointers to sources outside of itself.

Yes, there are some LCS-specific resources on the LCS site, but that's to be expected. Once again, I emphasize that one of the purposes of LCS is to serve as a bridge from nascent conlangers or interested non-conlangers to the wider community. Instead of making people find CBB, ZBB, Conlang-L, KLI, etc., etc., all individually; LCS can serve as a map to the far-flung world of conlanging.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Dboozer »

Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: * to run an annual Language Creation Conference, which will discuss and promote academic, artistic, linguistic, sociological, applied, and other perspectives on conlanging; increase the status of the field, and encourage and provide a forum for original research
Which personally I see little point it, but that's not my problem.
I would urge you to consider attending one before you blithely dismiss it as seeing little point in it. Interacting with other like-minded individuals in a real-life setting? Learning from others in a conference setting? Hanging out with other conlangers in an informal setting, going out to dinner, and playing a game of Glossotechnia? Those all seem like enjoyable, educational, and community-building endeavors to me.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Astraios »

Dboozer wrote:I would urge you to consider attending one before you blithely dismiss it as seeing little point in it. Interacting with other like-minded individuals in a real-life setting? Learning from others in a conference setting? Hanging out with other conlangers in an informal setting, going out to dinner, and playing a game of Glossotechnia? Those all seem like enjoyable, educational, and community-building endeavors to me.
Not everybody wants to do the things that seem enjoyable, educational, and community-building to you. And not everyone has to think twice before deciding if they want to attend a social gathering or not.


EDIT: Me, for instance. I enjoy being on my own, and I like being comfortable. If I attended whatever it is you do, I wouldn't be on my own, and I wouldn't be comfortable. I don't need to consider it or weigh it up against the excitement of meeting new people.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Dboozer »

Dboozer wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:
* to bring together all varieties of conlanging without bias, tie together the conlanging communities (including but not limited to artistic languages, auxiliary languages, engineered languages, interlinguas, etc),
Why are we meant to want to be 'tied', and who elected you to tie us?
At the risk of repeating myself again, it's a bridge or map metaphor. There's no federalism or imperial designs, and I'm having really hard time trying to see where this idea comes from.
Dboozer wrote:
Salmoneus wrote: and act as a primary resource for people outside the community (e.g. teachers, students, press, novelists, movie writers, etc)
This is the big one, or at least symbolic of it: this states quite plainly your desire to take over the community - that is, to take away the voices of people who aren't you and make yourself the sole (or at least 'primary') voice.
At the risk of repeating myself again again, it's a bridge or map metaphor. There's no federalism or imperial designs. How could someone or some organization exactly "take over the community" anyway? How exactly is LCS taking "away the voices of people who aren't (them)"? You are free to speak up in any venue you like, virtually or in reality regardless of whether the LCS exists or not. How are you being stifled?

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Dboozer »

Dboozer wrote:
Salmoneus wrote: As it is, subsequent interviews were used not only to answer questions about David himself and Dothraki but also the larger community, for example:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/08/a- ... z0xlaPMw00
http://www.tor.com/component/content/blog/59109
I didn't elect David as my spokesman. It is inevitable that people will speak for others - I do so myself - but undesirable that they be given an orb, sceptre and dais when doing so. It lends the appearance of authority, or of being representative
I'm going to simply chalk the "orb, sceptre and dais" up to hyperbole because I see no indication that this is, in reality, the case with David. As to whether you elected him, he chose to include comments about others conlanging work in the interviews. He could very well have been a glory-hound, but he made a conscious decision not to be and to try and use what modicum of celebrity he had been given to, once again, shed light on the wider world of conlanging and conlangers. "Random university professor" creating a language would, in all likelihood, not have done that. That was the point I was attempting to make when I previously talked about the positive aspect of Dothraki being created by a conlanger and not "random university professor." Although, from your previous comments, it would appear to me that you believe shedding light on the wider world of conlanging and conlangers should not be done in the first place. Or are you just saying it shouldn't be done by LCS?

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Pthagnar »

i do not know if your splitting this up into different posts is some sort of bizarre reflex from the Age of USENET, or if it's just a tactic of making it look more like grapeshot than an actual, parryable response, but if it's the latter than it is prob. not going to work.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by henrik »

For all of you who like to giggle about official titles, I am vice president of the LCS. If you eye roll me now, please explain yourself. Note that The Knitting Guild of America might have a vice president, too. I wonder whether The Knitting Guild of America has similar discussions. 'You don't have the right to exist, I don't want to be represented by you. You can stick your definite article up your bottom, I knit alone in front of my TV!'

Anyway. Why I like the LCS? Because I like conlanging and I like the thought that there is an officially registered organisation trying to do good for conlanging, trying to offer service for whoever is interested.

With this in mind, I find it very offensive how Sai is treated by some people here, as he has sacrificed a lot of his spare time for helping build this organisation that offers service to conlangers. As they say in German: 'Undank ist der Welt Lohn'.

Offering service includes running a website with useful links to other conlang resources. It includes organising conferences to meet other people with similar interests. It includes thinking about contracts with people who want to give money to conlangers for conlanging. And it includes quite a bit more.

Now, if you want more service and/or are interested in improving services and/or have ideas of what might be interesting to yourself or other conlangers, the initial post of this thread offers you to join the LCS advisory board.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Pthagnar »

why, does the Knitting Guild of America have a parliament for people who don't want to join the KGA but who, nevertheless, care about it and want it to care about what they think?

i.e. why would one join the Advisory Board when one can just join the LCS?

NE: and for that matter, is the decision making process of the LCS *really* so convoluted and multifaceted that a special body for "representation of the wider community" is needed?

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Yng »

henrik wrote:With this in mind, I find it very offensive how Sai is treated by some people here, as he has sacrificed a lot of his spare time for helping build this organisation that offers service to conlangers. As they say in German: 'Undank ist der Welt Lohn'.
I shed a tear for your woes.

So what are you then? Vice-Pontifex of the Holy and Universal Church of Conlanging?
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Pthagnar »

also ave o vice-pontifex etc etc

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Salmoneus »

YngNghymru wrote:
henrik wrote:With this in mind, I find it very offensive how Sai is treated by some people here, as he has sacrificed a lot of his spare time for helping build this organisation that offers service to conlangers. As they say in German: 'Undank ist der Welt Lohn'.
I shed a tear for your woes.

So what are you then? Vice-Pontifex of the Holy and Universal Church of Conlanging?
Now now - we must respect Sai's gracious and salvific martyrdom, and derogatory comments about him, his church or his followers simply obscurs how unredeemed we were before we heard the gospel. By mocking him, you are essentially claiming (hubristically!) that you were doing fine before he came to show you the way out of the valley of darkness.
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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Salmoneus »

Dboozer wrote: We can start another thread, but I've always been a proponent of conlang "evangelism" in the sense of I feel it's a good thing to let people know that conlanging exists as a viable hobby/craft/art. I presented a workshop once where a mother came up to me afterwards and expressed relief that her tween-age daughter wasn't "weird" for creating her own languages. That is worth "furthering" the awareness of conlanging in the wider world in my opinion.
The anecdote's a good enough reason to disband the cult, I think. If her daughter (sorry, don't know what "tween-age" means, or why it has a hyphen) created her own language, her daughter is weird.

You're weird, I'm weird, we're all fucking weird, and no number of self-help groups, pompous publications, pretensions of academia, and cargo-cult-style irc 'board meetings' will stop that. Quite the contrary. The fact that a community exists online doesn't make its members non-weird, anymore than the existence of pro-ana communities online makes anorexia positive and life-affirming. Conlanging is fundamentally weird and abnormal. That's not to say it's a bad thing, or even that it isn't a good thing, but self-delusion does not help anybody. Certainly taking formal minutes of people reciting "look at me, I'm Serious Business" does not help anybody.
Yes, there are some LCS-specific resources on the LCS site, but that's to be expected. Once again, I emphasize that one of the purposes of LCS is to serve as a bridge from nascent conlangers or interested non-conlangers to the wider community. Instead of making people find CBB, ZBB, Conlang-L, KLI, etc., etc., all individually; LCS can serve as a map to the far-flung world of conlanging.
This isn't a bad aim per se, but could be just as easily (and better) achieved by a neutral website, rather than a political group with its own interests. [You pretend your interests are that of 'the community', and this is one of the most offensive things about you - no institution's interests are the interests of the community, even if that is the initial intention. That's not how politics works. It's not how interests work, either]

Such websites have existed before. They can exist again. No need for one voice in the community to take it upon itself to control the sound system.

I would urge you to consider attending one before you blithely dismiss it as seeing little point in it. Interacting with other like-minded individuals in a real-life setting? Learning from others in a conference setting? Hanging out with other conlangers in an informal setting, going out to dinner, and playing a game of Glossotechnia? Those all seem like enjoyable, educational, and community-building endeavors to me.
I'll take 'blythe' as a compliment - it's something I've often aspired to, but never yet been accused of. Thank you. But no, those all seem like faily horrible ways to spend time to me. Turns out, not everybody is you. Wait, is that connected to that idea I had called 'plurality'? Rather than 'one person decides what they think is obviously in the best interests of The Community and pursues it unilaterally'?
At the risk of repeating myself again again, it's a bridge or map metaphor. There's no federalism or imperial designs. How could someone or some organization exactly "take over the community" anyway?
By becoming the voice of the community to the outside world. By hogging the megaphone. Better not to have a megaphone at all, especially when none of us have anything interesting to say. The metaphor should not be a bridge (after all, as I say, that could be done neutrally), but a funnel, with us on one side and the rest of the world on the other.
How exactly is LCS taking "away the voices of people who aren't (them)"?
It's really a very simple concept.
Before:
Stranger: "hey, you people, tell me about conlanging!"
Conlangers: "X!" "yes, X", "no, Y!", "Y AND X", "anything but X!" "Z! or A! I'm not sure!"
Stranger: "o....k.... may have to think about this..."

Now:
Stranger: "hey, tell me about conlanging!"
LCS: "Q. They say Q. Oh, one of them may say Y, possibly"
Stranger: "Right, Q, OK."
Conlangers: *muffled shouting from behind the door*
Stranger: "not going to ask what's going on in there..."

(substitute 'conlanging' for any more specific question, if you want. On a personal level, of course, an important one is "what are conlangers like?" - you're all one sort of person, and many of us aren't that sort of person. But outsiders look at your "LCS" and think you're representative of us. And sure, if all conlangers were Saizai and THC and lived on the list and not one of the boards, then that wouldn't be so much of a problem. But we aren't all you.)
You are free to speak up in any venue you like, virtually or in reality regardless of whether the LCS exists or not. How are you being stifled?
Why have neutrality on the BBC? Even if the BBC tells you that Labour are all Satanists, Labour candidates can still go round to everybody's houses one by one and show them otherwise, no? The BBC doesn't STOP them.

Controlling the high ground matters - even if it doesn't logically necessarily absolutely prevent others from being heard. Because it doesn't matter what you can do in the venue, it matters how easy it is to get to the venue. The guy with the high ground gets to be at more venues than other people. And your pretensions give you the high ground. Because if the Language Creation Society is arguing with Johnny Conlanger, everybody can see who's representing the conlanging community. Because Johnny Conlanger didn't copyright the "LCS" name first. But that doesn't, or shouldn't, make him less deserving of attention. But it DOES mean he'll get less attention.
I'm going to simply chalk the "orb, sceptre and dais" up to hyperbole because I see no indication that this is, in reality, the case with David.
You don't think his position in the LCS, and the job he gave himself via the LCS, are taken by outsiders as vindication of him both as a conlanger and as a representative of conlanging? You don't think people take the LCS' information about conlangers as having some sort of validity, more validity than would be had if David were a random weird guy on the internet? Then why are you a member of it?
"Random university professor" creating a language would, in all likelihood, not have done that. That was the point I was attempting to make when I previously talked about the positive aspect of Dothraki being created by a conlanger and not "random university professor."
You don't get it. If Dothraki had been created, it would have been by a conlanger. By definition. And if people are going to see conlangers, yes, I'd rather they see university professors than the LCS people. University professors are more impressive representatives - and not really any less representative than you people. And I pray God they don't see your minutes. Otherwise people will expect us to wear our underwear on our heads.
Although, from your previous comments, it would appear to me that you believe shedding light on the wider world of conlanging and conlangers should not be done in the first place. Or are you just saying it shouldn't be done by LCS?
I think it neither bad nor good, frankly. But if it's going to happen, I'd rather it were a neutral light, and I'd rather it not be held by someone with an obsession with self-justification in the eyes of others. It gives a distorting perspective.


And PLEASE, and I say this as a Mod, not just as an interlocutor, don't do that ridiculous thing with the page of sequential replies again. It does nothing but inconvenience everybody. This isn't USENET. The world has moved on. I know we're all geeks, but that doesn't mean we have to act like nerds.
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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Salmoneus »

On your advisory committee:
1. You want people who approve of the LCS and want to help it... but who don't want to be members
2. You want input on what the LCS should be doing, as long as it's in the form of people asking for it to do more - asking for it to get the hell out of the way would be negative and thus not worth hearing
3. You want members of the advisory committee to represent people who aren't part of the LCS, but you want the LCS to effectively set in advance what they should say and what they should want

You mean you're planning to pick some random people who give up their membership for the purpose, or what?
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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Pthagnar »

also to clarify a point that salmoneus isn't making properly: the idea of this thread makes it even more pernicious. Under this system, the LCS has a tame ZBBite, whose only claim to representing ideas about conlanging found on the ZBB is that the LCS recognises him as being a Representative, with a seat in the House of Conlanging Representatives. The Stranger in the dialogue may think he is learning about diverse viewpoints of conlanging, but really he is just getting the opinions of one man, prefiltered by his being somebody who can countenance the idea of a) the LCS and b) the wacky representative council idea!

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by zompist »

henrik wrote:With this in mind, I find it very offensive how Sai is treated by some people here, as he has sacrificed a lot of his spare time for helping build this organisation that offers service to conlangers. As they say in German: 'Undank ist der Welt Lohn'.

Offering service includes running a website with useful links to other conlang resources. It includes organising conferences to meet other people with similar interests. It includes thinking about contracts with people who want to give money to conlangers for conlanging. And it includes quite a bit more.
And it also includes being unnecessarily abrasive, defensive, and pretentious, which has created ongoing problems for your organization.

First, don't continue those traits. You are a guest here, and to undo the impression Sai unfortunately created, you should be biting back the urge to snark back at critics. You're not going to win an argument with Salmoneus and Pthug, but if you can listen and make positive contributions, you may attract other board members.

Second... it's hard to say this nicely, but your enconium to Sai is like the American Ambassador coming to the Court of St. James in 1816 and proudly explaining that his country has a legislature and a capital and other shiny things. Yes, kid, good for you, but I've been in this business longer than Sai has.

And a very minor third... if you don't understand the eyerolling about titles, perhaps you could explain what difference it makes that you have one? Two of the participants here, Salmoneus and Radius, have titles too— they are Moderators, which I guess is equal to Vice President. Did that change anything for you?

tl; dr The sooner you get into the attitude of "We are a conlanging organization and want to have good relations with other conlanging organizations", rather than "We are the conlanging organization and we represent all conlangers", the better.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Jipí »

For some reason I can't rid myself thinking of Conlang, The Movie after reading this thread :|

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Yng »

Salmoneus wrote: Now now - we must respect Sai's gracious and salvific martyrdom, and derogatory comments about him, his church or his followers simply obscurs how unredeemed we were before we heard the gospel. By mocking him, you are essentially claiming (hubristically!) that you were doing fine before he came to show you the way out of the valley of darkness.
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tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by zompist »

YngNghymru wrote:Les conlanguistes, ce sont moi!
Hmm, is there an abbreviation like "conlangs" in French? Les conlangs would be horrible franglais, and langues con(nes?) would be something quite different.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Pthagnar »

"conlang" is horrible English anyway. I have maintained for a long time that the only thing preventing us from realising what a stupid word it is is familiarity.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Yng »

zompist wrote:
YngNghymru wrote:Les conlanguistes, ce sont moi!
Hmm, is there an abbreviation like "conlangs" in French? Les conlangs would be horrible franglais, and langues con(nes?) would be something quite different.
No, I think it's just langues construites. I might be wrong though.
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Astraios »

YngNghymru wrote:No, I think it's just langues construites. I might be wrong though.
C'est bien ça.

langcon is on about the same level of linguistic silliness as English "conlang", though I'd probably abbreviate it only as far as langconstruite, or maybe lanconstruite.

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Aszev »

For French I know of conlang, idéolangue, artlangue, forgelangue, going from more to less common if I'm not completely mistaken.
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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Dboozer »

Salmoneus wrote:And PLEASE, and I say this as a Mod, not just as an interlocutor, don't do that ridiculous thing with the page of sequential replies again. It does nothing but inconvenience everybody. This isn't USENET. The world has moved on. I know we're all geeks, but that doesn't mean we have to act like nerds.
Honestly, I didn't see anything "ridiculous" about it at the time, but, as I'm a guest in your house, I'll attempt to play by your rules. No splitting up long postings when responding. Got it.
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: We can start another thread, but I've always been a proponent of conlang "evangelism" in the sense of I feel it's a good thing to let people know that conlanging exists as a viable hobby/craft/art. I presented a workshop once where a mother came up to me afterwards and expressed relief that her tween-age daughter wasn't "weird" for creating her own languages. That is worth "furthering" the awareness of conlanging in the wider world in my opinion.
The anecdote's a good enough reason to disband the cult, I think. If her daughter (sorry, don't know what "tween-age" means, or why it has a hyphen) created her own language, her daughter is weird.
Tween-age or tweenager: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tweenager. Yes, weird, but not dangerous or in need of some help. (And, yes, I asked if that was the only thing she was concerned about, and the daughter was a healthy, well-adjusted young girl except this one concern of her mother's.)
Salmoneus wrote: You're weird, I'm weird, we're all fucking weird, and no number of self-help groups, pompous publications, pretensions of academia, and cargo-cult-style irc 'board meetings' will stop that. Quite the contrary. The fact that a community exists online doesn't make its members non-weird, anymore than the existence of pro-ana communities online makes anorexia positive and life-affirming. Conlanging is fundamentally weird and abnormal. That's not to say it's a bad thing, or even that it isn't a good thing, but self-delusion does not help anybody.

You're comparing conlanging to a cult and anorexia? Really! You really want to go there?
I have no problem being weird, and I willingly proclaim my geekness; but you appear to be using it as a pejorative. Yes, conlanging is out-of-the-ordinary, but where are you getting self-delusion? I'm not self-deluding myself about the weirdness of conlanging, but likewise I don't see any need to compare it to an unhealthy, psychological obsession or disorder.
Salmoneus wrote:Certainly taking formal minutes of people reciting "look at me, I'm Serious Business" does not help anybody.
People taking minutes of a meeting?? How extraordinary! Whether you agree with its existence or not, LCS is legally a 501(3)c entity which is required to keep minutes of all its official meetings. See http://bit.ly/f9N75o. This time, your argument isn't with the State of California, it's with the Federal Government.
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: Yes, there are some LCS-specific resources on the LCS site, but that's to be expected. Once again, I emphasize that one of the purposes of LCS is to serve as a bridge from nascent conlangers or interested non-conlangers to the wider community. Instead of making people find CBB, ZBB, Conlang-L, KLI, etc., etc., all individually; LCS can serve as a map to the far-flung world of conlanging.
This isn't a bad aim per se, but could be just as easily (and better) achieved by a neutral website, rather than a political group with its own interests. [You pretend your interests are that of 'the community', and this is one of the most offensive things about you - no institution's interests are the interests of the community, even if that is the initial intention. That's not how politics works. It's not how interests work, either.

Such websites have existed before. They can exist again. No need for one voice in the community to take it upon itself to control the sound system.
What is this obsession with "one voice in the community to take it upon itself to control the sound system"? How are any of the other voices being controlled or stifled? Oh, you get into this below....I'll wait....
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: I would urge you to consider attending one before you blithely dismiss it as seeing little point in it. Interacting with other like-minded individuals in a real-life setting? Learning from others in a conference setting? Hanging out with other conlangers in an informal setting, going out to dinner, and playing a game of Glossotechnia? Those all seem like enjoyable, educational, and community-building endeavors to me.
I'll take 'blythe' as a compliment - it's something I've often aspired to, but never yet been accused of. Thank you. But no, those all seem like faily horrible ways to spend time to me. Turns out, not everybody is you. Wait, is that connected to that idea I had called 'plurality'? Rather than 'one person decides what they think is obviously in the best interests of The Community and pursues it unilaterally'?
I was not complimenting you on your joyousness. I was using it as the 2nd definition here as in "without thought or regard."

Everybody isn't me? Shocking. No one is mandating either you or anyone else attend the LCC. From what I can see, since you see no point in the LCC, it really shouldn't be available to those who do agree with me. Aren't you in some ways dictating what you believe to be the best interest of The Community?
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: At the risk of repeating myself again again, it's a bridge or map metaphor. There's no federalism or imperial designs. How could someone or some organization exactly "take over the community" anyway?
By becoming the voice of the community to the outside world. By hogging the megaphone. Better not to have a megaphone at all, especially when none of us have anything interesting to say. The metaphor should not be a bridge (after all, as I say, that could be done neutrally), but a funnel, with us on one side and the rest of the world on the other.
I'm not getting the metaphor. Which side of the funnel is the rest of the world? Funnel as in megaphone? or Funnel as in what you use to put oil in a car?
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: How exactly is LCS taking "away the voices of people who aren't (them)"?
It's really a very simple concept.
Before:
Stranger: "hey, you people, tell me about conlanging!"
Conlangers: "X!" "yes, X", "no, Y!", "Y AND X", "anything but X!" "Z! or A! I'm not sure!"
Stranger: "o....k.... may have to think about this..."

Now:
Stranger: "hey, tell me about conlanging!"
LCS: "Q. They say Q. Oh, one of them may say Y, possibly"
Stranger: "Right, Q, OK."
Conlangers: *muffled shouting from behind the door*
Stranger: "not going to ask what's going on in there..."

(substitute 'conlanging' for any more specific question, if you want. On a personal level, of course, an important one is "what are conlangers like?" - you're all one sort of person, and many of us aren't that sort of person. But outsiders look at your "LCS" and think you're representative of us. And sure, if all conlangers were Saizai and THC and lived on the list and not one of the boards, then that wouldn't be so much of a problem. But we aren't all you.)
Nope. I'm still not buying your "very simple concept." And I think you have your "Before" and "Now" all wrong as well.

Before:
Stranger: "I like to make up languages. I wonder if anybody else does this. I'll do a Google search for make up languages. Holy &%$#! 292,000. Oo, what's this third one? Language Construction Kit? That sounds cool. I'll start there."

Now:
Stranger: "I like to make up languages. I wonder if anybody else does this. I'll do a Google search for make up languages. Holy &%$#! 292,000. Oo, what's this third one? Language Construction Kit? That sounds cool. I'll start there."

"Outsiders" don't give a hoot/fig/damn about any of us: LCS, ZBB, CBB, Conlang-L. Zip. Nada. From my perspective, the LCS is simply another entry point into the art/craft/hobby/whatever that is language creation for those looking for resources and like-minded language creators. (Again, I don't see this as a self-help need as you said above. It's more like a quilting bee or some other inocuous gathering of folks with similar hobbies.) Some people who are starting out may not know the word "conlang". If not, they're going to end up with Zompist's Kit or a Wiki-How page if they do the Google search above. If they try create languages, lo and behold, the Kit's #1! Made-up languages, the Kit's #5. The LCS doesn't show up "above the fold" on any of those three searches. You have to either search "conlang" or "language creation" specifically to get it to show up in the top results of a Google search.
Salmoneus wrote: Controlling the high ground matters - even if it doesn't logically necessarily absolutely prevent others from being heard. Because it doesn't matter what you can do in the venue, it matters how easy it is to get to the venue. The guy with the high ground gets to be at more venues than other people. And your pretensions give you the high ground. Because if the Language Creation Society is arguing with Johnny Conlanger, everybody can see who's representing the conlanging community. Because Johnny Conlanger didn't copyright the "LCS" name first. But that doesn't, or shouldn't, make him less deserving of attention. But it DOES mean he'll get less attention.
The high ground? Face it, Google is the venue online. I'll simply refer to those searches above. Zompist's work seems fairly up the high ground (and, I'll add, for good reason, too.)
And who is going to care if Johnny Conlanger is arguing with LCS other than the conlanging echo chamber?
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: I'm going to simply chalk the "orb, sceptre and dais" up to hyperbole because I see no indication that this is, in reality, the case with David.
You don't think his position in the LCS, and the job he gave himself via the LCS, are taken by outsiders as vindication of him both as a conlanger and as a representative of conlanging? You don't think people take the LCS' information about conlangers as having some sort of validity, more validity than would be had if David were a random weird guy on the internet? Then why are you a member of it?
David did not give himself the Dothraki job, but I'm not going to go into the details of that process. As I see it, he is both a conlanger and a representative of conlanging, every bit as much as you would be if you were speaking to a mainstream (or even a niche) publication. And, by the way, David is also some random weird guy on the internet.
I told you previously that I'm a member of the LCS because it furthers my goal of furthering the awareness of conlanging and doesn't just look inward to the people already aware of it.
Salmoneus wrote:
Dboozer wrote: "Random university professor" creating a language would, in all likelihood, not have done that. That was the point I was attempting to make when I previously talked about the positive aspect of Dothraki being created by a conlanger and not "random university professor."
You don't get it. If Dothraki had been created, it would have been by a conlanger. By definition. And if people are going to see conlangers, yes, I'd rather they see university professors than the LCS people. University professors are more impressive representatives - and not really any less representative than you people.
No, you don't get it. I don't agree with your definition of "conlanger." A random university professor who creates one language, sells it to the studio, and walks away, is not a conlanger simply by virtue of making up a language. A conlanger, from my perspective, is someone who not only creates languages but continues to create languages or work on languages they've created, who "perfects his or her art" so to speak. Agree with his work or not, Marc Okrand is a conlanger from my perspective, because not only did he create Klingon for the movies, but he wrote the Dictionary, several other books on the language, attends the qep'a', and stays engaged (at least somewhat) with his creation. To counter that, I'd say Dr. Helen Charters of the University of Auckland, NZ, who created the Vampiric language for 30 Days of Night is not a conlanger. She's a language creator, but not a conlanger. Same way with Prof. Victoria Fromkin and Pakuni. She created the language, translated some dialogue, but saw it as a novelty, not a hobby.

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finlay
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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by finlay »

Dboozer wrote:She's a language creator, but not a conlanger.
baaaaaahahaha

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Re: LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

Post by Dboozer »

Salmoneus wrote:On your advisory committee:
1. You want people who approve of the LCS and want to help it... but who don't want to be members
Yes, it was felt that this would open it up to the widest possible field of those interested without asking for dues.
Salmoneus wrote: 2. You want input on what the LCS should be doing, as long as it's in the form of people asking for it to do more - asking for it to get the hell out of the way would be negative and thus not worth hearing
Not necessarily more. What it can do more effectively that its doing, maybe projects that require some capital, etc. That's the idea of asking for advice, to get ideas. And, just curious, "Get the hell out of the way" of what?

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