LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

[zompist]

Zompist himself maintains this domain for the good of the community (and, of course, his own conworldly endeavors) with his own money

Other People's Money, actually.

Not that it's your business, but you're mistaken there.

[Pthagnar]

(where student is inclusive of "being less than 18 years old but not necessarily enrolled in any school, college, university, academy [Socratic, Confucian or Football], lyceum, stoa, madrassa, maktab, seminary, technicum, gurukul, juku, shul or what have you", but *not* of being a postgraduate student)

[Pthagnar]

Not that it's your business, but you're mistaken there.

Oh I see! Then I must thank you even more graciously for the avatars -- I had no idea of the true scale of the munificence behind them.

[zompist]

Not that it's your business, but you're mistaken there.

Oh I see! Then I must thank you even more graciously for the avatars -- I had no idea of the true scale of the munificence behind them.

It's always a pleasure to facilitate your deep exploration of Microsoft Paint.

[Pthagnar]

fuck you, I used the GIMP. It's just as good as Photoshop ;__;

NE: plus... Official Image Manipulation Software of the Language Creation Society? Do I have a second?

[Radius Solis]

I've personally always seen the LCS's relationship to conlanging as akin to the American Philatelic Society's relationship to stamp collecting, the National Model Railroad Association to model railroading, or the American Numismatic Association to coin collecting. You don't have to belong to any of these organizations if you are a stamp collector, model railroader, or coin collector, but they're there if you want to. Likewise, those who do join, gain some benefits of membership. The bigger purpose to all of these, including the LCS, is to provide resources to its members and the wider community of enthusiasts/fans/whatever you call them..

I'd suggest that a better model would be the Chicago Linguistics Society. It does almost exactly the same things: hold meetings, organize an annual conference, publish books at a scholarly level. It's a great resource, but it doesn't attempt to be "the" linguistics organization or even "the" student linguistics organization.

This.

It is one thing for an organization to exist largely to provide resources for and real life interactions between people who do what I do, as it is wholly up to me whether to have anything to do with that, but an organization that claims to represent a community I'm part of, or to be the organization of people who do what I do, is another matter - as it involves me by its own self-definition. Here is a diagnostic I would propose: hypothetically, if other conlangers were to decide to create their own conlanging-related organization with similar purposes and functions, would the LCS see this as 1, a valuable further benefit to the community? Or as 2, competition?

It may seem a trivial distinction to some, but the attitudes that underly and drive an organization are important to how it does business and how it treats people. And I have no doubt that the intentions of many in the LCS are completely honorable and charitable, but in the past I've detected a stiff admixture of possessive hubris in Sai's vision as he represented it in ZBB posts (which he himself seemed to be oblivious to). It may well have been particular to him and not characteristic of the whole organization, but with him doing all the speaking for it, here at least, there was no easy way to tell. And it, more than anything else, is what I always found distasteful about the LCS.

[Dboozer]

Here is a diagnostic I would propose: hypothetically, if other conlangers were to decide to create their own conlanging-related organization with similar purposes and functions, would the LCS see this as 1, a valuable further benefit to the community? Or as 2, competition?

Again, speaking solely from my perspective, if other conlangers felt they had something to contribute to the community, decided to go through the process of incorporating as a 501(c)3, and set up an infrastructure, I'd say more power to 'em. If they felt that the LCS wasn't addressing a need or wasn't representing the art/science/craft/hobby of conlanging accurately, and they felt they could do it better, then another conlanging-related organization would be a benefit to the community. One analogy (taken in its broadest terms) would be the various library associations: American Library Association, Special Library Association, Art Libraries Society of North America, Association of Research Libraries. Each has a particular niche, its own members, etc. Don't look at that analogy too closely but that's my take on your hypothetical situation.

My diagnostic for that hypothetical situation would be: Do these conlangers feel they are doing this for the benefit of the community, or are they doing this as a reaction to the LCS? If they are simply being reactionary and want to be the Anti-LCS, that sort of factiousness doesn't seem to me to be healthy for any discipline/hobby/conlang (e.g., Esperanto/Ido; Loglan/Lojban).

It may seem a trivial distinction to some, but the attitudes that underly and drive an organization are important to how it does business and how it treats people. And I have no doubt that the intentions of many in the LCS are completely honorable and charitable, but in the past I've detected a stiff admixture of possessive hubris in Sai's vision as he represented it in ZBB posts (which he himself seemed to be oblivious to). It may well have been particular to him and not characteristic of the whole organization, but with him doing all the speaking for it, here at least, there was no easy way to tell. And it, more than anything else, is what I always found distasteful about the LCS.

I don't think its a trivial distinction, and I understand where you're coming from. I would really like discussions of the LCS to move away from the "We hate Sai. Sai created the LCS. Therefore, we hate the LCS." Your point about "with him doing all the speaking for it, here at least," is exactly the reason I wanted to post to the ZBB and (putting on my LCS Secretary hat - and let me tell you it is one fetching chapeau!) respond to some of the concerns raised in these posts. And I will do my best to relay those concerns to the officers, Board, and those forming the Advisory Committee. Heck, I'll simply point them to this ZBB thread. I think everyone has made their concerns quite clear, and why not let y'all simply speak for yourselves.

As to what the LCS claims to be:

Its goal is to promote conlangs and conlanging through offering platforms for conlangers to publish high-quality work of interest to the community, raising awareness about conlanging amongst the general public, organizing work for professional conlangers and people in the entertainment industry interested in adding more depth to their alternative worlds, and providing a central place for reliable contacts and information to those seeking to learn more.

Those still seem laudable goals to me and, I hope eventually, no one will be threatened by an organization working to bring them about.

[patiku]

Is there really a need for a conlanging vanity press?

[zompist]

Is there really a need for a conlanging vanity press?

It's 2011. There are no more vanity presses, only the Long Tail.

This is one reason I mentioned the CLS: it's student-run, but its conferences attract professionals and its volumes are part of the literature of linguistics. You couldn't toss knives at a bibliography of generative grammar or pragmatics without hitting CLS articles.

[Salmoneus]

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".

The negative effects of this power-grab have already been seen in the whole Dothraki debacle - in which the soi-dissant "LCS" (and your name itself begins with a fraud to set the tone of the endeavour) operated as... well, whether you want to call it a confidence trick or simply a scam will depend on your level of antipathy to the "LCS", but either way, an enterprise geared to extract rent from both parties while promoting its own hierarchs. Given how little prominence the organisation had at that time, I see that as a bad sign of its probable future course if it becomes more prominent over time.

Fundamentally, an organisation cannot serve two masters.

And no, our antipathy didn't begin with Sai - in my case at least, it began with the arrogance of the very name. You couldn't even have the humility to settle for an indefinite article? Or some qualification of any kind? No, you saw the prime territory and squatted all over it.

If I want somebody to speak for me, I'll delegate that somebody myself, thank you.

[Shm Jay]

But Salmoneus, any organization representing the larger conlanging community has to start somewhere with a small group of people. What's wrong with what they're doing?

[Dboozer]

And no, our antipathy didn't begin with Sai - in my case at least, it began with the arrogance of the very name. You couldn't even have the humility to settle for an indefinite article? Or some qualification of any kind? No, you saw the prime territory and squatted all over it.

First, just for the record, I've checked, and the officially registered name of the organization is "Language Creation Society". No article, definite or indefinite. In writing, unfortunately, it simply doesn't look right sometimes to just say Language Creation Society (well, except right there). In the future, I will attempt (and encourage others to attempt) to leave the article off which is why I've been using LCS instead of the full name in this particular post.

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
* 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
* 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), and act as a primary resource for people outside the community (e.g. teachers, students, press, novelists, movie writers, etc)
* other charitable, educational, research, and/or literary activities that directly relate to the art, craft, and/or science of conlanging

The negative effects of this power-grab have already been seen in the whole Dothraki debacle - in which the soi-dissant "LCS" (and your name itself begins with a fraud to set the tone of the endeavour) operated as... well, whether you want to call it a confidence trick or simply a scam will depend on your level of antipathy to the "LCS", but either way, an enterprise geared to extract rent from both parties while promoting its own hierarchs.

On the creation of Dothraki, I'm sorry, but I don't see that as being a debacle. I can see you don't share that assessment, but I would be willing to bet that if LCS wasn't involved in that, a bona fide conlanger would not be the one who created the language. The producers would very likely have simply went to a professor at UC Berkeley or some other university. 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

Given how little prominence the organisation had at that time, I see that as a bad sign of its probable future course if it becomes more prominent over time.

The prominence of LCS at the time was not really the issue. For whatever reason, the producers contacted LCS instead of a generic linguistics department at a random university.

If I want somebody to speak for me, I'll delegate that somebody myself, thank you.

And therein lies my conundrum in trying to understand the vitriol behind some opinions of LCS. If you want to be involved in LCS, it's there; if you don't, you don't have to. LCS has absolutely no influence (nor does it want any) over individual conlangers and their individual efforts. Being a member of the organization neither confers any sort of imprimatur nor any special status to those involved. Anyone who agrees with the primary objectives of the organization can be involved. Those who don't are encouraged to happily ignore it, continue to create, and be involved in their favorite respective online community.

[WeepingElf]

I don't understand some peoples' anti-LCS histrionics, either. It is just as Donald says, if you feel that the LCS does nothing for you, just don't get involved with it but ignore it. I personally see not much benefit I could get from the LCS, hence I haven't joined; but I also don't see the LCS doing any harm to the conlanging community at. At least, it has succeeded in organizing major meetings of conlangers, as well as at least one case of mediating a deal between a conlanger and the TV industry.

[Shm Jay]

Hmmph, it might be related to the reason many conlangers have anti-Esperanto histrionics, whatever that may be.

[Legion]

Hmmph, it might be related to the reason many conlangers have anti-Esperanto histrionics, whatever that may be.

I don't see how hating Saizai and everything he represents and started because he's an idiot has anything to do with hating Esperanto because it sucks because its creator was an idio--- oh wait…

[faiuwle]

I can see you don't share that assessment, but I would be willing to bet that if LCS wasn't involved in that, a bona fide conlanger would not be the one who created the language. The producers would very likely have simply went to a professor at UC Berkeley or some other university.

I am not part of the drama, at all, but this amused the hell out of me. Imagine if a university professor had been allowed to create a high-visibility conlang! The horror! Is that better, or worse than (e.g.) Christopher Paolini creating his own high-visibility conlang, do you think?

[Jar Jar Binks]

I believe it is time to repost

[Radius Solis]

I can see you don't share that assessment, but I would be willing to bet that if LCS wasn't involved in that, a bona fide conlanger would not be the one who created the language. The producers would very likely have simply went to a professor at UC Berkeley or some other university.

I am not part of the drama, at all, but this amused the hell out of me. Imagine if a university professor had been allowed to create a high-visibility conlang! The horror! Is that better, or worse than (e.g.) Christopher Paolini creating his own high-visibility conlang, do you think?

That made me smile too. Realistically, a linguistics professor who's never tried before will still be able to outperform a goodly majority of the community. They may have produced some horrors in terms of taste, but thus far not in terms of quality. They're also less likely than conlangers to have big moral objections to constraints set by the company and/or original material (e.g. apostrophes, terrible spelling systems, etc).

[zompist]

Realistically, a linguistics professor who's never tried before will still be able to outperform a goodly majority of the community.

I don't agree, but only because I don't think there are any real standards for "outperforming". Past the newbie level, I don't think there's much clear difference in quality between conlangs.

[Xephyr]

Realistically, a linguistics professor who's never tried before will still be able to outperform a goodly majority of the community.

I don't agree, but only because I don't think there are any real standards for "outperforming". Past the newbie level, I don't think there's much clear difference in quality between conlangs.

Would you say that Klingon's masturbatorilly exotic phonology and morphosyntax makes it a newbie-level conlang, then? Cause I certainly wouldn't say it's on the level of any mature conlanger's work.

[zompist]

This probably belongs in another thread, but as I've said before, I think Klingon is quite well done, and often witty. The phonology is the one aspect of the language that attempts to be alien; when it's trying to be exotic it seems odd to criticize it for being exotic. The grammar isn't at all exotic for a linguist (it's very much like many Amerindian languages, Okrand's specialty), but it will seem so to English speakers, without burdening them with complex morphology.

The one thing I don't like is the orthography. It's clever to use upper case for non-English sounds, but I find it ugly and unnecessary.

Of course, if you want to say I could do a better job, I wouldn't argue.

[Yng]

I just want to say I really love what you've done with Dothraki. It's difficult to produce something so detailed and interesting whilst not descending into the boring trap of just 'this language is SVO with adjectives following nouns'. I particularly like all the glossing you've done.

[Salmoneus]

And no, our antipathy didn't begin with Sai - in my case at least, it began with the arrogance of the very name. You couldn't even have the humility to settle for an indefinite article? Or some qualification of any kind? No, you saw the prime territory and squatted all over it.

First, just for the record, I've checked, and the officially registered name of the organization is "Language Creation Society". No article, definite or indefinite. In writing, unfortunately, it simply doesn't look right sometimes to just say Language Creation Society (well, except right there). In the future, I will attempt (and encourage others to attempt) to leave the article off which is why I've been using LCS instead of the full name in this particular post.

That's just ungrammatical, which is even worse.

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.

* 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.

* 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?

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.

* other charitable, educational, research, and/or literary activities that directly relate to the art, craft, and/or science of conlanging

Mission creep with no purpose beyond self-promotion.

The negative effects of this power-grab have already been seen in the whole Dothraki debacle - in which the soi-dissant "LCS" (and your name itself begins with a fraud to set the tone of the endeavour) operated as... well, whether you want to call it a confidence trick or simply a scam will depend on your level of 'antipathy to the "LCS", but either way, an enterprise geared to extract rent from both parties while promoting its own hierarchs.

On the creation of Dothraki, I'm sorry, but I don't see that as being a debacle. I can see you don't share that assessment, but I would be willing to bet that if LCS wasn't involved in that, a bona fide conlanger would not be the one who created the language.

There is no such thing as a bona fide conlanger. We are not genetic mutants. Anyone who makes a conlang is a conlanger. Indeed, if they got a professor to do it, and hence to become a conlanger, they would actually be furthering and promoting the art!

The producers would very likely have simply went to a professor at UC Berkeley or some other university.

Which would indeed have been a better outcome, no offence to David. I've no comment on the language itself - I've not looked at it, but I do have some respect for David's work in general - but professors can produce languages just as well as amateurs (this seems related to the LCS's perennial "but we're as intellictually important and serious as academics are, why don't people pay attention to us?" neurosis), and even if the language in the end were worse, it would still be better to allocate the job randomly than unfairly.

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

Given how little prominence the organisation had at that time, I see that as a bad sign of its probable future course if it becomes more prominent over time.

The prominence of LCS at the time was not really the issue. For whatever reason, the producers contacted LCS instead of a generic linguistics department at a random university.

Even though hardly anyone had heard of it. As it gains a reputation, presumably people are more likely to contact it.

If I want somebody to speak for me, I'll delegate that somebody myself, thank you.

And therein lies my conundrum in trying to understand the vitriol behind some opinions of LCS. If you want to be involved in LCS, it's there; if you don't, you don't have to. LCS has absolutely no influence (nor does it want any) over individual conlangers and their individual efforts. Being a member of the organization neither confers any sort of imprimatur nor any special status to those involved. Anyone who agrees with the primary objectives of the organization can be involved. Those who don't are encouraged to happily ignore it, continue to create, and be involved in their favorite respective online community.

As long as we respect the LCS' position as speaking for, 'tying together' and generally supervening upon those communities. And even if it had no effect on us at all, why would we be silent about it? When people do things that are bad, or that make them look foolish, people do, and should, mention that fact. I'm not firebombing your offices, running internet campaigns against you, or harrassing you in the street. I'm sharing my opinions in a thread that YOU started, allegedly on the theme of soliciting the views of others. Well, I'm an other. Unfortunately, the LCS' attitude has always seemed to be to listen hard to itself (the voice of the community) and lash out at any perceived criticism as unjustified 'vitriol'.

If you divide people into people who are members of the LCS and people who aren't affected by the LCS and thus have no right or reason to have opinions about it, what's the point of the advisory committee in the first place? By definition, it would have to be the voices of people who have chosen not to join the LCS...

[WeepingElf]

This probably belongs in another thread, but as I've said before, I think Klingon is quite well done, and often witty.

It is indeed quite witty. Just think of the amusingly onomatopoeic peng 'torpedo' or the hilarious, nod-to-George-Bernard-Shaw ghotI' 'fish'. I'm sure there are even more easter eggs hidden in that language - I just haven't taken a look yet.

The phonology is the one aspect of the language that attempts to be alien; when it's trying to be exotic it seems odd to criticize it for being exotic.

Sure. Being "too exotic" is certainly not a resaonable critique of an alienlang. However, the question is whether there are better ways of being exotic than a phoneme inventory which looks as if it had been selected by firing a shotgun at an IPA chart, and which is used just to form CVC syllables. At least he succeeded in giving the language a fitting, characteristic phonetic flavour.

The grammar isn't at all exotic for a linguist (it's very much like many Amerindian languages, Okrand's specialty), but it will seem so to English speakers, without burdening them with complex morphology.

Right. One of the goals was to keep it manageable to non-linguists, so Okrand was not meant to go overboard with linguistic complexity. At least, the language is not linguistically naive!

The one thing I don't like is the orthography. It's clever to use upper case for non-English sounds, but I find it ugly and unnecessary.

Concurred.

Of course, if you want to say I could do a better job, I wouldn't argue.

There is no such thing as an objectively "better" conlang

[Dboozer]

And no, our antipathy didn't begin with Sai - in my case at least, it began with the arrogance of the very name. You couldn't even have the humility to settle for an indefinite article? Or some qualification of any kind? No, you saw the prime territory and squatted all over it.

First, just for the record, I've checked, and the officially registered name of the organization is "Language Creation Society". No article, definite or indefinite. In writing, unfortunately, it simply doesn't look right sometimes to just say Language Creation Society (well, except right there). In the future, I will attempt (and encourage others to attempt) to leave the article off which is why I've been using LCS instead of the full name in this particular post.

That's just ungrammatical, which is even worse.

I'm sorry, this just made me laugh. So, if I understand your argument, using "The" would have been bad and unconscionable because it implies an imperialistic takeover of conlanging within the name; but not using "The" is even worse because it's ungrammatical. That sounds suspiciously like a "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't" Catch-22.

And, incidentally, your argument on the article is actually with the State of California because it seems they do not allow them in the names of organizations, grammatical or not.

Maybe a better name for the organization would have been "Some Organization That Has Something Tangentially To Do With Language"?

I will say that, from my perspective, I'm not seeing a lot of constructive criticism or what could be termed advice in your postings. I was hoping to see something like "(The) LCS does X, I would much rather see them doing Y." That is why Zompist's example of the Chicago Linguistics Society as a model is a helpful piece of constructive criticism. What I'm seeing from your arguments is "(The) LCS does X, I would much rather see them not exist at all because I don't see any reason for them to exist." It appears to me that you have a basic existential bone to pick with the LCS and are not all that interested in providing advice on how the organization can be improved or even exactly how it's harmed conlanging or how it's harmed you individually.

You obviously have very strong feelings on this topic, and your points deserve comment. Due to the length of your post; however, I'll respond to your various comments in separate digestible chunks.