Pthug wrote:Dboozer wrote: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.
Pthug wrote:Dboozer wrote: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.
zompist wrote:Not that it's your business, but you're mistaken there.
Pthug wrote:zompist wrote: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 wrote:Dboozer wrote: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.
Radius Solis wrote: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?
Radius Solis wrote: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.
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.
patiku wrote:Is there really a need for a conlanging vanity press?
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.
Salmoneus wrote: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.
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".
Salmoneus wrote: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.
Salmoneus wrote: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.
Salmoneus wrote:If I want somebody to speak for me, I'll delegate that somebody myself, thank you.
Shm Jay wrote:Hmmph, it might be related to the reason many conlangers have anti-Esperanto histrionics, whatever that may be.
Dboozer wrote: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.
faiuwle wrote:Dboozer wrote: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?
Radius Solis wrote:Realistically, a linguistics professor who's never tried before will still be able to outperform a goodly majority of the community.
zompist wrote:Radius Solis wrote: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.
Dboozer wrote:Salmoneus wrote: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.
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 personally I see little point it, but that's not my problem.* 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)
Mission creep with no purpose beyond self-promotion.* other charitable, educational, research, and/or literary activities that directly relate to the art, craft, and/or science of conlanging
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!Salmoneus wrote: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
Even though hardly anyone had heard of it. As it gains a reputation, presumably people are more likely to contact it.Salmoneus wrote: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.
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'.Salmoneus wrote: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.
zompist wrote:This probably belongs in another thread, but as I've said before, I think Klingon is quite well done, and often witty.
zompist wrote: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.
zompist wrote: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.
zompist wrote: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.
zompist wrote:Of course, if you want to say I could do a better job, I wouldn't argue.
Salmoneus wrote:Dboozer wrote:Salmoneus wrote: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.