LCS Creating New Advisory Committee

[Dboozer]

She's a language creator, but not a conlanger.

baaaaaahahaha

Okay, how about "She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger" or do you disagree with the rest of the definition as well? "baaaaaahahaha" doesn't really give me much to go on for a response.

[linguoboy]

Okay, how about "She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger"

"She wrote a book she but she's not an author."
"She had a child but she's not a mother."
"She murdered a guy but she's not a murderer."
"She directed a film but she's not a director."

[Dboozer]

Okay, how about "She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger"

"She wrote a book she but she's not an author."
"She had a child but she's not a mother."
"She murdered a guy but she's not a murderer."
"She directed a film but she's not a director."

Yes, I could see someone saying "She wrote a book, but she's not an author" just as...
She wrote a book, but she's not a writer.
She painted a picture, but she's not a painter.
She cooked a meal, but she's not a chef.
She gave a speech, but she's not a speaker.
She built a shelf, but she's not a carpenter.
She swims in the pool, but she isn't a swimmer.
She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger.

[linguoboy]

Okay, how about "She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger"

"She wrote a book she but she's not an author."
"She had a child but she's not a mother."
"She murdered a guy but she's not a murderer."
"She directed a film but she's not a director."

Yes, I could see someone saying "She wrote a book, but she's not an author" just as...
She wrote a book, but she's not a writer.
She painted a picture, but she's not a painter.
She cooked a meal, but she's not a chef.
She gave a speech, but she's not a speaker.
She built a shelf, but she's not a carpenter.
She swims in the pool, but she isn't a swimmer.
She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger.

Very good. Now all you have to do is explain why being a "conlanger" is more like being a chef than like being a mother.

[Dboozer]

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.

Good advice. Do you have any specific suggestions on how you feel this needs to be done?
LCS is ideally composed of a cross-section of conlangers. That's the only form of "representation" that I think is meant or needed. It's not a representative, legislative body but simply is able to point out to all the other established communities, organizations, groups, etc., out there in the wider conlanging virtual and real worlds.

[Dboozer]

Okay, how about "She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger"

"She wrote a book she but she's not an author."
"She had a child but she's not a mother."
"She murdered a guy but she's not a murderer."
"She directed a film but she's not a director."

Yes, I could see someone saying "She wrote a book, but she's not an author" just as...
She wrote a book, but she's not a writer.
She painted a picture, but she's not a painter.
She cooked a meal, but she's not a chef.
She gave a speech, but she's not a speaker.
She built a shelf, but she's not a carpenter.
She swims in the pool, but she isn't a swimmer.
She made up a language, but she's not a conlanger.

Very good. Now all you have to do is explain why being a "conlanger" is more like being a chef than like being a mother.

Easy.
A mother is a mother by virtue of giving birth. She would still be a mother if she gave the child up for adoption and never saw the child again.
A conlanger is more like a chef in that a chef is constantly perfecting his or her technique, engaged in learning more about their chosen art/craft as time goes on, interested in learning from others engaged in their art/craft, and constantly trying to create new dishes (or languages, vocabulary, grammars, etc., as the case may be).
Helen Charters is the mother of a language.
Marc Okrand is a conlanger.

[linguoboy]

A mother is a mother by virtue of giving birth. She would still be a mother if she gave the child up for adoption and never saw the child again.
A conlanger is more like a chef in that a chef is constantly perfecting his or her technique, engaged in learning more about their chosen art/craft as time goes on, interested in learning from others engaged in their art/craft, and constantly trying to create new dishes (or languages, vocabulary, grammars, etc., as the case may be).

Chefs get paid to create dishes. Helen Charters got paid to create a language. So did Marc Okrand.

If you stop cooking for a living, you cease to be a chef. If Marc Okrand ceases to work on Klingon, will he cease to be a "conlanger"?

[Dewrad]

I think that the LCS in general is very keen on the concept of a "conlanging community", and by their metric a conlanger is not just someone who creates languages, but rather someone who participates in this "community" and identifies as "a conlanger".

[Dboozer]

A mother is a mother by virtue of giving birth. She would still be a mother if she gave the child up for adoption and never saw the child again.
A conlanger is more like a chef in that a chef is constantly perfecting his or her technique, engaged in learning more about their chosen art/craft as time goes on, interested in learning from others engaged in their art/craft, and constantly trying to create new dishes (or languages, vocabulary, grammars, etc., as the case may be).

Chefs get paid to create dishes. Helen Charters got paid to create a language. So did Marc Okrand.

If you stop cooking for a living, you cease to be a chef. If Marc Okrand ceases to work on Klingon, will he cease to be a "conlanger"?

Isn't that the problem with analogies? They only go so far.

Okay, if you don't like using chef, how about swapping it out for carpenter. I've known some very skilled carpenters who didn't do it professionally. Or how about painter. One can be an accomplished painter without doing it professionally.

EDIT: Ah, Paramount paid Okrand for the work he did for them, and, of course, he got paid for writing books, but I don't think he gets paid for making up new vocabulary when the KLI asks for input, and I don't believe Okrand gets paid for attending the occasional qep'a'. I could be wrong, I'm not a member of KLI nor have I ever attended a qep'a' nor do I speak Klingon.

What about a retired chef? They've stopped cooking for a living, do they cease to be a chef?

Additionally, I'm basing my definition of "conlanger" on JRR Tolkien's essay ("The Secret Vice") when he talks about language creation could become an art. Tolkien didn't use the word "conlanger" since it wasn't around in 1931, but I'm proposing that a "conlanger" is one who practices the art of conlanging.

And as for "who" is a conlanger: Tolkien was never directly paid for his language creation, and I would classify him as a conlanger. Likewise, Zompist is a conlanger, not simply somebody who made up a language. Whether Zompist calls himself a conlanger is up to him. I'm simply using him as an example within the context of this discussion of the definition I've put forward.

[Jetboy]

One of the problems I see with this idea of a single, monolithic representative is its potential for abuse– not necessarily even malicious abuse, but simply the fact that this representative could easily overlook or fail to take into account some view-point. One of the big reasons for the dislike of LCS here seems to be fear of misrepresentation, which isn't entirely unjustified. It seems a better idea to, instead of saying "The conlanging community is X, Y, and Z", say "Some parts of the community are here, here, and here, go see for yourself"; instead of being a spokesman for the community, help the community be a spokesperson for itself, a task which doesn't require a "society" to be undertaken. Aggregating links, which you're already doing, seems much more useful both for "representing the community" to those outside of it, and for aiding those within it, and a "society" is superfluous here as well– why not just call yourselves a "List of Language Creation Resources"? Really, the only apparent reason to have a "Society" is to host the convention, though I will say that that is a neat idea. Overall, though, as far as I can tell, the best way to make people here, who are, after all, part of this community which you claim to represent, less unhappy about the LCS would be to act not as a spokesman for the community, but as a sign pointing toward the community and the community's voice.

[linguoboy]

Okay, if you don't like using chef, how about swapping it out for carpenter. I've known some very skilled carpenters who didn't do it professionally. Or how about painter. One can be an accomplished painter without doing it professionally.

Carpenters have a guild; its very difficult to find above-board paid work without joining the union and their requirements are not trivial. Is that your idea, to be some kind of conlangers' guild?

My granddad was a carpenter. So was my father, when he was younger. But not any more. Now he's just a semi-retired schoolteacher who sometimes builds shelves.

EDIT: Ah, Paramount paid Okrand for the work he did for them, and, of course, he got paid for writing books, but I don't think he gets paid for making up new vocabulary when the KLI asks for input, and I don't believe Okrand gets paid for attending the occasional qep'a'.

You never answered the question. If he ceases to work actively on Klingon (or any other constructed language), does he cease to be a conlanger?

What about a retired chef? They've stopped cooking for a living, do they cease to be a chef?

Wouldn't you say so? "This is my friend Beth, she's a chef." "Oh really? Were does she work?" "Oh, no, she's not working any more, she's retired." Identifying someone with an occupational noun naturally implies that they still exercise that occupation.

Additionally, I'm basing my definition of "conlanger" on JRR Tolkien's essay ("The Secret Vice") when he talks about language creation could become an art. Tolkien didn't use the word "conlanger" since it wasn't around in 1931, but I'm proposing that a "conlanger" is one who practices the art of conlanging.

This begs the question of whether there is such a beast as the "art of conlanging".

[Jipí]

The point for me is, do I want to be part of that alleged "Community" (or, in LCS terms "ay Conlanger"), or do I just want to stay some person on the internet who's got a geeky, not too common hobby and who doesn't want to get all Organized and Represented by a Lobby – in other words, "a conlanger", a person who does this not for the community spirit, but as their private creative outlet. What is so cool about being "part of the Community", being "an Enthusiast", that everyone should join? Also, I wonder whether it really needs a lobby to promote inventing languages. People will find it a weird and maybe even grotesque thing to do anyway, lobby and promotion or not.

Actually, personally, I find it OK that you aggregate blogs (mine is among them, too) and other links so as to serve as roadsigns to show the variety there is, and it's awesome that you take all the effort to have a convention for us bunch of nerds to meet. Though note that it's not like we didn't organize small meetings here before: Our Brits used to meet fairly regularly, I believe, up until 2 or so years ago. Larger meetings definitely need organization (with a small "o"), but the whole thing about wielding titles for titles' sake seems self-important and bewildering to me, to be honest. I'm not interested in meeting the President of the Language Creation Society and his Vice President, or whatever. Instead, meeting David and Henrik as persons who happen to share part of my interests, and not as tokens/representatives/officials/whatever, is much nicer a prospect. Also, as was mentioned, I am sure that part of the animosities people here have comes not necessarily from the construct "LCS" itself, but also from the "strange vibe" Sai has given off at times, as Zompist called it. Indeed, I've sometimes got the impression that the LCS was basically an ego trip of Sai's. In and of itself, I don't think it's a bad thing to have a hobby club dedicated to language creation and its ilk – hobby clubs are deeply rooted in German culture – but this whole lobbyism and officialism thing I don't understand, really. I'm active in 3 clubs myself (my church, my guitar ensemble, and the youth organisation my youth group belongs to), and nowhere have I met this officialist attitude although there are first chairmen, treasurers, and such.

Anyway, the whole politicization that seems to be going on here (and indeed enforced by certain people) really starts to get on my nerves. I was looking forward to attending LCC4 as a way to meet some of you people (not some of you officials), since language creators as organized (again, with a small "o") in the various fora are rather disparate, especially here in Europe, so international meetings don't happen too often, and now this I'll still attend because tickets are already booked, but meh. I hope very much that the upcoming LCC will not be a major LCS recruiting fest.

My €0.02.

[Jashan]

Oh oh oh oh I WANT TO RANT TOO!

Just kidding. I'm not feeling at all ranty. Here's my $2.00, broken down in a hopefully somewhat organized way:

I don't know what the beef is with Saizai, his personality, or his (prior) leadership of the LCS. I didn't talk to the guy that much (read: hardly at all) -- when I did, he was nice enough. I don't care, either, in this case since a) he's not even participating in this conversation and b) the LCS isn't under his direction anymore. I got the impression that he took conlanging very seriously and wanted to make it a more visible and respected 'art.' He took it a lot more seriously than I (and most people did), but you get the same type of people in playing horseshoes, Magic: The Gathering, yo-yo-ing, making ASCII art, and gods knows what other obscure/geeky hobbies there are out there.

I don't understand the vitrolic "OMG U TAKEZ MAH FREEDUM" outcry. Like many people have said (and which I believe is true), it's not like the LCS is some mob-boss with a baseball bat saying, "Nice conlang you've got there...it'd be a shame if something happened to it." Membership isn't "required", or even encouraged, to be a conlanger. Other than paying some dues and getting some inside information and/or discounts to events, I don't really see any difference it makes to one's life whether one is or is not a member. You can still make your OMG awesome romlang either way, still show up at LCCs either way, etc. The only difference is whether or not you want to be associated / part of the organization and its activities. If you don't, then... don't.

I do understand the ruffled feathers over the LCS saying that it "represents" conlangers. It doesn't. It represents the conlangers which are its members. (Perhaps a bad analogy, but:) Kinda like the Pope doesn't represent Christians. He represents Catholics. Perhaps more specifically, Roman Catholics. I believe the LCS would garner somewhat less (overblown) hostility regarding this if it would make that distinction, especially to 'outsiders.' (Read: non-conlangers.) Every organization, no matter how big or small, by nature has some manner of shared viewpoint, agenda, or goal that non-members might not agree with. Don't pretend you don't; just accept it and share it with outsiders that that's the case.

The debate over the LCS vs an LCS is simply absurd.

And if people are so upset about it being "the" Language Creation Society or "the" conlanging organization" or whatever -- start your own. No one's stopping you. Start la Socida do Neo-Ladina Lenga or Der Gadrun fon Mannisgemechten Sprekten or whatnot. Then there'd be more than one, and they'd be "a" conlanging organization.

Oh, and to DBoozer, whom I've never met before: hi!

[WeepingElf]

The point for me is, do I want to be part of that alleged "Community" (or, in LCS terms "ay Conlanger"), or do I just want to stay some person on the internet who's got a geeky, not too common hobby and who doesn't want to get all Organized and Represented by a Lobby – in other words, "a conlanger", a person who does this not for the community spirit, but as their private creative outlet. What is so cool about being "part of the Community", being "an Enthusiast", that everyone should join? Also, I wonder whether it really needs a lobby to promote inventing languages. People will find it a weird and maybe even grotesque thing to do anyway, lobby and promotion or not.

Right. Like you, I am a "conlanger" in your sense, not a "Conlanger". For a while, I even rejected the term "conlanger" because I did not wish to be connected with the larger community because I was alienated by various things. Sure, there is some feeling of "sharing something" towards other conlangers, but it is not at all a criterion for who could be my friend and who not. None of my real life friends is a conlanger, and I know of conlangers whom I wish not to have any business with.

Actually, personally, I find it OK that you aggregate blogs (mine is among them, too) and other links so as to serve as roadsigns to show the variety there is, and it's awesome that you take all the effort to have a convention for us bunch of nerds to meet. Though note that it's not like we didn't organize small meetings here before: Our Brits used to meet fairly regularly, I believe, up until 2 or so years ago. Larger meetings definitely need organization (with a small "o"), but the whole thing about wielding titles for titles' sake seems self-important and bewildering to me, to be honest. I'm not interested in meeting the President of the Language Creation Society and his Vice President, or whatever. Instead, meeting David and Henrik as persons who happen to share part of my interests, and not as tokens/representatives/officials/whatever, is much nicer a prospect. Also, as was mentioned, I am sure that part of the animosities people here have comes not necessarily from the construct "LCS" itself, but also from the "strange vibe" Sai has given off at times, as Zompist called it. Indeed, I've sometimes got the impression that the LCS was basically an ego trip of Sai's. In and of itself, I don't think it's a bad thing to have a hobby club dedicated to language creation and its ilk – hobby clubs are deeply rooted in German culture – but this whole lobbyism and officialism thing I don't understand, really. I'm active in 3 clubs myself (my church, my guitar ensemble, and the youth organisation my youth group belongs to), and nowhere have I met this officialist attitude although there are first chairmen, treasurers, and such.

Also agreed 100%. I also had (and still have) the impression that the whole LCS thing was (or at least started as) an ego-boosting enterprise of Sai's. I always felt and still feel that Sai had to do all that crap because he completely failed at making a conlang (which was in turn due to the unattainable goals he set himself: he would not want to make "just another" conlang, but thought he had to go to the maximum regarding an "ideal language"), so he needed something else that could make him famous among conlangers. Blah.

Anyway, the whole politicization that seems to be going on here (and indeed enforced by certain people) really starts to get on my nerves. I was looking forward to attending LCC4 as a way to meet some of you people (not some of you officials), since language creators as organized (again, with a small "o") in the various fora are rather disparate, especially here in Europe, so international meetings don't happen too often, and now this I'll still attend because tickets are already booked, but meh. I hope very much that the upcoming LCC will not be a major LCS recruiting fest.

My €0.02.

Amen.

I can do without all that politicization. That's what auxlangers do all the time, and I have always thought that we artlangers could do differently. I considered not only attending LCC4 but even giving a talk about degrees of volition in Old Albic after David Peterson invited me to give a talk in a personal e-mail, but I since then had decided to abstain from it. I feel that it would be too much of a nerdfest to be enjoyable to me, and, as Guitarplayer fears, an LCS recruiting event. Looking at the proceedings of past LCCs, I got the impression that those conferences are mostly about computational aspects of engelanging, which is not what interests me. I could hardly care less about parsing algorithms, self-segregating morphologies, sets of semantic primes for oligosynthetic languages, and all that stuff. I feel that a language such as Old Albic would not be received with much warmth.

[Miekko]

It is my experience that recently established organizations tend more towards making a big deal of titles and stuff like that. (Modeling themselves, I guess, on high-prestige organizations where a chairmanship really is a big deal). Tends to reduce by time, but that also depends on the organization and its board in general.

[TomHChappell]

.

[Pthagnar]

I don't understand, why is (almost) everybody (on this thread) arguing?
I don't understand the passion on either side of the argument.

go back to your fucking dictionary

[Pthagnar]

also a bizarre thing on the papal blog!

http://saizai.livejournal.com/995636.html

Except that once the advisory committee is formed, fairly soon now, several of our boardmembers plan to leave the board and move to the advisory committee.

weird, huh

sounds like people who think it might be fun to have an organisation that lets them do shared goals involving creating languages but don't like all the fuss of Being a Hierarch in a bureaucracy?

[Anguipes]

If I joined, would I have to start as an apprentice conlanger and work up, or will the right contacts buy me a shortcut to master conlanger?

[Shm Jay]

*agrees with Jashan*. I don't get the reason for all the fuss. If you want to join, join; if you want to stay out, stay out. The LCS cannot do anything to you for not joining.

[Radius Solis]

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.

Oh for gods sake. Have we ever previously yelled at people for doing that? Funny, I don't see in the rules anything about it...

[Jetboy]

*agrees with Jashan*. I don't get the reason for all the fuss. If you want to join, join; if you want to stay out, stay out. The LCS cannot do anything to you for not joining.

Well, if they're trying to represent conlangers in general, that involves all of us, doesn't it? Especially if they don't actually represent most conlangers, but tell the outside world that they do. Even if they only try to represent themselves, as Jashan said, there are still some issues, the largest of which would be whether or not that distinction was glossed over in the public mind, followed by the question of what the point is in making an organization for the purpose of representing itself.

[Salmoneus]

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.

Oh for gods sake. Have we ever previously yelled at people for doing that? Funny, I don't see in the rules anything about it...

I've never seen anyone do it on that scale before, but yes, in the past, people have been reprimanded by prominent members for multiple posts, and it's generally frowned upon on forums, except in unusual circumstances. I know it's not in the house rules, and you'll note that I didn't give any sort of official warning - I made a request, with 'please' in it, complete with (albeit inchoate) attempts at persuasion.

I'd do the same if somebody were posting in ALLCAPS or in luminous green. It's not 'against the rules', and if someone really wants to do it I can't stop them, but it is indecorous, in my opinion. And annoying an inconvenient.

[Trailsend]

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.

Oh for gods sake. Have we ever previously yelled at people for doing that? Funny, I don't see in the rules anything about it...

I've never seen anyone do it on that scale before, but yes, in the past, people have been reprimanded by prominent members for multiple posts, and it's generally frowned upon on forums, except in unusual circumstances. I know it's not in the house rules, and you'll note that I didn't give any sort of official warning - I made a request, with 'please' in it, complete with (albeit inchoate) attempts at persuasion.

I'd do the same if somebody were posting in ALLCAPS or in luminous green. It's not 'against the rules', and if someone really wants to do it I can't stop them, but it is indecorous, in my opinion. And annoying an inconvenient.

It was rather conspicuous that you delivered this admonition in a set of 3 consecutive posts, compared to DBoozer's 5 (not counting the intervening post from Astraios).

[Salmoneus]

No, two consecutive posts. The first post I made was a) a reply to a different person about a different thing, and b) made at a different time.

It's true that maybe I should have replied to Dboozer in one post. However, I broke the coda off into a second post because i) I wanted to emphasise it and not have it be lost in the morass; and ii) because I the first post was a rebuttal of his posts, while the second post was a more general summation of the argument to that point, not addressing any part of what he had said in particular - so I saw it as, as it were, creating a second strand to the thread. You'll note that I said that the 'no double-posts' guidelines had exceptions?

I think that starting second strand by double-posting is different from and more polite than quintuple-posting within a single strand.