As far as I know, nothing has happened with this.  I may be missing
vast activity under the surface, in which case I apologize in
advance.

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 10:31:16AM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> 
> http://github.com/dag is the repo for the new CLL, all prettified
> and broken up and stuff, that a few different people made.
> 
> The goal/plan is as follows:
> 
> 1.  Turn this into a set of content diffs (not formatting diffs);
> that is, a complete list of everything that is a change to *content*
> in the CLL.
> 
> 2.  Give said list to me/the BPFK for approval.
> 
> 3.  Turn the thing into DocBook, if it isn't already.
> 
> 4.  Make it official: post it on the main site at least, and at some
> point in the near future start publishing it via Lightning Source.
> 
> I need someone to do step 1.
> 
> I call this semi-technical because you need to at least understand
> git, and knowing how to do scripted text processing is probably
> important.
> 
> Remo was going to do this, but ey's disappeared.

Here's what happened from my point of view, ignoring my initial
crappy response, on this new CLL thing:

1.  A bunch of people put in a bunch of work creating the new online
CLL version.  This included me providing access to the master soft
copy of the print CLL.

2.  It became clear that people wanted to use this version as a
basis for any new print CLL that might be made.

3.  I pointed out that in its current form it wasn't of any actual
use for that purpose.  I talked to the people involved.  They,
primarily Remo, agreed to modify it as specified above.

4.  Shortly thereafter, Remo *totally disappeared*.  No-one has
heard from em in months.  None of the other people involved in that
discussion have done anything.

5.  I asked the community to help.  This was met with much
enthusiasm.

6.  Nothing actually happened.

So, I guess I'm going to have to find the time for this.  Some day.
*AGAIN*.

While I'm at it, I've seen no changes to the BPFK stuff in about 2
months, except the ones I have made.  So I guess I'm
single-handedly stuck with that too.  *AGAIN*.

There has been a pattern lately of me refusing to support the pet
project of every random newbie that shows up on IRC (usually a
website redesign), and then getting yelled at for being cranky and
unsupportive.  I always say that people should just do the project
themselves, and if they're still around and supporting it in six
months, I'll be as supportive as they want me to be.  So far, to my
knowledge, no such conversation has *ever* resulted in this actually
happening.

I just wanted to point out that this (the CLL work) is the perfect
example of the standard pattern that leads me to be dismissive of
everyone's "Oh, I just found Lojban!  I'm going to fix everything!
I'm going to make X!  It's going to be awesome!".  Here's the
pattern:

1.  People go and do a bunch of work without bothering to actually
ask what the community needs.

2.  I point out what the community actually needs relative to what
they did; this entails a great deal more work.

3.  Shortly thereafter, the person disappears forever, but by this
time the community has gotten used to using whatever they made.

4.  I start getting requests for maintenance/fixes of whatever it
is.

This has happened so many times I've totally lost count.  Sometimes
(*very* rarely, I can only think of one example) the person doesn't
disappear, they just stop supporting whatever it is.  I still end
up with people bugging *me* to fix/maintain it.

I'm very, very tired of this.  I'm also having a rough time in my
personal life lately.  I would like nothing more than to see other
members of the Lojban community actually stand up and get shit done
over a time period lasting longer than, say, a month.

But mostly I'm writing this so I can stick it on the web and point
newbies at it when they whine about how obstructionist I'm being.

I am not, and have never been, obstructionist of anything (except
legally bad things like copyright violation).  If you want to do
something awesome, great: go make it.  Host it yourself.  Find out
what the community wants first.  If, in six months, you're still
around and happily supporting it, I'll put it wherever you and the
community want in shared Lojban space, even right at
http://www.lojban.org/ (as a side comment, this is exactly how I
became webmaster of the Lojban community in the first place).

Until then, please show some respect to the people (me and 2 or 3
others) who have been carrying this project across the backs (well,
littered corpses really, given all the disappearances) of people
like you for the last three decades (although for me it's only been
one).

Thanks.

-Robin

-- 
http://singinst.org/ :  Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei".   My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/