"Tinkering" is, to most lojbanists, a pejorative term, that denotes a fussy and obsessive wish to undo what has already been done, in an attempt to redo it better, thereby retarding the progress of the language towards completion. All the same, many lojbanists are out or closet tinkerers. In practise it is difficult to distinguish mabla tinkering from zabna development, elaboration, expansion, ongoing creation, clarification, and so on. --mi'e And
When one tinkers, they are correcting drastic problems and proving extensions of genius and foresight. When anyone else tinkers, they are repeating old, spent discussions, introducting major flaws, and generally being annoying. --xod
Given the large number of suggestions for the language which have been made in the past, chances are that someone tinkering is suggesting something which has already be suggested and more than likely shot down. So, first check the archives:
- http://wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/messages/
And if you can't find someone arguing for exactly what you're interested, then please, do us a favor and just find an argument sort of close, and live vicariously through it. --jay
Let the time for tinkering be over, and let begin the time of usage, idiom building, and exploration of ways to express in Lojban. And exploration of hidden assumptions buried in the structure. --xod
.iecai mi'e djez
The community has come to associate tinkering with lojbanology, and this pains me. My aim is different to xod's: I want further formalisation, within reason, of Lojban. But 'further' and 'within reason' - i.e. baseline compliance - are essential constraints. When those constraints are violated, we have tinkering. And says it's difficult to distinguish between mabla tinkering and zabna elaboration. I say it should not be. --- Nick
- (And:) Four possible points of view:
- Ultraconservative. All elaboration is mabla.
- Moderate conservative. Mabla would be stuff that is not baseline-compliant in areas where the baseline is not broken.
- Liberal. Mabla would be stuff that changes the official interpretation of sentences in areas where the official interpretation is not broken.
- Radical. All tinkering is zabna if the language design is thereby improved.