Telling LCS what they should be doing

[janKipo]

Tue, March 15, 2011 5:46:04 PM
[LCS News] Announcing the LCS Advisory Board
...
From:
David Peterson <dedalvs@gmail.com>
...
View Contact
To: news@conlang.org
The Language Creation Society (LCS) would like to announce the
creation of a new advisory committee. The advisory committee will be a
group of individuals (conlangers or non-conlangers) who'd like to
provide input to the LCS Board on LCS activities impacting the greater
conlanging community. The charge of the advisory committee would be to
discuss overarching policy decisions, large-scale projects, and the
general direction of the LCS. Day-to-day operations of the society
(e.g. maintenance of the website, adding new blogs to the Conlang Blog
Aggregator, etc.) would be handled by the officers and Board. You
don't need to be an LCS member, or even necessarily an active
conlanger. All you need is an interest in helping to inform the LCS
and help it to better serve the greater conlanging community.

If this sounds like something with which you'd like to be involved,
we'd like to hear from you. If you're interested in joining the
advisory committee, send an e-mail to volunteer@conlang.org. Let us
know what portion of the community you're from, and what your user
name there is (if applicable). The committee will communicate via a
mailman listserv, so we will need your e-mail address, but other than
that, anyone can participate.

If you'd like more detailed information about the advisory committee,
go to http://conlang.org/adcom.php.

[janMato]

tenpo ni la mi pana e mani tawa kulupu pi toki sin. mi kama jan pi kulupu pi toki sin.

mi weka e sitelen tawa jan lawa pi kulupu pi toki sin.

What would be nice is if conlang.org would publish some model language licensing and language governance documents.

What currently passes for conlang law is a travesty to common sense and the goals of the community. For example, Na'vi and Klingon is, as far as movie lawyers are concerned, covered by movie script law. Which is heavily in favor of the studio and puts the language designer and language fans in an awkward position. The Klingon solution puts too much power into to the hands of one organization, and I haven't heard what the Na'vi solution is, but at least Paul Frommer appears to be writing about the language, which he was reluctant to do right after the movie (in fact he was under strict gag-rules until the movie was published)

What currently passes for conlang governance is.... nothing. While lojban appears to enjoy at least a dysfunctional governing structure and Esperanto has several formal structures (although more slanted towards community governance and less about grammar governance), the unwashed masses generally have no guidance on how to with, well anything. The questionable success of the French language governance body is mentioned as sort of a knee-jerk reaction when language governance is mentioned, but language governance in Basque, Icelandic, from time to time has had a tangible impact on a language.

Conlangers are mortal, and more importantly, have limited attention spans, so it would be useful if a model governance structure existed regarding abandoned languages, or better yet, languages that people are putting together today.

If I was shopping for a conlang to study today, I'd pick the language that had a fan friendly license and a governance structure that will outlive the inventor and (in the case of sole-right holder organizations like the KLI and Paramount) can outlive the attention spans of the governors, i.e. a sort of orderly set of expections about how governance can be transfered or how communities can peacefully schism.

[And because stuff like this seems to draw libertarians like magnets, I'm not suggesting laws that tell people what to do, this is more like the standard contracts that real estate agents suggest everyone use, and generally everyone does, because it's better to follow well known rules, than to keep making up new ones all the time]

[janKipo]

Does making this suggestion constitute volunteering for the committee?
As you know, joining LCS is not a requirement for that job, but thanks anyhow. I hope you will join the fun whether or not you are volunteering.

As you know, what little has been decided about conlbgs in the US co,es mainly fro the Loglan Lojban split in the 90s. So, a language per se cannot be patented, copyrighted, etc. etc. Nor can the words or the grammar. But, under certain condition -- the largest of which seems to be originality (the Polish programming language Loglan was a blow to JCB) -- a language name can something or othered, so that using the name Na'vi or Klingon or, soon, Dothraki will be a non-no without the appropriate permissions, etc. How far you could get with Iv'an which was just like Frommer's creation is not clear, Frommer could clearly make the decisive modifications and you could not (though you might end up with more followers, say).

So far as the law in other countries go, I have only the vague notion that there are no rules at all beyond some Common Law notions, perhaps tied the inventor deserves the fruits principle, wherever that may lead. I think most languages on the Internet are published under that open
Iicense principle that I remember being hounded into supporting in th 80s but never understood in detail. It seems to rely a lot on communal good will, which I take to mean that no body see much likelihood of profit.

I am pretty sure that no one (who is still able to communicate in sentences) would want to govern the conlang community. The time involved in adjudicating auxlang disputes alone would consume more time than any governing organization could have.

As for governing particular languages, while guidelines would be nice (having a basis to prod janSonja, for example), no guidelines could cover the range of styles and organizations (or lack thereof) which see to work for particular languages. From my own experiences: Loglan now appears to be a one-man shop, with a small, moderately lively following and no creativity, Loglan originally was a one-man shop using his creativity ( and what he could derive --polite word that ) from a very active group of acolytes. aUI is a moribund shop run by a child of the creator, trying to keep Daddy's creation alive and was sways a one-man shop (probably the norm for conlangs, perhaps dcepting aux). Lojban has always been a team project, with varying team members and varying decision procedures. There are now several teams which appear to operate largely independently, coming together to solve particular problems where there are overlaps or to help the fairly large contingent of students (where could we even begin to get figures on size ( not something LCS would want to undertake). toki pona, as you know, has been essentially an orphan since its first year, although Sonja has dropped in occasionally, usually to more darkness than light. And so, it has become pretty much a fan run language, to the point that some of Sonja's decree are simply ignored and sme bits, while not official, are probably insurmountably entrenched. And these case do not look a democratic languages nor commercial nor committee ones, nor ... .

But then, you probably aren't really suggesting it should be otherwise.

[janMato]

Does making this suggestion constitute volunteering for the committee?

I thought my toki pona sentence said "I've become a member of the LCS". And I did send in my email to volunteer. I think administratrivia is great fun, I end up doing a lot of it for my Icelandic club.

As you know, what little has been decided about conlbgs in the US co,es mainly fro the Loglan Lojban split in the 90s. So, a language per se cannot be patented, copyrighted, etc. etc.

There's at least two sorts of law going on-- how ordinary people (including Frommer and Okrand) behave and how a court of law behaves (meaning those expensive lawyers and judges). As for the former, people are really behaving in all sorts of fashions-- from people who think their conlang materials are automatically copyrighted and surrounded with legal protections to people who think that conlangs are as free as can be and can't have their usage restricted at all. When there is uncertainty like that, people will be likely to sit on their hands and do nothing. In particular, important people like movie directors, book publishers who could whip out their check book and pay a conlanger to write a language, might not because they're not sure what rights they are buying.

I think for formal courts of law, the question is undecided, there just aren't enough cases (or heaven forbid) legislation on the matter.

re: names.
Yes, I agree, that is one of the few areas of legal clarity in the world of conlangs.

I think most languages on the Internet are published under that open
Iicense principle that I remember being hounded into supporting in th 80s but never understood in detail. It seems to rely a lot on communal good will, which I take to mean that no body see much likelihood of profit.

Which open license? Esperanto was released by the inventor to public domain, I think lojban release to public domain, toki pona is CC-no-derivs, Na'vi is/was covered by movie script law, Klingon by the agreement between the KLI and Paramount (which I should track down and read). If a conlang license specific to conlangs exists, it would be interesting to read.

I am pretty sure that no one (who is still able to communicate in sentences) would want to govern the conlang community.

Let me hasten to add I'm not using the word "govern" in the sense of "the organization with the monopoly on violence that enforces the rules". There are scenarios where rules are useful and people just want to follow the rules. For the most part, people play chess according to the exact same rules, and people deal with edge cases according to what ever well published tournament rules are-- not because the chess tournament is tracking down the non-compliant folk and hounding them in their game parlours.

As for governing particular languages, while guidelines would be nice (having a basis to prod janSonja, for example), no guidelines could cover the range of styles and organizations (or lack thereof) which see to work for particular languages.

I was imagining a kind a document that language inventors could elect to use that would have a bunch of check boxes,

Choose one:
[ ] My language will go to the grave with me. I wish that no fan ever add a rule or word to the official grammar after I die.
[ ] A democratically elected committee will take over all grammar and vocabulary decisions for those who like to resolve questions that way.
[ ] The chosen one will be visited by a dream in Quack-ese, and will rise to become the new official grammarian

aUI is a moribund shop run by a child of the creator, trying to keep Daddy's creation alive and was sways a one-man shop (probably the norm for conlangs, perhaps dcepting aux).

This is another unresolved issue in conlangs. People build these great conlangs, and then there is no obvious way for them to transition to anyone.

It reminds me of discussions about Endangered languages. When they are really endangered, if I, a hobbyist in Arlington, learn Ute, primarily for telling funny jokes on the internet and making illegal translations of Harry Potter, then this is like invading the Smith (insert Ute name here) family's personal heritage. Lots of people feel the only people who can revive Ute are genetic descendants of Ute and they need to use it to tell folk tales, not British Fantasy tales. So it's almost as if people already have a *detrimental* sense of what language governance is for moribund languages.

toki pona, as you know, has been essentially an orphan since its first year, although Sonja has dropped in occasionally, usually to more darkness than light. And so, it has become pretty much a fan run language, to the point that some of Sonja's decree are simply ignored and sme bits, while not official, are probably insurmountably entrenched. And these case do not look a democratic languages nor commercial nor committee ones, nor ... .

Yes, these questions are much more interesting for Na'vi, Klingon, Elvish, Esperanto, since those are the only languages that I can think of that have resulted in substantial economic activity, be-it for profit or non-profit. (movies, books, and conventions) For a language like toki pona, the consequences of getting the governance wrong is pretty small, so no individual in the community cares. But if this is the situation for all of the land of invented languages, then globally, conlangers are making it harder to go from being a novelty hobby to a Na'vi, Klingon, Elvish or Esperanto (not that the world needs another Esperanto, I'm not going down that road)

But then, you probably aren't really suggesting it should be otherwise.

I just think if there was a set of license and governance forms that 95% of the time they'd be ignored because the underlying conlang is a failure. And 5% of the time, an explicit license -either protecting creators rights to make money or protecting fans rights to use, and a governance structure -laying out the "rules of chess" so-to-speak for those who would follow such rules just because the rules are clearly a good thing to follow, they would do so and we'd see more conlangs that transition from reference grammars to languages with communities and copora written by more than just the inventor.

[janKipo]

Administratrivia.