I will not endorse any insulting by any one and I do not find it edifying. I have come close myself on a few occasions, but that is the heat of the moment (but of course that would not excuse me from having committed the offence). The unfortunate thing about a forum is that, unlike heated arguments, the words are not dissipated, but remain to haunt those who wrote them.
As to the last part of your reply:
You say that and then contradict it immediately with an example of just such a deviation from the subject.
I take your point that with anonymity the real personalities behind posters cannot colour people's perceptions of their postings, however this is more than made up for by the assumed pesonalities of these pseudonyms.
Pseudonyms abound here, and there is a popular game that people like to indulge in, trying to guess the identities of those behind the names. Especially if they are adversarial.
Goky is open about his identity, as is marhak and evertype. Bardh remains anonymous, but is well known, as seems to be morvran. Others are more unidentifiable, like yourself, branvras, hunlef and palores. As, I suppose, by my relative newness here, am I.
The vitriol that comes from some of these exchanges seems to be rooted in old personal animosities for some. For others it is frustration with the intransigence and arrogance exhibited by some posters that leads to these outbursts, also some like to do it to elicit a response, trolling if you like.
I don't see that anonymity has done anything to focus the mind on the subject in hand and remain on topic, actually I would say from the evidence here that the reality is quite the contrary to what you have said - that is if I have understood your post correctly.
Taran : First I'm not Penny, and afaik Penny is not a duplicate of anyone else currently posting here.
Second, the tradition here was always that people post under a pseudomyn if they so wished. Marghek did this and we had a bit of a guessing game over who he was. In fact he more or less denied he was Craig W. for a while. It was Michael Everson who through his own unease about exactly who everyone was, began 'outing' people -- myself included. (But we're all ROTFL over Pieter=Loveday, even though we don't know who Pieter is!).
Now since my ID is known, I've been the butt of endless silly remarks, lies and suggestions, about what I may or may not have done or been, decades ago. Half at least incorrect or mistaken. Given that sort of treatment, is it any wonder people choose to hide behind a mask? As indeed you do "Taran".
Seventy Percent of "competent & frequent" Cornish users prefer to write KK! (MAGA/CLP Survey)
It's not a contradiction. I was not suggesting that deviating from the subject is impossible if posters are anonymous.
My point is that if I say something about the language you can avoid addressing it, but not by posting details about me and my private life.
Because you don't know anything about my private life so you have no 'ammunition'.
You can make it up, of course, as some have done here, but that's as effective as firing blanks, and as you know I am trying very hard to highlight fiction wherever it occurs.
I think the contrary to what I am saying would be something like "if everyone's real identity were known that would focus the mind on the subject in hand and result in people remaining on topic".
I can't agree. The evidence here is that when a person's identity is known, personal details about them are used to focus the mind not on the subject in hand but on those personal details, completely irrelevant though they are, as a means of insulting them. That's clearly exactly what has happened.
If everybody's identity were known it would happen even more. Look at the posts that were made about Loveday Jenkin just because people thought (for absolutely no good reason whatsoever) that she was posting here.
Again that is the modus operandi of the anti Kemmyn people, not to actually deal with any of the issues, but to engage in silly personal attacks and even hiring someone like Hunlef to do it for them
I never said you were, and I don't think you are. It is also quite possible that you wouldn't know if she was a sockpuppet or not, unless you work as a coordinated team, again I do not think that to be the case either.
Granted. I accepted that.
I also said :
To pietercharles, I see what you were driving at and yes, I agree that anonymity prevents personal attacks whilst your identity remains a mystery. In this environment (here on C24) that is definately an advantage
My point about the lack of anonymity on Spellyans is that it currently does not have anyone with bad blood between them participating on it. Ill considered or personal remarks are frowned upon. Also the comments are directly attributable to a known individual, not some faceless, ambiguous internet identity. Although there is no background checking. The posters simply ask of each other that they are straight and truthful in their introductions, which one certainly wasn't and another two are questionable.
I was also not proposing that if we all used our real identities here then everything would be rosy. This is an ill tempered place and has been since before I posted my first comments here. My comments above were to explain to morvran why the lack of anonymity was a good thing on Spellyans. It seems to work quite well there.
It's because for the most part Spellyans has been ignored by KK users. If they were to post there they would take exception to the tone and veracity of some, if not many, of the posts - I know I certainly have - and bad blood would develop. Just as it has on C24.
You possibly don't think anything has been posted on Spellyans that would upset and anger a KK user. If that's the case, then I have to tell you that you're wrong. However, I can understand how you might come to that conclusion - if you are in the midst of an anti-KK clique you can expect disparaging, even insulting, remarks to be the norm and hardly noticeable.
Well, they are mostly, and I respect that. But look very closely, "Taran", at which ill-considered and personal remarks have been frowned upon...and which ones haven't.
And I don't think that is acceptable behaviour. If you join a list that requires you to state who you are then you should be honest about who you are.
I agree. But as far as I can see it's for the reason I have explained above. I've actually been furious about some of the mis-representations that have been made on Spellyans. And that's just tough - "put up or shut up" as "marhak" once told me. With Spellyans I decided to do both.
Spellyans is not talking about KK, except in passing or second guessing motivations and tactics. It is talking about the SWF Trad spelling. They don't care what KK supporters think as KK proponents will not want to contribute constructively to the list. Some KK users do however, and they are not mortally afflicted by the comments. The atmosphere there is such that people can criticise the position of one another without stooping to insults, which are not allowed anyway.
There have been a few terse exchanges there, but no really childish behaviour.
As I have said before, KK is irrelevant there. It is purely related to the SWF trad form. A form you will never use and one that none of the main KK proponents will use either. As some of you have stated that you will not use the SWF, then what is the harm in letting those who wish to use the politically second class, disadvantaged form of the SWF from correcting errors or improving it?
What is important is that the discussions are open to anyone sufficiently interested to read them and the membership of the list is open to anyone who wishes to participate, as long as they follow the list rules.
But it IS talking about KK and about KK users, for whatever reason.
And I AGREE that KK is irrelevant to the purpose of the Spellyans list.
And I KNOW the posters don't care what KK supporters think.
But we were talking about why there is no bad blood on the Spellyans list. And none of your observations is at variance with what I was saying - that the lack of 'bad blood', as you call it, is not down to the fact that you all use your real names.
As for
well, I've answered that one before. On the face of it, nothing, and you couldn't stop it anyway. The worst aspect of it, in my view, however, is that it will be another four and half years before some people start learning the language. If indeed they do - by then they might be able to use the exciting development of KQ or KY or K9 as a good reason for not starting.
Untrue. I had no "fit of paranoia". I am certain that there are people subscribed under false names on Spellyans. Tim was one of them. Poor stupid sod--he'd have been welcome to subscribe under his own name so long as he respected the rules of the list. Civility and honesty.
Penny didn't satisfy me as to her identity, but resigned from the list because she doesn't like Eddie, or his sense of humour, irony, and satire.
Those of us who have criticized KK on linguistic grounds and members of the Kesva on political grounds have done so using our own names. In general we've been treated to criticism and abuse from people whose names we didn't even know. That's tedious.
Also tedious is the nastiness of all of this discourse. I think the way that Penny forwarded a private e-mail from Nicholas to her to this list shows a remarkable lack of courtesy and judgement. I think Keith's recent attempt to "prove" that Agan Tavas "split" the revival is just plain silly. KK never attracted academic credibility, nor did it attract unanimous approbation from the community at large. Otherwise people wouldn't have stuck with UC, or its amended version UCR, or worked with the RLC material. The CLP gave us a process which in the end was less than satisfactory because many of the people with the most linguistic knowledge weren't permitted to take part. One reason for this is Ken George's refusal to support the idea of spelling reform at all. I'd like it to be remembered that we asked Ken if he would work together with us on orthographic reform. I wonder what might have happened had we got round a table to actually work together. In the end he believed KK would be chosen by the Commission, so he wouldn't talk to us.
Keith misquotes me a lot. He wilfully misinterprets what I meant when I said "We all must lose so we all may win." I said, and I meant, that we must make the sacrifice of giving up UC, UCR, RLC, and KK so that we could use a better system. I never, ever, meant that we should accept an orthography with easily identifiable shortcomings. All I and my colleagues ever wanted was a robust orthography that was based on Traditional Cornish graphs and that was phonetically accurate and unambiguous. I don't like the non-Traditional graphs in the SWF/Main, but we don't have to use them. We do object to the non-Traditional graphs in the SWF/Traditional. I don't think Keith is credible when he complains that I ought to be happy about them because they are a "compromise". For 20 years we insist on Traditional graphs. Then we get a Traditional form with non-Traditional elements? I don't see how that's "compromise" when the Main form has KK's favourite shibboleths.
Penny doesn't think we can correct the errors. I disagree with her. But we're free to continue to use UC if we want, or UCR. For my part I prefer the SWF—but not without correction of some of its flaws. I and others will publish some discussion of those flaws and propose solutions to them. We will probably publish using the corrected form. I strive to ensure that it is as close to the SWF as it can be—no one who learns that will have any problem reading a corrected form. Perhaps the corrected form will become popular. Perhaps the corrections will make sense and be taken on board in due course. I can see no reason to abstain from the effort, however. And I don't see it as counter-productive or against the spirit of everything. Orthography reform is a process of dialogue. Some people may want to use the SWF for a while before finding out what its inconsistencies are. That's fine. The CLP will do so. That's fine. We are free to prefer an Authentic Written Form if the SWF/Traditional fails to meet some minimum requirements (accuracy and authenticity). And if that AWF is pretty much based on the SWF (itself owing much to KS and to the actual pronunciation of the dialects of Revived Cornish), in dialogue with it in terms of improvement, how can that be anything but positive?
I think that KK supporters who criticize us for wanting the SWF to be truly excellent do so disingenuously. Keith doesn't want the SWF to succeed at all, by all he's said. He doesn't want us to show what might be wrong with it and how it could be improved, because he still sees the SWF as a threat to KK. I don't see the SWF (or its improvement) to be a threat to UC or UCR. I'm content to move beyond UC and UCR. I've agreed to lose: to give up a considerable investment in effort (the UCR dictionary for instance) to try to help move the Revival forward.
I have already noted that "takeup" of UCR was limited in terms of examinations because examinations in UCR were never permitted. In any case, UC and UCR are not incompatible. The dictionary sold out and went into a second edition. That is not inconsequential.
UCR accomplished what it set out to do. It got UC and RLC users talking. That led to KS. (KK users pretty much didn't want to talk to us, though UdnFormScrefys did take many KK concerns into account. We accepted eu in place of ue, for instance. That was a concession. We made it in good faith; we preferred ue.
The SWF/Main contains the graphs kw, hw, and k in place of c. That is not structural content or linguistic content. It is purely cosmetic. It happens to be visible.
Personally I don't believe that those non-Traditional forms will prevail in the long term. There's no advantage to them ("cat kestrel kitten collie cuckoo kitten kyrie qween centre civet" isn't difficult for anybody).
Mike, it doesn't matter if UCR had a 10% take up or a 90% one. If that was a person's firm preference, and they had put dedicated effort into it, it still takes a hell of a lot for that person to be prepared to give it up. Same goes for people who prefer other systems you might view as "minority" ones, or even "majority" ones.
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