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[Conlangs-Conf] Show-off pamphlets?

From:Sai Emrys <sai@...>
Date:Monday, February 6, 2006, 1:05
One idea that came up in talking to David Peterson (and others) was to
include some forum by which attendees (and *maybe* non-attendees too?)
could wax prideful and show off their languages.

My concern as organizer is to ensure the *intent* of the original "no
prostelyzation/pimping" ban is fulfilled. That is, I do not want to
have or condone any flamewars of the sort that divided CONLANG and
AUXLANG; nor to have too much online time taken by material that is
not really usable / applicable to anyone except the speaker, or the
speaker's particular "school". (I liken talking about one's own
languages to mothers talking about their babies. Perhaps you can see a
certain resemblance...)

That being said, we still do take a certain interest in each others' progeny.

So, I'd like suggestions on a potential way to address this.

Potentials so far are, e.g.:
* a pamphlet included in the registration pack which is basically a
collection of 1-2 pages per person, filled however desired, by
attendees; these would be used to "show off" their languages or other
projects. (I'm thinking something like a customized version of the
Omniglot language pages - highlighting what's special, unique, or
otherwise cool about your particular language.) This would be
cross-referenced with the participant / attendee list in the main
pamphlet, so that you could hunt down the creator yourself over free
time (breaks, lunch, etc) and get them to talk some more about their
obviously awesome language.

This would avoid boredom factor in that you are not obligated to show
interest in (or spend time on) a language that does not appeal to you,
but would also put more burden on the creators / fans to do such
discussion on their own time.

* Some sort of discussion panel / sharing time in the conference
itself, at which (and *only* at which) the aforementioned ban would be
lifted. Anyone present would be welcome to speak for a few minutes
about their language(s), field questions about them, etc, and
collaborate with others developing similar languages. This part could
potentially be broken off into separate groups - e.g. artlangers,
auxlangers, etc. - to ensure that they are at least trying to achieve
similar goals and therefore their languages are more likely to
cross-fertilize.

Some difficulties with this would be giving everyone enough time to
describe their languages cogently while still fitting the session into
a reasonable timeslot; avoiding the sorts of disagreements that come
when presenting a concept to a group of people that does not
necessarily share your goals; etc.

* ...?

We are likely to already have a panel discussing conlang art & craft
in a more general / meta / theoretical sense; what I'm asking here is
specifically how to include *particular* languages, in a way that is
both useful and defuses the potential... conflict and/or boredom.

Suggestions? Comments?

 - Sai

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taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...>