Re: Offlang suggestion & counterproposal

En réponse à Maarten van Beek <dungeonmaster@...>:

>
> No, it isn't. You foremost need copy. Even without a computer you could
> make
> a journal, using a xerox machine for all I care, but without copy, you
> cannot. I am not talking about technical or practical conditions, but
> just
> about the risk that not enough people might send in copy.
>
Yep, but at least the little I may receive I can handle. In any other case, I
just cannot do the job :(( .

>
> I myself use Adobe Acrobat, so I publish to PDF directly from any
> program I
> like, and it works well and keeps the files small (using the correct
> settings for web publsihing, which might come to the core of the problem
> we
> discussed with PDF download and file size).
>
Well, I've seen the prices of Adobe products. I just cannot buy them! It's all
nice and everything but I cannot buy products that cost me half of my month
salary!

>
> I think we are both missing each other's point. I was under the
> assumption
> that you want to make the journal work, but now I believe that you do
> not
> really want the journal, you just want help if anyone else want to have
> a
> journal, is that correct?
>
More or less. I'd be happy to make the journal work, but as I said if I am to
make it it has to be with the tools I already have, since I can't afford
anything else :(( .

>
> I understand, but my point is that that choice might result in no
> journal at
> all.
>
Any other way will result in no journal at all either, at least not from me...

>
> I don't ask that of you. I don't ask for anything, actually. I am just
> giving feedback to make the chance of success a little bigger. I can't
> tell
> you how much time you have, or how much time you want to put into it,
> but I
> can tell you that the more time you have for the journal, the bigger
> its
> chance for success. Don't rely on "other people" to do more work because
> you
> don't have that time, because they simply won't.
>
Yeah, so it simply won't work with such an attitude. It's not as if I had a
choice...

>
> Neither would I. But the general public, however unfair it may seem,
> will
> probably not accept the former choice either, and then the result will
> be no
> journal.
>
Too bad. It was just a proposal though. Maybe somebody else has a better idea,
more time or more material.

>
> 30 page journal? You are getting quite ambitious...
>
Well, that was what we got monthly with the students' newspaper, and the
students were not particularly prolific...

>
> Nor did I accuse you of that, did I?
>
You did, or at least the sentence you wrote said exactly that...

>
> Lol, oh Christophe, I myself wrote that I am an in-between guy, and that
> I
> prefer a mix of command line and GUI manipulation. I was not saying that
> you
> do that, I was just completing your statement that it should be a mix
> of
> both. How come you're so fierce about this?
>
Because you were not doing that. Reread yourself.

>
> One last time: I don't _want_ anything. I am pefectly ok with a journal
> with
> only LateX input. I just think that the chances of it ever being
> succesful
> could be increased by things I said above.
>
Yep, I know that it's not what you *want*, I'm just too tired to think
correctly in English anymore :)) .

>
> I can put a link to my webpage. Dozens of people do that.
>
Yep, and dozens don't make webpages either :)) .

>
> As you know, I am also not a person to just accept that the world is
> unfair.
> But neither do I believe that because I act upon it, the world is
> suddenly
> not unfair anymore. However much I protest, there are still innocent
> children getting killed everybody around the globe. I do not accept
> that, I
> speak out against it. I act against it in the way I think is best, but
> it
> still happens.
>
Well, I was talking about a smaller scale, such as your own life. I can't
pretend to be able to change the state of the whole world.

>
> Well, you need only two or three enthousiasts for the staff, and many
> many
> more to write articles. It's not the few enthousiasts that are the
> problem,
> as we have already seen, it's the large mass of contributors that is
> the
> problem.
>
Well, I disagree. The people who want to help me could only do correcting, and
nothing else. The needed enthusiasts should have many more skills and material
than that. Not that easy to find IMO...

>
> You can only do one thing: make it as easy for them as possible to
> contribute, and hope that they will. That was exactly the underlying
> thought
> of everything I said sofar: the more you facilitate, the bigger the
> chance
> of success. If you don't have time or money or manpower to facilitate
> much,
> that's perfectly ok with me, but it will diminish the chances for
> succcss.
>
I am very aware of that. That's why I was thinking of a modest beginning like a
trimestrial. It's a way to make it easier for people. Unfortunately, I cannot
make it easier as for format :(( .

>
> Yes it will. Writing an article about yuor language is fun. Hassling
> with
> formats, however little time it actyually requires, is a bore and
> something
> many people look up against.
Well, it can be fun learning a new format by making an article in it. I'm
discovering LaTeX by writing a grammar of Astou in it, and I find it quite nice
to do so!

 So it is very well possible people might
> pass
> because of the format requirement. I don't say that they will, I just
> point
> out that it is an added barrier for contributors.
>
Better than just making it impossible :)) .

> Let me just finish by saying that if you do want to make the journal,
> that I
> will be willing to do format conversion from and between
> ASCII/Word/RTF/PostScript and PDF (for as far as possible). I do own
> Adobe
> Acrobat 4.0 (as well as all other Adobe Software such as PhotoShop,
> Illustrator and Pagemaker), so I can print virtually anything to PDF.
> There's just one thing I don't really have: time.
>
I know you're a busy person. That's why I didn't want to ask you that. I'd
rather do that myself, I just lack the material (I've seen that the whole
bundle costs $1.199!!! It's nearly a month salary for me!!!).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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