Re: [r-t] Methods Committee proposals

[Don Morrison]

I'm surprised at how little discussion there has been of the various proposals put forward by the Methods Committee, due to be voted on in thirteen days. I do encourage you all to contact your Central Council representatives and make your views known to them, in the hopes of ensuring they vote, and perhaps ask questions or make comments, that are well informed.

​​

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 9:35 AM, Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org> wrote:

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 6:49 AM, Giles Blundell <grblu...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> The papers for the CCCBR meeting are available at http://cccbr.org.uk/council/meetings/2016/.

>

> The Methods Committee has made 4 proposals.

> 

> Comments, anyone?

This is certainly interesting.

First a general, positive comment: In every case I think the Committee shows it has been listening to much of what folks have been saying, and I applaud the effort to liberalise things. This is clearly a positive step, the most encouraging I can remember, ever. Bravo!

I am, however, saddened, with how this continues the tradition of the Methods Committee developing its proposals in what appears to be secret, without any engagement with others over their details, and then suddenly launching them shortly before a Council meeting as a finished product. Even reading the summary of the recent Administrative Committee meeting in the RW just two weeks ago I saw no hint that these changes were coming. I think it would be better to have a more open process, where wrinkles could be worked out collaboratively ahead of time.

It is a little alarming to see that these for the most part continue the tradition of advancing by growing the length and complexity of the Council's decisions. The goal should be to shorten and simplify them.

Some of the thoughts and concerns I have about some of the specific proposals follow. All of those which are concerns it would have been good to deal with, or at least air, earlier, before they were presented as a finished product to the Council.

1) The various amendments that allow incomplete extents, while an improvement, seem still to be oddly, arbitrarily restrictive. If I am reading things correctly, they allow only adding a shorter-than-an-extent touch. As has been seen in the quarter peal community for decades, many bands enjoy ringing interesting lengths by using MEBs that subsume such shorter-than-an-extent touches. For example, why is a 5570 of Cambridge Minor, formed by ringing five extents plus a 1440 and a 530 allowed, but a 5589 of Cambridge Minor, formed by ringing six extents plus a 1269 forbidden? That said, it is clearly an improvement, and I don't see that it causes any harm (unlike the confusion sowed by the recent adoption of non-method blocks), so I think it should be adopted, but revised next year to allow partial MEBs, too. It would have been better to have it revised this year to allow partial MEBs, but attempting to do that during debate at a Council meeting seems a surefire recipe for getting the wording wrong; it is far better for that to happen deliberately, with an open, transparent process, and sufficient time to think and revise.

2) I am delighted that the arbitrary restriction on the number of blows a bell can remain in one place is being relaxed. I'm intrigued by the "continuously lead or lie" business: it allows a bell to remain in one place through the course of a method, but only if it is at an interior place. So, as an example of good news, Martyr's Link, used in a quarter peal in Cambridge about a year ago, would now be considered a method if rung in a peal. I wonder what the rational is for making leading and lying places subject to stronger restrictions, and still relegating such methods to non-method status?

A more pressing concern, though, is what to do with all the methods that were formerly classified, and named, as non-method blocks, but which would now be bona fide methods? I doubt the band that named methods things like "Chip Off The Old Block Minor" and "Round The Block Minor" would have chosen to name them "Chip Off the Old Bob Minor" and "Round The Bob Minor". Although I do suspect they will, in general, approve of the disappearance of this antiquated*, arbitrary restriction :-)

Similarly, what happens with older methods that were suppressed by the Council, such as Caunton [Slow Course] Doubles? I hope they come back into the fold.

3) I am delighted they will now allow quarter peal ringers to name methods at stages above minor, and am pleased to see it is being allowed with a minimum of fuss and bother, not requiring any definition or regulation of quarter peals. I do quibble, however, with the requirement that triples be 1260 or longer rather than 1250 or longer. The wording would be simpler if it were simply 1250 or longer for all stages, and quarter peal ringers do frequently ring 1259s and 1251s of triples, though given the infrequency with which new triples methods are rung, it seems unlikely that this restriction will cause much difficulty in practice. I am sad that quarter peal ringers can't name methods in spliced, but that has long been the case with minor, too. Sad, too, is the seemingly completely arbitrary restriction that quarter peal bands can name methods, but not non-method blocks. Although I believe the correct solution to this last problem is to eliminate the whole notion of non-method blocks, by eliminating the few remaining restrictions that classify methods as non-methods.

4) Allowing calls not just to decrease, but also to increase, the length of a lead seems quite sensible. It is, however, still oddly, arbitrarily restrictive, in that it allows only the insertion of new changes between two existing changes, rather than the replacement of changes by a longer sequence of changes. There are perfectly plausible calls that will still have to be fudged by pretending they're two or more different calls applied to the same lead, or something silly like that.

5) I'm delighted the bizarre prohibition of peals of minimus in hand has been lifted. While I don't really see the need for an umpire for a one person peal of minimus, I understand that others do, and I certainly understand, if not agree with, the motivation for this restriction. Might it be possible for the Council to now recognize peals rung in the past in this fashion? I believe Frank King rang a peal of minimus by himself, with an umpire, some years ago which the Council did not include in its analysis (or whatever the term used then was for not recognizing things). And why is an umpire the only way to address the underlying concern; for example, would not making a video of the performance and posting it on YouTube address the concern as well, or potentially better?

6) Being more squishy and subjective, it's going to take a while to get my head around the last proposal, but on the surface it is certainly exceeding positive. I particularly laud "That the Council agrees that these definitions should reflect current ringing practices and also that they should not inhibit future developments in ringing, and should not impose value judgements on what people choose to ring." Having these as your ground rules (does that metaphor work trans-Atlantic?) seems to bode very well for the future. And I'm similarly delighted to see the firm end of year deadline.

Despite all these positives, looking at it as a whole, it does seem as if the plan is to not undertake a thorough re-evaluaton of the existing decisions, and shorten and simplify them, but rather just to lengthen them and make them more complex. Continuing the tradition of kicking the can down the road, though, at least, in this case kicking it somewhat further than has been done in the recent past. And, with their ground rules, promising to address the can again when they get there :-)

Unlike the case with the non-method blocks of a few years ago, on first reading I think we should probably support all of these changes as positive steps forward, which will cause little or no trouble in the future, but continue to press for a more thorough revision, with a deliberate, open and transparent process.

One further issue that could have been dealt with in this same, incremental approach, but which the Committee has not addressed, is methods that have false plain courses. This seems a surprising omission, and I hope they address it soon.

And I do offer my thanks to the Committee. Whatever my misgivings about details and process, it is clear they really have been listening, and I believe their hearts really are in the right place. 

* Perhaps using "antiquated" here is insulting to many of us: I believe this restriction was only introduced during my own lifetime, in the early 1960s!

-- 

Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org>

"A wise man will avoid public office, while respecting it."

     -- Will and Ariel Durant, _The Age of Reason Begins_,

         paraphrasing Montaigne

[Adam Beer]

Hi Don

To be honest, in my opinion, you've given a pretty good approximation
to my feelings/thoughts about the proposed changes and the process by
which they were presented without discussion. So no further comments
on my part. I was already going to write to the ANZAB CC Reps urging
them to vote in favour of the proposed changes.

Cheers

Adam

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[Derek Williams]

No need to email me Adam. I agree with you and Don, and will be voting for the changes.

Derek 

[Adam Beer]

Good! Thought so.

On 18 May 2016, at 10:08, Derek Williams <derekof...@gmail.com> wrote:

No need to email me Adam. I agree with you and Don, and will be voting for the changes.

Derek 

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[Tim Barnes]

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 2:38 AM, Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org> wrote:
> I'm surprised at how little discussion there has been of the various
> proposals put forward by the Methods Committee, due to be voted on in
> thirteen days.

I was also a little surprised, but, similar to Adam, I thought your analysis covered all the applicable points and there was nothing particularly to disagree with.  In general these email lists seem to work by people only posting when they disagree with something, not when they agree, so I think you can take the lack of response as concurrence.  Either that, or people are now well and truly fed up with discussing rules!

On your point 2), I was also wondering what the MC would do with block titles that are no longer blocks.  Similar to how we proposed adding the word "Slow" to the method name if the slow course classification was retired, it might make sense to add "Block" to the method name to give, for example, "Chip Off The Old Block Bob Minor".  This question might be worth someone asking at the CC meeting this weekend.  As far as I know, the method libraries don't currently allow for any grandfathering of classifications, so presumably "Block" will be replaced with "Bob" and similar in the libraries if motion 13(G) passes.

I do encourage you all to contact your Central Council
> representatives and make your views known to them, in the hopes of ensuring
> they vote, and perhaps ask questions or make comments, that are well
> informed.

Have done.  Also put in a plug for MBD for the Methods Committee.

I'm aiming to come back to the discussion on truth and peals next week to see if we can make any more progress on these.

Regards

Tim

[Mark Davies]

I'm now an official G&B rep, and I hope to be elected to the MC at the
meeting. I'm going to vote for the proposals, since I think they are a
positive step forward. I attach a "briefing note" on the proposals which
has just been circulated to CC members.

More still needs to be done, of course. As I mentioned a month or two
back, I'm hoping we can improve the IT provisioning behind the methods
library, including better website, better webservices, and better
automation overall. And we need to continue to work to modernise the
"rules">

I also plan to improve communication between the MC and the various
forums, including this one. There ought to be a continuous conversation
going on, in my view.

If anyone has any other ideas for things I could do/say/promote, let me
know.

MBD



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[Graham John]

I have just sent the following to the Methods Committee.

FYI I have also been elected an ODG CC Rep for the next Triennium (2017-19).

From: Graham John <gra...@changeringing.co.uk>
Date: 27 May 2016 at 00:42
Subject: Motion to change the Decisions on Peals, Methods and Calls
To: Peter Niblett <peter....@btinternet.com>

Peter,

While it is disappointing that there has been no methods committee
feedback, proposals or open consultation on any of the matters
discussed at the Open Meeting in October 2015, any progress towards
implementing changes to address some of the issues discussed is to be
welcomed. However, I have made some comments below that you may wish
to take into account when making these changes.

Change 1 – Allow a Wider range of Peal Lengths

Why does this change not allow MEBs where some rows are omitted from
one extent? It seems an unnecessary restriction to prevent peal length
multi-extent blocks from being rung. Also it does not address the
inconsistency for Major, where neither multiple extents can be rung,
nor one complete extent plus a partial extent.

Change 2 – Allow methods that have more than four consecutive blows in a place

While the no bell shall lead or lie for the whole plain course is an
understandable restriction to prevent methods at one stage being
defined as a different method at the next stage, it should be noted
that there are already two methods included in the CCCBR method
libraries that do not comply: Cheeky Little Place Minimus and Itram
Little Place Minimus.

Change 3 – Allow a new method to be named by ringing a quarter-peal length

Why does the decision on naming in quarter peals need to be different
from peals? Specifically why exclude quarter peals in more than one
method?

If methods can be named by ringing them in a quarter peal, what is the
status of all the methods previously named in quarter peals that are
recorded in Tony Smith’s “Provisional” collection? Why not propose to
add these methods to the CCCBR libraries as part of this change
avoiding the frustration of those who originally named them when they
get renamed by bands ringing them in either a peal or soon a quarter?

Change 4 – Allow calls to extend the length of a lead

In the supporting notes it says that the intention is to remove the
need for a combination of consecutive calls. Unfortunately it does not
address the combination already required by the current wording which
says "one of the following ways" i.e. precludes combinations of omit,
add and alter.

Change 5 – Allow handbell peals of Minimus

No comments.

Regards,

Graham

[Adam Beer]

Graham - I think that the general consensus is that, while we can all
spot ways in which the Method Committee's proposed amendments could be
further improved, it is probably better to get these changes through
as they are without possibly alienating the CC by discussing endless
amendments. There are already more proposals to be voted on than is
normal and I think the feeling is that if the two motions G and H are
passed as are it will indicate that there is a willingness to change
(proposal G) but that we recognise that there is much else that needs
to be discussed and amended (proposal H).

I already raised your issue with Change 1 with a member of the Methods
Committee, and was told 'it was too late to change it', so I guess
it'll have to go on the list of changes for next year. With regard to
your comments about Change 2 in respect of Minimus methods, you are
forgetting the cop-out clause in the current Decision: 'this
requirement not applying to Minimus methods'.

You raise good points with regard to Change 3. In particular with
respect to your second point, I can see that an argument could be
made, that any method that was rung and 'provisionally' named when the
Decisions then current stated that (say) a peal containing that method
had to be rung to name it, ought to be rung again to at least a qp to
officially name it. The reason for this would be that the 'official'
naming should be done in accordance with whatever Decisions are
current at the time. There is, however, another type of currently
unofficially named methods, which were previously recognised, but then
were 'unrecognised' when the CC Decisions changed (there's a set of
Doubles methods that have 8 blows in one place that fall into this
category, for instance). As these methods were rung in accordance with
(or not in contradiction of) any Decisions that were current at the
time they were named, I think these ought to be re-instated without
further ado. I think some sort of 'grandfather clause' ought to be
introduced to the Decisions on Peals and Methods at the beginning,
stating that no peal or method, if considered 'valid' under the
Decisions current when it was rung, shall be retrospectively
considered ' invalid', if the Decisions should change again.

Regards

Adam

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[Don Morrison]

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 8:17 PM, Adam Beer <adam...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I already raised your issue with Change 1 with a member of the

> Methods Committee, and was told 'it was too late to change it'

Rather a shame they waited until the last minute to tell anyone about it. If they'd simply circulated their proposal a little earlier, there would have been time to fix it. My understanding is that it was discussed in the committee in March, which, while tighter than I think it should have been, probably would have been enough time to fix things if they'd circulated stuff outside the committee at that time.

-- 

Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org>

"From that day to this I have never touched roast gibbon

last thing at night."            -- Roy Lewis, _The Evolution Man_

[Adam Beer]

> Rather a shame they waited until the last minute to tell anyone about it. If
> they'd simply circulated their proposal a little earlier, there would have
> been time to fix it.

My thoughts exactly, Don!

My understanding is that it was discussed in the
> committee in March, which, while tighter than I think it should have been,
> probably would have been enough time to fix things if they'd circulated
> stuff outside the committee at that time.
>
>
>
> --
> Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org>
> "From that day to this I have never touched roast gibbon
> last thing at night." -- Roy Lewis, _The Evolution Man_
>

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[Tim Barnes]

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 12:50 PM, Mark Davies <ma...@snowtiger.net> wrote:

I also plan to improve communication between the MC and the various forums, including this one. There ought to be a continuous conversation going on, in my view.

Fully agree.

On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 6:59 PM, <ma...@bronze-age.com> wrote:

I've just met up with Peter in the bar tonight. I think his heart is in the right place! He is supportive of my membership of the MC, so I'm hoping I'll get elected to it on Monday.

Change is however difficult. I shall be needing a lot of help from you guys if we are to move the wheels faster than is being managed at the moment.

Very happy to help, and I'm sure that also applies to many / most on this list.

I guess one immediate question is whether you think there is value in the subgroup continuing to plug away at some of remaining open points that we haven't yet resolved (the minimum requirements for what is considered a peal is probably the biggest remaining open point).  I'm happy to continue at this (assuming others are as well), but if you see the MC organizing this discussion going forward, I'm happy to hand over!

Tim

[Tim Barnes]

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 8:17 PM, Adam Beer <adam...@gmail.com> wrote:

With regard to
your comments about Change 2 in respect of Minimus methods, you are
forgetting the cop-out clause in the current Decision: 'this
requirement not applying to Minimus methods'.

This is a minor detail, I know, but yesterday's changes seemed to remove the minimus exclusion.  So my read is that Cheeky Little Place Minimus and Itram Little Place Minimus no longer meet the requirements for being methods.  Presumably (for now) they get reclassified as non-method blocks?

Tim

[John Harrison]

In article
<CA+16xEfzU9vhp6x7F=eA12=esxuNXnU0=mLYcOniZ...@mail.gmail.com>,

Tim Barnes <tjbar...@gmail.com> wrote:

> one immediate question is whether you think there is value in the
> subgroup continuing to plug away at some of remaining open points that we
> haven't yet resolved

Potentially yes. My reasoning is that on a 'difficult' problem (ie one
where seemingly there isn't an answer even if we feel there ought to be and
some of us have a gut feel of the direction in which it might lie) it can
be easier for a group with formal responsibility for getting it right to
make progress if there is some sort of proof of principle that reduces the
decisions to one of choosing the best compromise. Generating the proof of
principle may be easier in a group that is more willing to think (and argue
about) the unthinkable.

The caveat is that the Methods Committee could in principle open up its
debating space to such slightly wild debate, in which case there is no
point doing it separately. However, that might not happen, and might not
even be the most effective solution. If as we suspect people like Peter
are short of time because of real world pressures then being swamped with
the wilder end of the debate is less productive than taking in the
digested, or partly digested, version and engaging in the next tier of
debate.

From the noises coming out of the weekend there seems to be a willingness
for the Methods Committee to be more open so let's give them the chance to
put some substance on that.

That needn't stop us bashing around ideas in the mean time if anyone wants
to do so of course.

--
John Harrison
Website http://jaharrison.me.uk

[Mark Davies]

On 31/05/2016 19:35, Tim Barnes wrote:

> I guess one immediate question is whether you think there is value in
> the subgroup continuing to plug away at some of remaining open points
> that we haven't yet resolved (the minimum requirements for what is
> considered a peal is probably the biggest remaining open point). I'm
> happy to continue at this (assuming others are as well), but if you see
> the MC organizing this discussion going forward, I'm happy to hand over!

No no, definitely keep going! Excellent work is being done here.
Unfortunately even before my election to the council I wasn't able to
keep track of it all, and I suspect I will be even more time-poor now.
The rest of the methods committee are in a similar position, I'm sure. I
guess this is one of the ways I'd like you guys to help.

[Tim Barnes]

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 6:33 PM, Mark Davies <ma...@snowtiger.net> wrote:

No no, definitely keep going! Excellent work is being done here. Unfortunately even before my election to the council I wasn't able to keep track of it all, and I suspect I will be even more time-poor now. The rest of the methods committee are in a similar position, I'm sure. I guess this is one of the ways I'd like you guys to help.

Ok, will do.  I also agree with JAH's point that an unofficial group like this can more easily debate the unthinkable (can peals be false?!) than an official one can.

I will try and recap where I think we've got to over the weekend.

Tim