Comments on proposed changes to decisions

[Don Morrison]

I believe my first comments on these proposals were on various sections of the proposals circulated in separate mail messages by Mark. I have subsequently commented on various amendments to the wording Mark has circulated. In the end I'm a bit confused about where everything stands, and exactly what I've commented on.

So I'm presuming the version now hanging off the Methods Committee's page of the Council's web site is the actual proposal, and the thing that should be commented upon. Here are my latest thoughts, which include some small details that I had not noticed earlier:

As I believe you are already aware I am disappointed that so little has been changed over the last three years. A full and thorough revamping of these decisions is long overdue and such ad hoc minor tweaks to them is not the appropriate way forward in the long term. However, that said, I am strongly in favor of all of these changes as short term expedients. I do, however, think there are small changes that need to be made to their wording.

Re the change to (D)A.6: Peals run on simulated tower bells are a very different thing than "simulated peals". I strongly suggest the wording be changed to start something like "For peals rung on simulated tower bells...."

Ditto: If "full circle-style" is intended to require the use of a rope, or even a rope and a wheel, then that should be stated explicitly. "Full circle-style" is exceedingly open-ended and liable to all sorts of interpretations. Even with such an emendation I think this remains something that deserves more thought and care in its wording in the future, though this will probably have to do for this year.

Re the replacement of D(B): "etc" appears repeatedly in this section, often without a full stop. Should it not be followed by a full stop consistently?

Ditto: In clause 4. "highest" should be "higher". Even if you don't object to "highest" used with just two things, it should still be "higher" simply to ensure parallelism with the use of "lower" earlier in the sentence.

Ditto: Also in clause 4: a sequence would not, I think, normally be said to begin or end "in" something, but rather "with" something.

Ditto: Also in clause 4: regarding "the set of possible rows may be taken from the lower stage" -- is that really "may" instead of "shall"? If it is a mixed stage peal do we really have a choice of which stage we use for determining "completeness" at the lower stage?

Ditto: Clause 4. allows an incomplete, round block of length one, simply an instance of rounds. Thus a band could ring a peal of, say, 5,041 Minor by ringing seven extents and on extra blow of rounds. Or, more interestingly, ring five extents, an extra blow of rounds, and then two more extents, each starting and ending at hand. Personally I have no problem with this, and would probably enjoy ringing such a thing, but it's not clear to me whether or not you intended it.

Ditto: Again clause 4.: this probably isn't worth worrying about for this time around, but for the longer term effort I'd suggest being carefully when wording things like "A peal is true if it...." -- it's not clear in this context whether this is intended to be a definition (I think it is) or a theorem.

Re the changes to (D)A.9 and (D)A.10: "as quickly as possible" is problematic. It is either meaningless, or, taken literally, is actually a tightening rather than a loosening of the criteria. If "as quickly as possible" means "as quickly as the band or conductor can manage" that might well be three or more hours, making the injunction meaningless. Taken literally it is certainly possible to correct something earlier than the call or change of method at which the error would take effect, and thus it is actually tightening the constraint that it is intended to loosen.  I think the root problem here is that both of these rules are just proxies for a bigger notion that "peals should be rung to some sort of high standard". Long term this should be addressed head-on. It is a large, complex, subjective area, and trying to address it with a few succinct rules is guaranteed to fail. For the short term I would be more in favor of simply deleting (D)A9&10--as you note they are frequently ignored in practice anyway. However, if you can't bring yourselves to propose that I suppose the proposed wording is an improvement over the status quo: at least it intends to better reflect reality, even if it doesn't say what it's trying to say. Long term, though, they really need to go, perhaps (or perhaps not) replaced by something better addressing the overarching issue they are attempting to address.

-- 

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

"The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to

slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of

their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word--these are never

the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable

men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest

ideals."                               -- Aldous Huxley, _After Many a Summer_

[Tim Barnes]

On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 12:38 PM, Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org> wrote:

I believe my first comments on these proposals were on various sections of the proposals circulated in separate mail messages by Mark. I have subsequently commented on various amendments to the wording Mark has circulated. In the end I'm a bit confused about where everything stands, and exactly what I've commented on.

So I'm presuming the version now hanging off the Methods Committee's page of the Council's web site is the actual proposal, and the thing that should be commented upon. Here are my latest thoughts, which include some small details that I had not noticed earlier:

At this stage the wording on the MC website is only draft and will change.  I'm not sure when the next draft will be posted, but I hope it will be soon after Apr 7th (the due date for responses relating to the 2017 changes), if not before.  There's still debate in progress on how to implement the (D) B changes, and I agree the simulator language and the "as quickly as possible" language need work.