[r-t] Change Proposal to CC Decisions - on peal lengths

[Mark Davies]

Trying to pick some bones out of the meat of this discussion.

To me, Andrew J's objections to Graham's "new length" rules fall into two
categories: the easily dismissed, and the worthy of serious consideration.

I think Graham has already dismissed the ones that are easily dismissed. In
particular:

1. His new ideas are just as "logical" as the old ones, more so if you
consider the peculiar case of 5016s of Minimus being disallowed.

2. Naming of large numbers of "worthless" or "unpealable" methods is just
not an issue in my mind. This already happens! Why should peal-ringers have
the monopoly on naming worthless methods on eight and higher? I certainly
think that any quarterpeal band wanting to name a method should abide by the
same guidelines that pealringers do, though. (Exactly what those guidelines
are is a subject for another thread, which it looks like Earis & Morrison 
have already begun...).

3. Worry about conductors cheating in Doubles and Minor is also unfounded:
as Graham points out, they already can do so, by embedding new extents.
Perhaps the case for Triples is more concerning. At the moment, if you're
calling Parker's 12-part and you miss out a bob, that's it (well OK you
could embed another extent here too I suppose, but the band is unlikely to
keep ringing!). With the New Rules, you simply ring a plain course and call
the bob next time - and you've rung a 5110. It could just be prejudice on my
part, but I think what's sort-of-OK for Doubles and Minor simply isn't on
for Triples. What does anyone else think?

4. Ringing the extent of Major plus a course of Bastow - really, what's the
problem? This is precisely why Graham wants to relax the length
restrictions. If any band ever again attempts the 40320 I would imagine the
umpires would pretty soon put a stop to any conductor who missed a bob and
tried to add a plain course. But a band might want to go for 50,000 Major,
and why should we stop them?

The more serious objections are:

1. The "Triples cheating" one, already mentioned above. I'd be interested to
see what other people think of this. I think it would be pretty poor!

2. Being able to ring bobs-only peals of Grandsire Triples. But, Graham is
right that in some senses this doesn't undermine the historical effort to
find an *extent* of Grandsire Triples without singles, as long as you accept
a peal of Triples is no longer, necessarily, an extent. And of course, you
already can ring a bobs-only peal of G7 - a CUG band did it, didn't they -
10080 changes, not very long in this day and age. So I am wavering on this
point.

And that's it really, isn't it?

I'm still not convinced, though. I still think extents are important for
peals on numbers of bells up to 7. After that, they're not important at all.
So in my view of the world, the logical system is:

Minimus - whole extents or multi-extent blocks of a minimum of 5016 changes.
Doubles, Minor, Triples - whole extents or multi-extent blocks of a minimum
of 5040 changes.
Major and higher - any length from 5000 up.

Sorted?

MBD