[r-t] FW: FW: Proposed definition of a peal

[Iain Anderson]

-----Original Message-----
From: dfmorrison at gmail.com [mailto:dfmorrison at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Don
Morrison
Sent: 06 August 2008 12:41
To: Iain Anderson
Subject: Re: FW: [r-t] Proposed definition of a peal

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 4:16 AM, Iain Anderson
<iain.anderson at talentinnovations.co.uk> wrote:
> Don Morrison wrote:
> 8) A piece of change ringing, if of multiple stages, is called true as
>   follows. All the stage fragments contained in the piece of change
>   ringing that are of the same stage with the same non-changing
>   bells, are grouped together, and tested for truth as for a single
>   stage. If all such groupings are true, then the overall piece of
>   change ringing is called true.
>
> I think we may need to tighten this definition up a little bit for 
> things like Spliced Bristol Maximus and Stedman Cinques, which I am 
> interpreting to be a piece of change ringing of multiple stages.  
> Clearly it isn't sufficient to have the group of Bristol rows true 
> separately from the group of Stedman rows.  In this case we really 
> need to define the Stedman as a maximus method and have the cover bell as
part of the method ...!
>
> If only I didn't abhor the idea of including cover bells in the method 
> so much.

I'm not sure it's "clear". But yes, I do see that is a subtlety I'd
overlooked, thinking so hard about the lower stage problem.

So the problem seems to be that current Decisions have a different notion of
true for mixed stages < 7 and mixed stages > 7. Or, more importantly,
current practice is that those cases are treated differently.

For those that may be missing the distinction (or in case I've got it wrong,
in which case my spelling it out will cause someone else to correct me):

- at small stages we are allowed to mix stage N with a cover with
  stage N + 1 without a cover, without treating stage N as if they were
  rows of stage N + 1, but always with the tenor in last place; that
  is, if we view all the rows clumped together as of stage N + 1, the
  result would be viewed as false

- at higher stages we are required to treat rows of stage N as if they
  were of stage N + 1, and avoid the repetition of, say, a Cinques row
  with a Maximus row with the tenor behind

Why do we as ringers make this distinction?

We cannot force the small stage stuff to obey the higher stage restriction,
as the small stage stuff does reflect current practice -- there are a lot of
peals that have been rung that would not meet the more stringent test of
truth.

Could we liberalise the requirement at higher stages to mimic the lower
stage one? That's what my currently proposed wording allows.
Iain would appear to think we cannot do this, since he said "clearly...".
I'd have no problem with it, but suspect I'm in the minority in that
opinion, and Iain the majority.

Do we need to preserve an artificial special case here? Does anyone have any
insight into why?

Unlike all the other comments made on this so far, this one is not just
about the wording, it is about the underlying ideas, and thus is especially
needing discussion and collective thought. Can anyone help shed some light,
please?


--
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"From politics, it was an easy step to silence."
                                   -- Jane Austen, _Northanger Abbey_