[r-t] Provisional records, was New methods

[Philip Earis]

Leigh:
"Yes it should, but that's not going to happen tomorrow. Or next year. Or 
probably for a while after that. There's a lot to be said for gradual reform 
and small steps in the right direction....the path to change is a long and 
gradual one..."

Blimey, Leigh, you're aged 22 - has the CC really turned you so old so soon? 
You ought to be going from place to place getting in adventures and scrapes, 
not sounding like the bearded wearer of half-moon glasses and a tweed jacket 
with leather elbow patches.

What I don't think you fully realise is that the current Decisions are so 
broken that small incremental reform isn't possible.  They are a badly 
patched up boat built around the premise that some things that people do or 
might ring are acceptable, and others aren't.  It just isn't possible to 
remove this philosophical barrier with small incremental reforms. A complete 
overhaul is needed.  If anyone tells you otherwise they are stalling you.

The analogy I will again use is that of the geocentric system - the accepted 
view in times past that the sun and all the planets orbited round the earth, 
which was supposedly at the centre of the universe.  This was accepted 
wisdom, and fiercely guarded.  When evidence that contradicted this view was 
put forward (eg planets apparently looping back on themselves in the sky), 
the zealot guardians of the accepted wisdom had to patch up their system 
with more and more convoluted amendments to try to make things work. 
However, the whole system was fundamentally wrong - the heliocentric system 
eventually prevailed - no amounts of small incremental reform could prevent 
this.


PABS:
"...That is the bare bones. Can anyone come up with bizarre extensions that 
would be permitted by this scheme that suggest more restrictions are 
required?"

This is interesting, but the length of your description still makes me feel 
that no system will ever adequately cover all cases.  As such, I feel there 
is no point having increasingly complex rules on extension.  It would be 
much easier just to leave it to common sense, without rules.  Different 
people's ideas of "extensions" could be rung and labelled as they saw fit - 
the London (no 2) etc convention seems a fair way of doing things to me.


Graham:
"Finally, we must accept that the majority of the CC will be uninterested in 
technical changes to decisions, whereas the members of this list are.
Therefore, I suggest that we formulate a set of changes, document them on a 
website, peer review them with members of this list, and for those were we 
have reached a consensus, ask the MC to support a proposition for change"

This is sensible, but sadly I think somewhat naive.  MBD did exactly this 
with his Norwich axioms a few years ago, but to no avail.  You can take a 
horse to water...

Anyway, following your suggestion I will come up with my own slimline 
"Decisions" sometime in the next week.  It should at least be a basis for 
people to see where I'm coming from.


Don:
"When we force fit what people really ring into something completely
foreign to meet some theoretical need of the record keepers, we are
doing ourselves a disservice. It is not what we ring that is at fault,
it is the inflexibility of our record keeping protocols."

Absolutely.

The example of a cyclic maximus link method you mention is not a one off 
either - this sort of thing is still happening fairly regularly. Less than 
two weeks ago I rang a handbell peal of maximus containing the new method 
Malakoff: mx &78x78.1x1x1x1x1x1xE

This is a neat and simple mx method - it works to great effect in the 
composition to provide both runs and tittums music. It is also of interest 
as it is a very rare example of a mx method with 11ths (n-1)ths made at the 
half-lead.  It is, however, false in the plain course.  Thus the conductor 
ends up in a battle about how it appears in the RW - sending it up as it was 
rung leads to protracted pointless correspondence, whilst the alternative is 
the unpalatable option of sending it up with an arbitrary 10 lead-end 
change, which also morphs it into a differential.  And all the contrivence 
to meet these very silly arbitrary decisions.

I'll stop banging on about this topic now, as I've made the point and 
nothing new is emerging.