[r-t] Proposed definition of a peal

[Richard Smith]

Mark Davies wrote:

> Far too wordy Don! We'll end up with something ten times longer than we have
> now, which is bad.

Why is it?  The problems with the current decisions are that 
they are overly restrictive, overly complex in places, and 
that they contain ambiguities.  I don't see that their 
length is a problem.

If we produced a set of decisions that were ten times as 
long as the existing ones, providing they were clearly 
written and end easy to follow, I would consider that a 
success.

> Why don't we ignore peals for a bit and go back to methods. Once we have our
> ideas clear about methods then the whole peals thing would probably be a bit
> easier.

No!  I agree with Don here.  I absolutely think we want to 
flesh out what we mean by 'truth' (in particular) before we 
get bogged down with methods.  And I firmly applaud the 
effort to define this without reference to methods, leads or 
calls.

At the end of the day, people don't ring methods.  What they 
ring are pieces of change ringing.  Exactly how these are 
described in terms of methods is a subtle question, 
especially when it comes to spliced.  (I don't, for example, 
really believe that anyone has rung a peal containing more 
than 100 methods: I think that morally the most methods in a 
peal is 100 in the 22,400 Spliced Surprise Royal rung at the 
foundry in 2005.)

RAS