[r-t] Minor Blocks: Poll results

[Mark Davies]

Tim wrote,

> I'm therefore wondering if an improvement to Mark's suggestion would be to
> leave the Method Collections as a single level structure where all
> replications and rotations have equal status as methods, and then add a
> group identifier property that links methods that are replications or
> rotations of each other

No, I don't like this! It seems really useful for the method libraries 
to have a way of recording aliases, but, to address Chris Adams' very 
real concerns, there ought to be a "top level" which looks just like the 
method libraries do now.

After reflection, I think the canonical name of a method probably ought 
to be the one which is rung first to a peal, hence following the usual 
naming conventions. Existing "aliased" methods, such as Grandsire/New 
Grandsire, Original/Plain Hunt, Bastow/Cloister/St Helens all have 
reasonably obvious canonical names - that given in the current libraries.

Furthermore, I think the rules around describing what methods you have 
rung can be reasonably relaxed. If you ring a peal of New Grandsire, you 
could call it New Grandsire or Grandsire according to taste; that is, 
either the matching alias or the canonical name are fine. Of course, if 
you rang both Grandsire and New Grandsire in the same peal (spliced 
"restarts") then both names should be used. Perhaps it would not be 
acceptable (too confusing) to use an existing known alias for some other 
method, or at least another alias of the same method.

Finally, I am not sure I completely understand Robin's objection. This 
particular proposal does not introduce any new method classifications or 
change anything about the current Decisions, except to allow method 
aliases to be recorded in the libraries. Surely it is a good thing if we 
can finally recognise names as popular and long-lived as Plain Hunt and 
Cloisters, which cannot currently be found in the libraries?

And of course there is a future benefit, in that it allows us to deal 
nicely with methods with divisible leads, in the proposed new world order.

MBD