[r-t] Decisions, decisions..

[Tim Barnes]

With Ander moving us on to proper ringing theory, I almost regret coming
back to decisions.  But FWIW, and as previously mentioned, the link below
is to an attempt to show what a revamped set of decisions might look like.
Any and all feedback is very welcome, including the kind of stinging
criticism this list does so well!  Reply here, or to me offline, as you see
best.

Please note:

- Very much intended as a starting point for discussion, and input for a
bigger revamp effort.  Not intended as a finished product.

- Plenty of scope for improvement of the wording used.  There are probably
also better terms from the field of taxonomy than the ones I've used in the
method classification section.

- Some notes on the effects of these decisions are included on the last
page.

What might happen next:

- Nothing!  (No offense taken)

- Or, r-t (or a spin-off subset of r-t) might collaborate to improve and
flesh this out.  Voting (perhaps courtesy of M Frye) would be used where
there's no clear majority view on a particular point.

There seem to be three separate areas of work needed:

- Flesh out and improve the wording of the definitions.

- I've used the term requirements, which are effectively rules.  I
personally have no problem with games having rules - it's part of the fun.
 But we need to determine the process for modifying the rules as ringing
evolves, without penalizing those bands that drive this evolution by
excluding their performances that are rung before the rules are changed.

- Determine the most useful set of method classifications to use going
forward, and how past performances would be re-stated if things are
reclassified.  At the moment we seem to have over-classified methods, with
some method classes being mostly indistinguishable from others when ringing
them.

Acknowledgements: I reused content from the documents of several others,
including MBD, GACJ and PJE, and also from the current CC Decisions
themselves (which are not all broken by any means - they contain some good
content).  Thanks to those who reviewed earlier versions of the document
and provided feedback.  My medical leave is now over and I'm back to having
very little time to work on anything like this.  But it was an interesting
exercise that kept me occupied during my recovery!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B78KrqND0L7cUTMyNVNPVC1kdGM/edit?usp=sharing

TJB