[r-t] History

[King, Peter R]

I think one reason for requiring a method to be rung in a peal is to make some kind of barrier to arbitrary naming of methods. Knowing the ways of some ringers I wouldn't put it past someone  to say "last night we rang a lead each of the following methods ... " and thereby name several dozen methods at once. You might want to drop the barrier to some other level than a peal  but I think in order to gain the right to name a method there should be some level of challenge involved.

I would agree with the other comment that if all performances were put on bellboard then others can form their own value judgement on what is "worthwhile". To some extent this has happened with science publication where people can put what they want on the various internet archives. If you get a reputation for writing rubbish it won't do your career much good. The only issue is to ensure that the material (bellboard - or science journals) is properly archived for future generations. Often interesting mention is made on this list to performances in the 1700's because someone back then bothered to write it down and others have maintained that archive. It would be a shame if everything got lost simply because some server somewhere crashed.