[r-t] Decisions, decisions..

[Tim Barnes]

Philip - thanks for the feedback.  Responses below -- TJB

On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 6:17 PM, Philip Saddleton <pabs at cantab.net> wrote:


> A.30. Needs to make it clear that the complete Extents whose rows are
> excluded can include a cover bell, or peals of Doubles and Minor rung in
> separate extents would not be permitted. Note that in this case this would
> be a relaxation of the current Decision, in which e.g. a round block of 840
> containing the rows of separate extents of Doubles and Minor cannot be rung
> in a multi-extent round block.
>

Yes, agree there would need to be a carve-out in the language for dual
stage doubles and minor ringing to not require everything to be assessed
for truth at the minor stage, if peals of mixed doubles and minor were to
continue to be 'allowed'.  One view might be that once any minor is
introduced into the ringing, it should be accepted that this results in
everything being assessed for truth at the minor stage.  But this would
exclude peals that are allowed today, and also wouldn't be friendly to
bands looking to take steps from doubles up to minor.  From a quick search
on Bell Board, it looks as though there have only been 9 of these peals
rung in the past 10 years, so it doesn't appear there would be a big impact
if these were no longer considered peals and became miscellaneous
performances.  Truth would be more easily and consistently defined as a
result.


> B.1. Would mean that Magenta Little Place Maximus would be redefined as a
> Differential.  Note that there is nothing in the existing Decisions that
> prohibits two Methods from having the same plain course.


Yes, it would become a 5, 7 differential principle with a 35 lead course.
 Under the current rules it could also be classified this way, as well as
the way it's currently classified (a plain little hunter with 5 hunt
bells).  I think it's beneficial to have a classification system that
doesn't enable the same method to be classified in more than one way, and
1.B.1 is a component to achieve this.  It would be interesting to know how
many existing methods have place notations for a lead that are divisible
into equal parts.  Is Magenta a rare example of this?

 C.2. The reasoning behind the existing (J)A.2.(b) is that most ringers
> think of a call as a way of jumping to a different point on the line, i.e.
> missing out part of the method. Inserting an unrelated set of changes into
> a lead can hardly be considered as ringing the same method. Of course the
> same effect could be had by having two consecutive calls, one altering the
> changes rung, and the other omitting changes. I wouldn't be too fussed if
> (J)A.2.(b) was reworded to "one or both of the following", but I think it
> important to make the distinction.


Agree my language doesn't cover removing changes from the method and not
replacing them with anything.  I've reworded to cover this.  The language
in 1.C.2 is designed to give flexibility, but in most cases it will be used
to simply replace something like a 12 notation with a 14 notation, or in
the case of a Grandsire single, replace 7.1 with 3.123.


> Part 2:
> A.6 and A.9 need to be combined, or separate sections are needed to deal
> with methods with one and more than one hunt bell - the existing (E)B. and
> (E)C. are much clearer.
>

Agree.  2.A.6 needs to make clear that more than one type of hunt path
might be found in a method, and then link to how this is classified.  Will
update.

A.10. I assume the inclusion of 'Slow Course', 'Single', 'Double' and
> 'Reverse' is deliberate.
>

Yes.  It seems inconsistent to include the Single, Double and Reverse
attributes in the naming for some classes of method, but not for all.
 Embedding classifications into the name part of the method title also
seems inconsistent.  I would favor, for example, including a check box in
the Method Collections to indicate where a method is a double one, instead
of making this part of the classification.  Slow Course is the only
instance of a secondary hunt bell being involved in the classification of a
method, and it's a very specific case - this again seems inconsistent and
some sort of historical quirk.

C. The existing Decision (G) is inadequate, but I don't think it should be
> scrapped without putting something in its place. I have ideas on this that
> are too complex to put here, but in principle:
> - an extension construction can be defined for any block of changes
> - work at different stages ought to be clearly related, with nothing
> occurring in the extension that does not occur in the parent (the minimum
> definition of 'work' being a place and the blows either side of it)
> - the construction should lead to a valid block of changes at an infinite
> series of stages
>

If it's too complex for the r-t list, it's probably too complex, period!
 (I know what you meant.)  My question here would be what benefit is
complex method extension language to most ringers?  Could you be sure that
language employed will never prevent an extension that 'looks' like a valid
extension to most ringers from being allowed as such?  My preference would
be for the theoreticians to research this area away from the rules, and
only if a really compelling extension scheme is found should it be
incorporated into the rules.  Until then, an extension scheme based on
visuals, and governed by the methods committee, seems a better approach to
make the rules less daunting to most ringers.