[r-t] Descriptions (was: A date to pencil ...)

[John Harrison]

In article <Pine.GSO.4.64.1509071519590.26089 at pascal.math.ubc.ca>,
   Alexander Holroyd <holroyd at math.ubc.ca> wrote:

> Yet again the debate seems to have got sucked into the rabbit hole of 
> trying to legislate about how people should describe perfomances.

It seems to be an occupational hazard.  I think it helps to remind
ourselves that we should not be describing 'rules' (which carries the
connotation of what people should or should not do) but a 'description
service'.  

To make the latter efficient it needs a codification scheme based on the
type of things that people mostly ring but it must also be capable of
describing (probably less compactly) anything that might plausibly ring
within the area of interest of the community being served, ie 'change
ringing'.

Describing the fringe areas is likely to work better if it takes account of
readily recognised ideas.  Ringing a method like Plain Bob or Cambridge in
whole pulls clearly comes into that category since the vast majority of
ringers would understand what it meant - far more than would understand the
concept of a new method with alternating identity and non-identity changes
in its place notation.  Likewise, the ordinary ringer would understand what
was meant by ringing Cambridge on the front six and London on the back six
of a twelve but would struggle to understand it described in any other way
as a Maximus method.

In both cases the place notation fed into a proving program would end up
the same, but we are talking primarily about the words and concepts used in
performance reports.

-- 
John Harrison
Website http://jaharrison.me.uk