TRADEMASTERS NEWS #235
Date: 4/2/2009 at 7:49
From: the Charites, the Administrators of Crafts
To : Everyone
Subj: Dates and policies

While we were of the opinion that the nature of our last post was clear,
we would like to take a short moment to point out that the previous
policy was in fact a joke. Please stop sending us designs that comply
with these rules and issues about how HELP IMPERIUMS and SIGN CONTRACT
are not working!

Penned by My hand on the 5th of Vestian, in the year 232 CE.

That's too bad. I actually like some of these rules! Throw out the stuff about the comms, and the rest of it is actually pretty decent...

Just out of curiosity, since these rules are completely fictional and they are not being considered for implementation, but how would these rules increase the quality and fun of designing to an extent that it would be worth the extra work on the part of the Charites? To me it seems these rules would not serve any actual purpose other than to limit what people can do and thus put limits on people's creativity.

You could say that about almost all the existing rules.

Personally, I'd vastly prefer a rule that says "You can't have something hanging in a shop that talks about how it supports the wearer" or a rule that says "Stop putting commas in your descriptions, it messes up the flow of LOOK PERSON" to a rule that says "You have to magically know the difference between British and American spellings even though your spellchecker won't catch it" or design being on hold for days after others have been approved because you have the bad taste to point out that "A bunch of things are big" does not violate the "a is singular so you need is!!" rule.

You took most of your rules from Imperian. I never had a problem getting things approved over there, and I understood the logic behind the rules. I never had a problem going up to the head of crafting and saying, "Hey, this rule against satin? Doesn't make sense." We presented our arguments and eventually it was (well, eventually) changed.

Here, I still don't know why I'm restricted to British spellings since nobody has a problem with me using American in prestige books or helps or speech. And I average a rejection every item even after proofreadings and asking people to look over it because MS Word even when you put it on British spelling doesn't tell me that it needs to be "centre" or "specialise" (both of which the spellchecker in Firefox tag as being wrong).

THAT's petty. Not forcing designs to make sense in context.

I don't know that they would increase the fun. They might add some to the realism (things like not showing the position of an item when you can't guarantee that it will be in that position). I think the bigger benefit would be the increased clarity. That, and the ability to have one powerful merchant controlling multiple cartels and making tons of money...It's Richter's dream all summed up in one little feature.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think it is nearly enough benefit to be worth the time and work it would require to implement the changes. But, I wouldn't have been angry if they really had been implemented...Actually, this makes the best kind of April Fool's joke - it is actually believable and makes everyone ponder for awhile. All in all, I think it was pretty well-done!

Also, speaking from experience, it's easier for an approver to notice something like "Wait, why is this sparkling?" or "Wait, this talks about the wearer" than to notice a minor spelling error. If we're going to worry about the Charities' time being wasted by Imperian-esque rules.

I think the turnaround for designs was quicker in Imperian too. Though I'm sure that had something to do with the mortal approver program.

Replace the British-spelling-rules with some of these.

The British-spelling-rule seems to serve very little purpose in descriptions. The spelling is allowed to be interchanged in the rest of Lusternia (even mechanically one can demesne center or centre, etc), but where designs are concerned it's "locked in place". Hmph!

In player-made descriptions, at least. Builders and so on should still spell correctly even if mortals are let off.

The British-spelling-rule has a worthy didactic purpose: it teaches you the beauty of your mother tongue, unadulterated by Webster, spelling bees, independence, or any other ridiculous colonial notions.

There are a few coding slip-ups (like jewelry, artifact and sulfur) which are so engrained now that it's impossible to remedy them, but then correct spelling is so rare in programmers that I guess we should just be thankful that it isn't worse.

Define "correctly" please...



Of course, this is disregarding the fact that English itself is just a conglomeration of many other "mother tongues" and was inherently flawed and adulterated long before being purified on American soil...

British, obviously.

You can sort of see why the Charites would want to loosen up on it for player designs since so many Americans, often hindered by terrible Microsoft machine translations as Vionne attests, end up wasting time and the Charites' pointing it out and having it fixed, but the higher standards should remain in the rest of the game.

While I am mostly just being facetious, but I think your post does demonstrate the problem. It is a mistake to assume that allowing American spelling would somehow lower the standard. Forcing British spelling is not enforcing a higher standard, any more than forcing American spelling would be. For American players, it is more complicated to both read and write things with British spelling - in that regard, it actually detracts from the game. If we were to enforce American spelling, it would have the opposite problem. Forcing any standard, regional dialect on the player base as a whole is a bad plan.

In fact, I have never yet heard any actual, logical reason for requiring British spelling, other than the fact that people see American spelling practices as perversions of the original British practices (which is not actually true, but that's beside the point).

It's a well known rule in the realm of art, that the more rules you place to restrict your creativity, the more creative a person becomes.

Spelling admittedly isn't grammar, but it's still wrong.

To Elostian's question, I'd say that there's little in these rules that would be good. The whole "in the available light" thing always struck me as pedantry. No description can ever fail to assume anything that might not be true, and the bit about not referencing that something "has been left here" because they might be nearby seems like a deliberately over-the-top example of why rules like that were always silly. It's the same issue as whether you can't refer to a pie as tasting of apples because someone might have been born in a cave and raised in a box and never tasted apples so how would they know that's what it was the taste of?

Rules similar to this, where they exist, are usually examples of the "something must be done" fallacy. Look at these awful designs. Something must be done about this. This is something. Ergo, this must be done. But the "in the available light" never really avoided the kinds of situations it was meant to avoid: it just produced tons of cumbersome, awkward writing.

British English is no more correct to an American than American English is correct to a Brit. Lusternia LLC and IRE LLC are both US-based companies, so British English is only "correct" because someone arbitrarily decided to piecemeal enforce British spelling in a US-based game. Actual commands are either coded to work with American English or with both, and prestige or bardic competitions don't seem to take American v. British spelling into account, so the only mediums for which British spelling are enforced are designing and building.

So really, the demand is that mortal players from whatever country "Write the Queen's English" - but only for a set of approvers who then have to waste their time checking to see whether a designer is being a good little player and using British spelling which s/he may or may not be familiar with and/or use in any context besides design submission. That's just a little absurd, and I'm used to the absurdities of design rules.

A design suffers far more from poor grammar, poor taste, or the repeated use of the word "wearer" than it ever would from no longer wasting everyone's time by demanding arbitrarily that everyone conform to one dialect of English in this single medium of the game.

TL;DR version: Enforcing British spelling in a US-based game doesn't do anything to add to its quality, and honestly it (much like pretty much every argument in favor of this enforcement) is nothing more than pretentiousness.

Dear Vionne,

I can but conclude from your post that you have had some bad experiences with crafting, while I understand that this may be frustrating, I would be most appreciative if you did not take this out on me, I am not the charites, I do not make the rules. Having said that, I would be most appreciative if you did not take such an accusatory and outright vicious tone, we are all volunteers here, we do this work because we enjoy doing it and attacks such as these quite honestly take the pleasure out of the experience. I have the utmost respect for the individuals who have to work up the courage to plough through the design cue each and every day to keep on top of it and as such I would kindly request that you refrain from such inconstructively phrased criticisms as these. I agree with you that a lot of the design rules do not make sense, however, you can suggest this in a polite and constructive way, without accusatory comments. If this is impossible for you then perhaps designing should be restricted to imperian where you state you have no problems getting things approved.

Thank you.



I could not have put it better myself. Thank you.

You know, Hitler said he was purifying Germany too...

Er?

Do you remember the artists' guild of the early Renaissance, which rejected all but the works most well-conformed to popular opinion and style? Contrary from encouraging creativity, it became an entrapment for the artist and hindered 'progress' and development of the creative mind.

I delight in the unconventional or occasionally bizarre description. It brings diversity to the IG world, and with luck expands my perspective as a writer, rather than filling it with a thousand items of roughly the same format but a different arrangment of adjectives. I think that descriptions which "sparkle in the light" are fine- obviously, they do so theoretically. If you are in the UV, instead allow your own creativity to do the work (a great pillar in MUD gaming) and imagine what it would look like under the glow of phosphorescent fungi or the light of that imaginary torch you carry. The rules above would confine descriptions to logical conciseness, thwarting much hope for wonderful metaphors, personifications, and so on.

There is no line between rigorous standards and discrimination, they are one in the same. The fewest rules it takes to keep things coherent while retaining a very liberal atmosphere in regards to content, in my opinion, the better.

The Brittish spelling doesn't bother me that much when I design something. Normally I try to remember how things were in Canada and just mimic that. Never had any major problems getting anything through. I am just grateful that Lusty doesn't follow Aetolia's concept when it comes to tailoring.