Welcome back G. Also - check your dates I think you're off by one? On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 07:11 Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> > > On Thu, 29 Jun 2017, Alex Smith wrote: > > The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" / > > "I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get > > «دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that > > the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant > > to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been > > written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the > > language's normal writing order). > > I register. > > H. Registrar, the following is a Cantus Cygneus: > > For years, Agora has been governed by principles of interpretation, > including a strong judgment on non-English languages. That judgement > was the result of me, years ago, attempting to take a simple and clear > action in Turkish. It was rejected wholly. It was sensible, though > hard line, and at times others have attempted other languages, I've > happily referred others to that judgement, and people have accepted it > and moved on. > > Recently, another player registered and began to use Japanese in the > forum. I was against it from the beginning, not due to dislike of a > particular language, but due to those past Agoran customs and the fact > that we have enough problems with ambiguities in English. I delivered > a judgement stating eir nickname wasn't the Japanese characters e was > using, intending it again to reinforce that old precedent. > > It was completely ignored. > > Fine, it's just a nickname. Then, I argued against interpretation of > contracts in other languages. Ignored. I gave in a bit, thinking > "hey, maybe changing technology means this should be re-evaluated", > and delivered judgements allowing some minimal use of characters for > obvious simple actions. This though went further for the rest of you, > not only do you bend over backwards to interpret long and nonsensical > Japanese posts, but now you try to interpret goddamn Neo Akkadian with > seriousness. > > Now, this presents many interpretation problems (of mixing languages), > so I try to demonstrate some of the issues by mixing two languages in > an odd way. Ambiguous as per P.S.S.'s arguments? Maybe, and fine. > But: ambiguous using language and the written word, say imagining it > written on paper. The SAME RESPECT we've given to other languages in > the last few months. > > But I guess we don't extend that respect to Arabic (or in the past, > Turkish). This result? It decides to completely ignore the clear and > simple known precepts of the Arabic language, and decide on some kind > of byte order. Why stop there?? Why not say "hey, all this English > stuff? It's just ASCII and we can't read numbers!" No? I guess not. > > But hey - this Arabic stuff?? Well, it's not some important language, > like say Japanese. Let's just translate it to bytes and ignore the > meaning, eh? Completely re-arrange the word order like no native > speaker, and not even a translation machine, would do, eh? I guess > that's fine. Basic principles of reading with good faith don't apply > to a language like *that*. Let's talk about byte order, instead. > > Well, 46 75 63 6b 2c 20 66 75 63 6b 20 74 68 69 73 2e. > > I consider you folks my friends, and, intended or not, I want you to > know how this is coming across. I know this is mainly an intellectual > exercise for us - we like the puzzles of wrestling with translations in > ancient languages, and figuring out odd logic (like byte stuff) to get > out of ambiguous or paradoxical situations. That's all fun, well, and > good. > > So I've really tried to understand the Japanese, but even the signature > characters just come across to me gibberish - due to the low resolution > of the characters on the display, I just can't learn it from reading it > here. I transliterate that nickname in my head as "Japanese Character > Guy" every time I see the characters. It feels exclusionary to me > (especially as there's others who understand better), and I feel left > out. > > Though I've generally ignored that feeling - not a big deal. I've even > spent more time trying to program the CFJ database to accept those > characters than I have on any other aspect of programming and updating. > > And now, here - double exclusion. There's no similar respect for a > language I can (to a very slight measure) cope with. > > Now, I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to come across this way, and > thought of this as just another clever logic solution. And I'm VERY > sure my sensitivity is in a large part due to current World events. I > come here to escape, I've never brought politics here (especially not > Turkish ones) but the last few months in Agora have brought > Dictatorships, Juntas, and now this unthinking exclusion of treating > different languages fundamentally differently, at a time that issues > and misunderstandings around language and culture affecting my family > are happening in the West in a bad way. > > I know it's a game, here, but sorry, right now it's just too close to > home. Time to think about stepping away, maybe for a while. > > Maybe, knowing me, this is a short-lived rant. Maybe, after the long > weekend, I'll feel calm, come back, and pretend, more-or-less, that > nothing happened. Maybe it will just feel good to say this out loud, > then we can move on. Maybe I'll continue as normal, or pass on the CFJ > database to someone, or ignore the current forum while continuing to > catch up the history (I've taken the CFJ database offline for the time > being). It's more despair and upsetness than anger (even for you, > former Junta leader and current judge :) ). > > So we'll see. But I respect you all so I wanted to say it clearly > while I felt it, rather than hanging around and passive-aggressively > sniping. Right now I'm only stepping away for a few days - but I > really don't know, maybe it will be longer. > > Oh, and if you've made it this far: Happy Fucking Agoran Birthday. > > >
