[EM] trying to start an on-list Jargon Dictionary

James Green-Armytage jarmyta at antioch-college.edu
Sat Jun 5 18:39:02 PDT 2004


Dear election methods fans,

	Since keeping track of all of the different terms is often a bit of a
struggle, I agree with those who say that we try to agree on a single
place where we can define all the jargonish terms that we use.
	The Wiki is a reasonable place, maybe the best option, I don't know, but
anyway what I'm trying to do is to get a dynamic and evolving jargon
dictionary started that will exist within the list itself.
	The advantages of this are:

-	Old versions of the dictionary will still exist in the archives, so if
some malevolent person deletes a definition or two, they can be recovered
effortlessly.
-	Nobody will ever have to ask "What was the link to the jargon dictionary
again?" because the dictionary will be in the archives, and new versions
will be mailed out periodically. 
-	Similarly, people on the list will be less likely to neglect the
dictionary if it is on the list itself rather than on a separate site.
That means that the dictionary will be updated more often, and hence will
be more useful, and hence will have more attention paid to it, and hence
will be updated more often, and so on in a virtuous cycle.

	Directly after this message I will post the earliest version of the
dictionary. I've written a few of the definitions already, and I've also
written down several other terms with the hope that someone else will fill
in the definitions for them. Some of them I actually don’t know the
definitions to, and the rest I didn’t fill in because I didn’t want to
write too much of the dictionary myself. Of course, feel free to let me
know if you disagree with my definitions and want me to alter them.

	So go ahead and add some definitions! Anyone can go next. I promise that
it'll be fun!
	Fun and really useful.

my best,
James





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