Stefan Mueller (Stefan.Mueller@dfki.de)
Tue, 09 Dec 1997 10:51:46 +0100
Dear colleagues around the world, Tibor Kiss wrote: >Dear Collegues around the world, > 1. The Background ... > But even if you are talking to other people who share lot of your > background assumptions, putting interesting analyses into 20 minutes is > pretty hard. There seems to be a misunderstanding around that talking in > front of CG people about HPSG is easier than talking in front of GB/MP > people. It's not, and I do not share Shalom's opinion that most CGs and > FGs are open-minded. Shalom surely is, but he is surely not the standard > for open-mindedness (he should be, anyway). I totally agree. I took part in 2 of 3 FG conferences (and read the proceedings of the third) and I think that there was almost no discussion between people of different frameworks. I believe that the reason for this is that researchers in both frameworks are highly specialized and the theories are very complex. In some cases it is even difficult to understand an HPSG talk that has to be presented in 20 minutes. So for me it does not make sense to look at a slide with a thirty line categorial proof with some funny new operators in it. I have to read the paper to understand what is going on. During the past FG conferences there were 2-3 HPSG papers on each conference. Apart from the authors of the papers almost no other HPSG person was around. So there was no discussion in the HPSG group and there was no discussion with other people. I think there is enough interesting research going on to have a HPSG/5 (or at least there should be an HPSG 6 if it is too late for HPSG 5). > Everybody who does not share my opinion should closely examine the > review Karel got and should give me an explanation which is consistent > with his/her view in *this* world. As those who are on the list for a while might know from a previous posting a got some strange reviews as well. But this is a general problem and it is 'just' a matter of organization. If HPSG papers are reviewed by (competent) HPSG people the results should be better. This lies within the responsibility of the organizers and in the preferences reviewers have. Sometimes I got the impression that reviewers did not even read the papers. As I said: a general problem. > > 2. Democracy > > The HPSG community does not have a constitution. It is thus not a > necessary prerequisite for the organisers of such a conference to appeal > to democratic methods such as 'ask the ones who will be affected', > 'let's get a broader opinion and discuss the issue in the HPSG list'. > But I still feel sad about being excluded from the decision process. I agree. > 3. Civil Disobedience > > I am however not excluded from reacting to the result of the decision > process. In this context, I have to express my deepest concern about the > fact that I received personal emails from HPSGers who shared my views > but required that I do not make these public. Could anybody explain this > to me? Well, this was me. The reason for this was that I got Tibors e-mail in Berlin. It was 15 minutes before I had to catch my train and I did not have the time to write this in English to the list. As it takes 9 hours to go from Berlin to Saarbruecken I arrived at 23.30 and as I don't have a computer in my Saarbruecken flat I could not write this mail at home. Today the first thing I do is to write this mail. Is this okay =;-). Greetings Stefan -- DFKI GmbH Tel.: (+49 - 681) 302 - 5295 Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3 Fax: (+49 - 681) 302 - 5338 D-66123 Saarbruecken http://www.dfki.de/~stefan/ http://www.dfki.de/~stefan/Babel/Interaktiv/Babajava/
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