Talk:Patent val: Difference between revisions

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:::::: So, no, I meant to say ''map'' was more popular. ''Val'' mainly arises in edos whereas ''map'' arises in higher-rank temps. The search giving more results of ''val''s may be attributed to the template. Hence the number of search results can't be evidence for use rates. The Shannon entropy argument is based on the premise that val is a word of below-average use rate so increased use rate makes the communication more efficient – interesting indeed as it may be a theoretical basis for the keep-people-familiar argument. [[User:FloraC|FloraC]] ([[User talk:FloraC|talk]]) 09:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

::::::: Hi Kite, thanks for joining this thread!

::::::: Re: edomapping. Kite, we have different rankings of the terms. I would certainly rank your term "edomapping" way above "val", for the reason you give: it doesn't create a barrier to understanding. It's descriptive, which is something I fight for in terminology (and why I can see value in "nearest" over "simple"). But I still don't like it quite as much as "map" because it's a word that was made-up for xen, and so to a newcomer it will look weird and unfamiliar. We have a problematically off-putting amount of jargon in this domain, and terms like "edomapping" contribute to that. Also, "map" has better generalizable use; edomapping doesn't work for maps that don't include the octave, e.g. we could say {{map|13 19 23}} is the nearest map for 13-ED3, but we couldn't say it was the nearest edomapping.

::::::: Re: "it's already there". I see, FloraC. You meant only the word "nearest" was already there. Right. Then indeed I agree that the term is ready for propagation, once the ''val'' vs ''map'' issue is resolved, although I would revise that last clause because it looks like it's actually the ''val'' vs ''map'' vs ''edomapping'' issue.

::::::: But first I would like to give Dave Keenan a chance to chime in here, because he was the one who originally came up with "simple map". I know that he is generally amenable to the types of arguments given here for "nearest" over "simple", so I have some confidence that he'll like it, but personally I owe it to him to solicit his opinion directly. So I've just emailed him about this.

::::::: Re: the relative popularity of map and val. Ah! Very interesting. I'm sorry that I guessed you had mistyped. I can see that two factors came together to lead me to assume you had accidentally written that "map" was more popular when you meant "val": 1) the amount of time I spend on Facebook and email with old-school RTT people who are steeped in Gene's jargon, where I am overwhelmingly exposed to "val" and in the minority of "map" users, and 2) my guess re: the meaning of this unfamiliar Shannon Entropy concept, which — due to some bad intuitions of mine — seems to be the exact opposite of what it really means (more on that in a bit). I hope you understand.

::::::: Well, I'm encouraged to hear that what you actually think is that "map" is the one which is more popular; that tells me that the community is moving in the direction I prefer. I agree that many of the occurrences of "val" are coming from the template, but I had permitted those as evidence of popularity, at least insofar as people are regularly exposed to it and accepting of it. Anyway, I did say it was only an incredibly rough estimate, though, and I only said it that way when I assumed I was using it to help ''your'' case. :) But if it's only hurting both of our cases, then of course, for similar reasons, I am willing to go ahead and agree with you that it can't really be used for evidence here. (By the way, it is also heartening to know that the template has gotten enough buy-in that we could accomplish a lot of patent val -> something better by changing things at one single point!)

::::::: Re: the Shannon Entropy thing. What I'm trying to say about my bad intuitions is this. I think that a situation where we have 2 terms we each use about half of the time or 3 terms we each use about a third of the time is a bad situation. I thought that was common sense, and so I assumed Shannon Entropy might be a fancy name for that idea (and here's a great piece of evidence where jargon and non-descriptive, in this case eponymous naming are creating a barrier to my understanding). I assumed that everyone would prefer standardization: a situation where we use a single term for a single thing almost all of the time and any other terms almost never. But if I'm understanding correctly now, it sounds like you're saying that we ''should'' strive for the situation where all of the words are used equally often? I'm probably still missing some important information, though. And I can't find any information about this "keep-people-familiar argument" concept you mention to help me make sense of it either. Sorry. If you want to convey these ideas to me more effectively, I would ask you to unpack these unfamiliar concepts for me, or find a simpler way that doesn't involve them. --[[User:Cmloegcmluin|Cmloegcmluin]] ([[User talk:Cmloegcmluin|talk]]) 16:22, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

== proposal to rename "generalize patent val" to "uniform map" ==

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 :::::: So, no, I meant to say ''map'' was more popular. ''Val'' mainly arises in edos whereas ''map'' arises in higher-rank temps. The search giving more results of ''val''s may be attributed to the template. Hence the number of search results can't be evidence for use rates. The Shannon entropy argument is based on the premise that val is a word of below-average use rate so increased use rate makes the communication more efficient – interesting indeed as it may be a theoretical basis for the keep-people-familiar argument. [[User:FloraC|FloraC]] ([[User talk:FloraC|talk]]) 09:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
+::::::: Hi Kite, thanks for joining this thread!
+::::::: Re: edomapping. Kite, we have different rankings of the terms. I would certainly rank your term "edomapping" way above "val", for the reason you give: it doesn't create a barrier to understanding. It's descriptive, which is something I fight for in terminology (and why I can see value in "nearest" over "simple"). But I still don't like it quite as much as "map" because it's a word that was made-up for xen, and so to a newcomer it will look weird and unfamiliar. We have a problematically off-putting amount of jargon in this domain, and terms like "edomapping" contribute to that. Also, "map" has better generalizable use; edomapping doesn't work for maps that don't include the octave, e.g. we could say {{map|13 19 23}} is the nearest map for 13-ED3, but we couldn't say it was the nearest edomapping.
+::::::: Re: "it's already there". I see, FloraC. You meant only the word "nearest" was already there. Right. Then indeed I agree that the term is ready for propagation, once the ''val'' vs ''map'' issue is resolved, although I would revise that last clause because it looks like it's actually the ''val'' vs ''map'' vs ''edomapping'' issue.
+::::::: But first I would like to give Dave Keenan a chance to chime in here, because he was the one who originally came up with "simple map". I know that he is generally amenable to the types of arguments given here for "nearest" over "simple", so I have some confidence that he'll like it, but personally I owe it to him to solicit his opinion directly. So I've just emailed him about this.
+::::::: Re: the relative popularity of map and val. Ah! Very interesting. I'm sorry that I guessed you had mistyped. I can see that two factors came together to lead me to assume you had accidentally written that "map" was more popular when you meant "val": 1) the amount of time I spend on Facebook and email with old-school RTT people who are steeped in Gene's jargon, where I am overwhelmingly exposed to "val" and in the minority of "map" users, and 2) my guess re: the meaning of this unfamiliar Shannon Entropy concept, which — due to some bad intuitions of mine — seems to be the exact opposite of what it really means (more on that in a bit). I hope you understand.
+::::::: Well, I'm encouraged to hear that what you actually think is that "map" is the one which is more popular; that tells me that the community is moving in the direction I prefer. I agree that many of the occurrences of "val" are coming from the template, but I had permitted those as evidence of popularity, at least insofar as people are regularly exposed to it and accepting of it. Anyway, I did say it was only an incredibly rough estimate, though, and I only said it that way when I assumed I was using it to help ''your'' case. :) But if it's only hurting both of our cases, then of course, for similar reasons, I am willing to go ahead and agree with you that it can't really be used for evidence here. (By the way, it is also heartening to know that the template has gotten enough buy-in that we could accomplish a lot of patent val -> something better by changing things at one single point!)
+::::::: Re: the Shannon Entropy thing. What I'm trying to say about my bad intuitions is this. I think that a situation where we have 2 terms we each use about half of the time or 3 terms we each use about a third of the time is a bad situation. I thought that was common sense, and so I assumed Shannon Entropy might be a fancy name for that idea (and here's a great piece of evidence where jargon and non-descriptive, in this case eponymous naming are creating a barrier to my understanding). I assumed that everyone would prefer standardization: a situation where we use a single term for a single thing almost all of the time and any other terms almost never. But if I'm understanding correctly now, it sounds like you're saying that we ''should'' strive for the situation where all of the words are used equally often? I'm probably still missing some important information, though. And I can't find any information about this "keep-people-familiar argument" concept you mention to help me make sense of it either. Sorry. If you want to convey these ideas to me more effectively, I would ask you to unpack these unfamiliar concepts for me, or find a simpler way that doesn't involve them. --[[User:Cmloegcmluin|Cmloegcmluin]] ([[User talk:Cmloegcmluin|talk]]) 16:22, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 == proposal to rename "generalize patent val" to "uniform map" ==