Correcting Incidental Errors (was: Syncope)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Brian:
> > I-umlaut is not analogical; it's phonologically conditioned.
>
> I don't care about your idiotic semantic games. None of
> this matters to IE and pre-IE. I'm sure other people would
> like to spare their mailbox with your quibbling about your
> annoying and loaded analyses of every word that I type.
>
> Your attack misses the point. You assume that if I admit
> a mistake that I must be always wrong yet if I am, you
> have not formulated a coherent arguement. Jens has done
> all the work and you only sit back until you want to
> insult somebody after a bad day at the sausage factory.
>
> Come on. Calm down and either focus on what I said or
> don't respond.

There are two points here.

A. One way of assessing an argument, or a work of reference, is to
check what it says about things one knows about. The only problem I
am aware of is that sometimes people bring in supporting arguments
from fields where their knowledge is poor to bolster arguments in
domains where there knowledge is good.

B. Cybalist is a treasury of incidental information. I started
indexing it for my own benefit when I realised that I wanted to
revisit messages for snippets that were incidental to the main
argument. I therefore think that Piotr's practice of correcting
errors of fact is a good example for us to follow.

Richard.