dpbsmith wrote:
I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of the reader."
Apart from the problem of unnecessarily redefining a word in English as a jargon term of quite different meaning, I really don't see how this will lead to *less* subjectivity and contentiousness.
Hagiographic fan writing is a problem to deal with at editorial level. It is *not* something the deletion process can reasonably be twisted to deal with.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Apart from the problem of unnecessarily redefining a word in English as a jargon term of quite different meaning, I really don't see how this will lead to *less* subjectivity and contentiousness.
Well, all natural language is inherently vague, so this objection could arise for absolutely any definition of absolutely any word in English. This is also a major problem in legal jurisprudece, for example in Constitutional interpretation. I think the consensus is more or less that what's important is that the social conventions match up with how the word is used in the individual instance. In the case given, the definition would be dictating the substance of the social convention -- so, as long as everyone agrees that they understand what the definition means and that they'll abide by it, I don't think there is much of a problem here.
- Ryan