McMahonScore/ Discussion

Sub-page of McMahonScore

As the subheading "Discussion" on the McMahon Score page indicates, the idle chatter below it has nothing to do with McMahon Score - does anyone mind if it gets deleted? Perhaps there is a need for debate page on the Mc Mac war :-)

Steve: I don't think the discussion should be deleted - it illustrates two common viewpoints on the subject. However, perhaps it should be shifted to a different page, such as this discussion page.

IanDavis: Well I have moved it below then :)


Discussion about things not very much concerned with McMahon Score:

Robert Pauli: What's the reason for insisting on no blank between qualifier and noun, Christoph ? If there's "Klein Bottle" or "Darwin Finch" - why not "McMahon Score" ? Since there's no ambiguity, it could even be "McMahon score". But purging the blank ?? Will you also push for "McMahonBar" ?

Christoph Gerlach: Very simple ... the terms are invented by people describing the system and writing pairing programs. It's just history that they are written as one single word. Why do you want to write them differently? MacMahon/McMahon is already confusing enough - another "history" against "even more historical" wording discussion leading to exactly nowhere. "McMahon" is accepted (or enforced?) inside Sensei's Library but not very much used in Europe at actual tournaments or in general outside this place. Someone here once decided to change the accepted name "MacMahon" to what he thought would be more correct. I find it very difficult to explain about a term "McMahon score" while the programs available call and print it as "MacMahon score". This only leads to confusion, thanks to those who are a little bit over motivated to do Mr. McMahon justice.

Robert Pauli: It's quite simple:

  • If he calls himself "McMahon" it should be that way, should he add an A, the other way.
  • If you can express it in plain English, then do so. I see no need to do it in programming-language, Wiki or whatever odd style. Do we want to end writing "==" for "equal" and "&&" for "and" ?

Relax, I'll let someone else put back the blank . . . :--)

Christoph Gerlach: Nobody wants Mr McMahon to change his name. Anyway ... your first point is not valid. The question is about whether to use the spelling under which the pairing system was developed to use the name of the first person associated with this system.

What I dislike is the general confusion about "MacMahon" and "McMahon" because some use "MacMahon" to clarify which pairing system they mean, others use "MacMahon" because the are talking about my program and nothing else. Even others don't associate "McMahon" with a pairing system at all even if they know "MacMahon" well. Or they just assume it's written incorrectly. Do you get my point?

To your second point (and this also stands for the MacMahon/McMahon debate): particularly in a Wiki like this I think terms should be used as in the "real world". Readers shouldn't be confused by different writings even if the differences seem to be minor to those who have the knowledge.

Robert Pauli:

  • The confusion isn't due to A or not. The confusion stems from being cheap on words. We could easily have
    • "MacMahon - the program" alias "McMahon - the program" and
    • "MacMahon System" alias "McMahon System"
  • Right! And how do we write in the real word? Is it KleinBottle ? Is it DarwinFinch ? No. You have to see the whole picture, not just some historical accident in a remote area relating to an obscure game (and made by a programer, I fear).

BTW, you're still dodging the question how to handle McMahon Bar. Would love to hear about that one :--)

Christoph Gerlach: What I try to explain is ... people here decided to use "McMahon" instead of the widely accepted "MacMahon" for the famous tournament system. But the same people took no effords to make this "change" effective outside Sensei's Library. Now we see some tournaments pick up "McMahon" as the Name and others still use "MacMahon". In my point of view it's simply illegal to change the name from "MacMahon" to "McMahon" without consensus. I know that the people changing it here for sure tried to do their best but I also think they didn't think about it as a whole. They didn't succeed to make "McMahon" the dominant name and as a side effect there is confusion about the name too.

Your point about aliases is not valid once again. Does a usual Go player know about Mr. McMahon? Or does he know the pairing system apart from it's name? The answer in both cases is no. Without this knowledge there are many Go players who are confused about the two names: "it's really the same?"

You want to know how I write "McMahon bar"? I didn't really think about this. And I also don't think it is any important in this discussion. And I guess I will not continue this discussion anymore, it's ridiculous enough already. The purpose of "tournament" pages here is to present useful information for every Go player. I don't find your contributions any fruitful. I will try to "renovate" the pages around the MacMahon/McMahon-Pages until November 2004. This will be some work in itself. I don't also want to spend time to discuss things like wording with you.

Maybe the misunderstanding between you and me is because you think mainly in Sensei's Library and I think mainly outside?

Robert Pauli:

  • I'm mainly thinking in English.
  • "Alias" means that we can relax and have it both ways - with A and without, in SL and outside.
  • OC the discussion is ridiculous, but isn't it as ridiculous to use "McMahonScore" (no blank) and "McMahon Bar" (blank) on the same line ?
  • There's no misunderstanding as far I see, e.g.
  • Your contributions are welcome!

McMahonScore/ Discussion last edited by 216.113.202.101 on January 29, 2015 - 08:58
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