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Author Topic: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names  (Read 24841 times)

KittyTac

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #90 on: May 17, 2018, 08:58:51 pm »

Yeah, it's GC. He chooses words very well, but what he argues for is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. :P
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #91 on: May 19, 2018, 05:21:50 am »

Now I kind of get it... Except, why? I mean like, whyyyyyyyyy (sorry)

You kind of get it, well that was 2 hours well spent then.   8) ;)

There are a lot of why's here.  There is the first why which is why do we have surnames at all, the only actual reason I can think of is to allow us to quickly group folks from a large list together by using a search string, without having to go into some kind of seperate window and then entering the name of whatever; it's not like the actual creatures really care what they are called, since they are just numbers in a database.

There is the second why which is why use this particular system rather than lifting some real-life system?  The reason is that all the real-life systems would work extremely poorly in DF and do generally work poorly in real-life.  This system is designed to ensure pinpoint accuracy on the search function, since we can just enter someone's family name and get all their children+grandchildren up to a point. 

Atm there are no such things as illegitimate children, and DF's definition of incest is very narrow. And I think if we amend the fact that widows don't remarry, and also make some races/civ's polygamous, and/or detach procreation from marriage, that's fine. Don't we exclude cultural differences if we settle on that kind of system? Please don't tell me you have at least one of those for each race, or that nuances are expressed by something that would require to check the name and the sex of every ancestor.
You can just as easily signify illegitmacy by not giving a child the name it's supposed to have in it's culture. As in: it's a stigma or an honour or whatever, to not carry the familyname of your mom/dad as everybody else does around you. In fact, if you just pick the name of any ancestor by the same naming convention (patriarchal civ's, matriarchal civ's), it doesn't even matter if they're married; but you'd still have the possibility to simply pick a new familyname to signify more nuances (such as bastard).

Cultural differences can quite easily be dealt with by having the family-name slots be filled in differently in different cultures in cases of illegitimacy, it is not particularly important that it be filled with the mother's personal name, it is just the first idea that came into my head.  The tricky part was always the paternal grandparents.

If you're just bothered by the unoriginality of this father, mothername thing we could also add closest relative (like a caretaker), designated master (slaves, students), particular constellations combining 2 out of the 4 strings of the parents familynames etc. But I just don't see why it would be more practical to not put that kind of information into titles, and leave familynames be. In fact. I can't imagine how drowning the player with that kind of information allows to bypass the help of third party tools, or a glance at legends mode, in a practical and intuitive way... at all.

We can add in as many names as we like, only limitation being that we don't want too many of them simply because it takes up space in the files and in memory.  Replacing existing slots for things that are irrelevant to the culture with the closest equivalent is a better way to go.   

Also if the supposed merit of the system is to be less arbitrary and or more reliable, interesting, relevant (whatever; you name it) than our real world inspirations, why did we discuss historical accuracy? Because I can't see how that would solve the whole fake ID thing, which is the only reason I can come up with.
Atm we create completly fake personas, I think vampires and other NPC do the same tough I'm not sure.  It would be cool to impersonate someone specific, but just... it wouldn't matter how both names, real and fake, "sound". Only which one it "shows" would matter. And as a sidenote flavor could be added by differenciating which parts of a name creatures use to refer to eachother.

Historical accuracy is a funny thing in DF.  It is less what historically happened or was the case than what would realistically follow if a certain state of affairs was the case, which makes it a very controversial thing as that requires an agreement as to 'how the world works' in the first place, which ends up in a lot of arguments and thread derailment. 

Yes, the key thing here is that we create the illusion of different naming systems by creating a single universal (and rather long) name and then hiding everything that the culture does not use.  Then we add a second filter to remove everything that is not relevant in context, so the site+civilization name is not used for your own dwarves in your own fortress.  So in effect if the culture does not use a name it will never appear but even if they do it will not be used if it is irrelevant to the context. 

Is that 12 strings I'm counting? Dude. why?

Because there are lot of grandparents.   :)

Yeah, it's GC. He chooses words very well, but what he argues for is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. :P

Bullshit translates here to anything KittyTac does not agree with.  That being so, my not being KittyTac means that I will inevitably argue for something that KittyTac does not agree with.  This means that KittyTac has rather skillfully managed to appear to say something while actually saying nothing at all. 
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KittyTac

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #92 on: May 19, 2018, 05:28:47 am »

I meant by "bullshit" anything that does not make sense to most people.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #93 on: May 19, 2018, 05:40:34 am »

I meant by "bullshit" anything that does not make sense to most people.

I had no idea that you were most people.  I thought you were a mere individual much like myself.
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KittyTac

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #94 on: May 19, 2018, 07:15:14 am »

I meant by "bullshit" anything that does not make sense to most people.

I had no idea that you were most people.  I thought you were a mere individual much like myself.
Many people disagreed with your ideas, not just me. Stop trying to dodge (deserved) criticism.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #95 on: May 19, 2018, 10:24:29 am »

Many people disagreed with your ideas, not just me. Stop trying to dodge (deserved) criticism.

Is this some other GoblinCookie you are referring too? Since when did I dodge criticism?  It sounds like something that KittyTac, the master of the one-liner would do.  Also, when did the topic of the thread come to be all about me?
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KittyTac

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #96 on: May 19, 2018, 10:58:29 am »

Many people disagreed with your ideas, not just me. Stop trying to dodge (deserved) criticism.

Is this some other GoblinCookie you are referring too? Since when did I dodge criticism?  It sounds like something that KittyTac, the master of the one-liner would do.  Also, when did the topic of the thread come to be all about me?
You literally tried to do so 3 posts ago. That sounds like something that GoblinCookie, the master of derp philosophy would do. Fine, you may continue to argue with dragdeler. I won't stop you. Just remember that you're not the only normal person in a forum full of "crypto-fascists".
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dragdeler

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #97 on: May 19, 2018, 11:36:52 am »

If we cull shit in a smart way then my only remaining criticism is that I'd find it hm... stale. As I understand it, the system only considers family links and no other historical link. I shriek at the tought of adding even more not family related strings. And it would feel like a database anchor, rather than some arcane language the things on my screen actually use. Maybe you're underestimating how much the fact that, everybody has trained reflexes in accordance to conventional "real life" (short!) naming conventions, plays in favor of the latter. And from the moment some name actually pokes my interest and I take time to check the links, I'm allready in some other window. Not to mention it might actually cull the name that interests me. (Or I simply don't notice it because I sure as shit don't read everything, I mean I got a whole announcement window with conversations going on... next to my browser)


Also I'd like to take the opportunity to point out two things:

1. Concerning defining actual preferences that will define entities (so lore building), I consider Threetoe the highest authority.

2. And guys not even considering the suffix/prefix thing, is a missed opportunity to take an actual step in the direction of making dwarvish a (more) functional language. Heck if we get some verbs after that we could allready say a lot of stuff. And maybe, just maybe the game could start making use of meaning. And be it only to lock some endgame stuff behind a random string (so a password/riddles from the gamers perspective), tough I'm sure we can come up with better.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2018, 12:01:12 pm by dragdeler »
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SixOfSpades

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #98 on: May 19, 2018, 01:24:51 pm »

     Okay, well last night I sent GoblinCookie a long PM, politely explaining why I thought the thread (and the larger forum in general) seemed to have turned against him, and why I felt justified in flat-out ignoring certain of his arguments without rebuttal. I reminded him of several times over the past year where he has posted and/or defended ideas that either lack historical basis, would be unworkable in DF, would likely be unpopular among players, or were just plain wrong. I urged him to take these lessons to heart, to learn from his mistakes, to remember what I'd said about his powers of judgement. I told him that I knew his argumentative nature would urge him to fight me on this matter, to insist that he'd been right all along. I cautioned him not to do so, this was not the right time to follow that particular path. I reminded him that his upcoming mod release would go a long way towards restoring his standing among the forum.

     Unfortunately, he did not respond as I'd hoped, debating every point, voicing pleasure in having driven people away, and calling people names. And then I log on to the forum, and see this. Ah, well. I think we might as well declare this thread officially over.

I shriek at the tought of adding even more not family related strings.
Well, I agree with you on the "more" part, I think one of the most important qualities of a name is that it be short. But one type of non-family name that we've overlooked in this thread is physical appearance, especially when it's unusual: "Urist Sevenfinger" or "Momoz Halfsee" (who's blind in one eye), or "Ingish Darkhair".

Quote
And guys not even considering the suffix/prefix thing, is a missed opportunity to take an actual step in the direction of making dwarvish a (more) functional language.
Take heart. In the next few days, you WILL get your wish . . . or at least the very strong beginnings of it. Your name prefixes/suffixes won't be in it, yet, as I'm questioning whether names should have their own system (as opposed to an integrated one).
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dragdeler

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #99 on: May 19, 2018, 05:13:22 pm »

I'm very curious and kinda hoping the result will sound very caveman'ish (tbh my suggestion can only constitute a style of manner in this hypothetic language). When I was writing the other thing today I tought about how a language could be with these few elements: proper nouns, proper names, verbs and my thingys. So to keep it very simple but also unlike human languages (or should I say modern indo-european languages) I tought that you should have possibilities to differenciante between the names and the nouns which are homophones, such as uppercases or commas. That'd look something like "Urist PickAxe (ruler of civ X), kill hammer, Smunstu VictimBlood (thief of artifact Y), floor abbey SpiralShafts." Declination and conjugation should be avoided at all cost (it's horror for search function), but prefix and suffix can substitute that stuff, creating something odd unlike any language I speak. So for example the suffixes for king and mountainclimber could signify "over" if used as prefix on a lowercase string... That sort of stuff which is weird, because in my imagination I can't get around the word order out of the language I'm translating to dwarvish from, it remains so relevant kind of diminishing dwarvish as it's own entity.

I'm rambling but yeah this thread has become unreadable a long time ago  ;D.
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Shazbot

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #100 on: May 21, 2018, 08:50:17 am »

This thread can live on. Who wants to talk about the economy?
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KittyTac

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #101 on: May 21, 2018, 10:17:38 am »

I guess we can keep talking now that we have dogpiled GoblinCookie. ;)
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Bumber

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #102 on: May 22, 2018, 01:00:34 am »

This thread can live on. Who wants to talk about the economy?
We can't even begin talking about the economy before we discuss the historical reasons behind it. Hunter-gatherer societies used a form of primitive communism.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #103 on: May 22, 2018, 06:58:26 am »

You literally tried to do so 3 posts ago. That sounds like something that GoblinCookie, the master of derp philosophy would do. Fine, you may continue to argue with dragdeler. I won't stop you. Just remember that you're not the only normal person in a forum full of "crypto-fascists".

It is not full of them, it just has them in it.  This latest whispering campaign of "everyone hates GoblinCookie" goes back to this thread, on which you posted.  I spent a number of pages criticising certain folks sociobiological delusions and said folks immediately went about slandering me to everybody, in a number of posts which the devs then deleted.  You see one of the key strategies of covert-far-right-elements  ;), is to Never Play Defense; so rather than continue the discussion and defend their notions which I would have found rather interesting, they instead went on the attack.  The thing is though, that as long as you are personally involved you are yourself vulnrable to counter-attack, so the trick as they themselves openly teach, is to attack a person's reputation.  That way your enemies are constantly on the defensive against your proxies, but they cannot attack you because you are no longer in the fight.

If we cull shit in a smart way then my only remaining criticism is that I'd find it hm... stale. As I understand it, the system only considers family links and no other historical link. I shriek at the tought of adding even more not family related strings. And it would feel like a database anchor, rather than some arcane language the things on my screen actually use. Maybe you're underestimating how much the fact that, everybody has trained reflexes in accordance to conventional "real life" (short!) naming conventions, plays in favor of the latter. And from the moment some name actually pokes my interest and I take time to check the links, I'm allready in some other window. Not to mention it might actually cull the name that interests me. (Or I simply don't notice it because I sure as shit don't read everything, I mean I got a whole announcement window with conversations going on... next to my browser)


Also I'd like to take the opportunity to point out two things:

1. Concerning defining actual preferences that will define entities (so lore building), I consider Threetoe the highest authority.

2. And guys not even considering the suffix/prefix thing, is a missed opportunity to take an actual step in the direction of making dwarvish a (more) functional language. Heck if we get some verbs after that we could allready say a lot of stuff. And maybe, just maybe the game could start making use of meaning. And be it only to lock some endgame stuff behind a random string (so a password/riddles from the gamers perspective), tough I'm sure we can come up with better.

I don't really understand this response very well, seems rambling.  The idea was to have a compound word that combines the first name of the civilization with the last name of the site government, or the other way around in order both to reflect more clan based naming systems and to allow us to quickly group characters from the same place together.  It is families that create the main word explosion in my idea because of the number of grandparents we have, although I cut their number in half effectively there are still a lot of them.

The combat names currently are pretty long and don't provide any useful information at all.  So it is not like long names are not in the game already.

     Okay, well last night I sent GoblinCookie a long PM, politely explaining why I thought the thread (and the larger forum in general) seemed to have turned against him, and why I felt justified in flat-out ignoring certain of his arguments without rebuttal. I reminded him of several times over the past year where he has posted and/or defended ideas that either lack historical basis, would be unworkable in DF, would likely be unpopular among players, or were just plain wrong. I urged him to take these lessons to heart, to learn from his mistakes, to remember what I'd said about his powers of judgement. I told him that I knew his argumentative nature would urge him to fight me on this matter, to insist that he'd been right all along. I cautioned him not to do so, this was not the right time to follow that particular path. I reminded him that his upcoming mod release would go a long way towards restoring his standing among the forum.

     Unfortunately, he did not respond as I'd hoped, debating every point, voicing pleasure in having driven people away, and calling people names. And then I log on to the forum, and see this. Ah, well. I think we might as well declare this thread officially over.

So you did respond afterall SixOfSpades, even though you said you wouldn't? 

Flat out ignoring arguments without rebuttal does not make you look smart, it just it look like you were just blustering and have nothing actually to say to back anything up.  You make a good number of claims, none of which you back up with anything at all, you simply declare stuff wrong/unpopular/unworkable and expect me to simply capitulate simply because you loudly declared it to be so. 

Also, there is nothing at all constructive about lecturing a person who already pissed off with you as though you are some kind of all-wise teacher and they the ignorant student.  The vast majority of people would dig in their heels in response to such pretentiousness, so it is not exactly notable that I did so.

I guess we can keep talking now that we have dogpiled GoblinCookie. ;)

I was just taking a few days off to calm down :). That and to play Dragon Age 2, work on the next version of my mod and look up on the finer points of covert far-right strategies on Youtube.  In other words, not spending hours on end posting detailed descriptions and arguments and having no time to do anything else.
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KittyTac

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Re: Family Units and Lineage-Based Last Names
« Reply #104 on: May 22, 2018, 07:35:20 am »

Should we just ignore him and carry on discussing? Because it leads to nothing productive. At all.
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