From: "Stuart D. Goldman" <stu@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:28:47 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: SOWPODS as a METAPHOR
Message-id: <199709222328.QAA22154@netcom19.netcom.com>

Frankly and all--

You're quite right. This is not about SOWPODS vs. OSPD. It is about attitudes toward our game.

Those who advocate SOWPODS are concerned with one thing only: getting the best possible game through the best possible word list. One of the anti-SOWPODS speakers here has admitted to me privately that it is a better game, yet he still has his reasons for opposing it. If he chooses (not using my customary s/he here because they're all male on that side) he may let us all know both his identity and those reasons.

Others who oppose it trot out such bogus arguments as a "schism", whether permanent or temporary, loyalty to a word list and the like. Not one has said the game *as a game* is better with only 0SPD (or TWL98) words. That is what prompted my post of a week or so ago in which I ascribed their opposition to laziness and inertia. One virtually admitted this to me privately, saying learning the new words would make the game more like work.

Let me respectfully answer that all of us who play in clubs and tournamwents have learned words, and if we have been playing any length of time, we've had to learn and unlearn still more words. Learning OSW vocabulary is nothing more than an extension of the same thing.

LOne anti-SOWPODS argument that makes some sense is that learning those woirds causes confusion as to which words are good when OSPD only is played. This is true, but I belikeve to a surprisingly small degree. My guess is that something like 1 game in 100 would be lost by OSW vocabulary used when it was subject to removal by challenge. My sugestion is that people try it and see, perhaps taking some pains to distinguish those words from others that they study.

Stu