Talk:Motif
Questions
Author, please clarify:
Q.1
- What is the difference between "A reoccurring part of a still life" and "A commonality among multiple objects (e.g. still lifes)"? Does it matter with or without context of glider synthesis?
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Q.2
- What content does this motif article intend to cover that cannot be integrated to still life component or oscillator component instead?
- the usage in the context of glider synthesis was removed (I would have kept it until it unless and until it was incorporated elsewhere as suggested below) and the term seems to merit definition Book (talk) 19:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
- Incorrect. It was not removed - see this edit. The post 138162 does not seem to support the claim "...especially with regard to still life syntheses" which was made, so the claim was changed. Confocal (talk) 10:31, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
- Apart from that, this does not seem to answer the question. What is the difference between "motif" and "still life component"? What is the difference between "motif" and "oscillator component"? What is the difference between "motif" and "synthesis component"? Is it even possible to give a reasonably clear and precise definition of what is a motif? Confocal (talk) 10:31, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
- the usage in the context of glider synthesis was removed (I would have kept it until it unless and until it was incorporated elsewhere as suggested below) and the term seems to merit definition Book (talk) 19:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Q.3
- Why is the post 138162, in a thread mostly based on personal conception, eligible as a reference on LifeWiki? GUYTU6J (talk) 03:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
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- Although I am not "the main author" of this page (if that even means anything), I'd like to reply to third point above. Note that p138162 in fact does seem to support the claim "Motif may refer to: A reoccurring part of a still life" -- precisely because that post in fact refers to that. TBH most things around here are "based on personal conception", and that in itself is not a sufficient reason to not use references to posts (assuming the reference actually supports the claim). Confocal (talk) 03:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
- My problem with that post is that it is too new (2021) and currently the thread has only two posts from author. Picking a well-aged source (forums post or email or anything) with a similar claim discussed by several users would be more credible/reliable as a wiki reference. GUYTU6J (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Other remarks
(And regarding proposed move on component, I strongly agree to make synthesis component a standalone article and possibly elaborate efforts from Buckingham, Niemiec, Koenig, etc. Remember to rewrite that Life Lexicon entry in the next update, lexicographers!) GUYTU6J (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
- After reading posts linked from the current version of the page (p138162 and p140958), I do not feel like I understand what is a motif (and what is not a motif) well enough to be able to write true things about it. Compare this with synthesis component or still life component. Confocal (talk) 10:31, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
The component page has been splitted, where the last entry is "Any piece of an object - spaceship, oscillator, etc. - that can be combined with other components in specific ways according to a grammar to produce a variety of objects. ..." Based on my impression, maybe we can simply treat "motif" as a synonym of this meaning of "component". GUYTU6J (talk) 07:12, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Putting My Oar In
I gotta say, I definitely share GUYTU6J's opinion in this case.
It can be downright dangerous to indiscriminately grab definitions that people put on the various "Create your own terminology" type threads on the forums.
If erictom333's definition of "motif" is worth mentioning on the LifeWiki, then are we in danger of ending up with a redirect from "triangle" to "preblock", due to the same post? Or will we put up a new glossary page for "baryon", due to this post?
I would strongly argue that we shouldn't do anything like that. Terms (and definitions) that are not in common use should almost never migrate into LifeWiki articles. If nobody ever finds a new term to be useful enough to actually use in discussion, then documenting the existence of the definition will only cause clutter and confusion.
It seems to me that this re-definition of "motif" is a case in point. "A reoccuring part of a still life" is a very vague definition anyway -- does it mean "occurring multiple times in the same still life" or "occurring in many different (common? natural?) still lifes"? There are no examples given that might clarify the author's intention.
Basically, nobody is ever going to use that definition of "motif", because it's not even clear what that definition means -- and "motif" is already commonly used to mean something else. Defining a term is not at all the same thing as using it in a conversation. Why muddy the waters with a link to any definition that has zero documented uses in the community? Dvgrn (talk) 15:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)