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In my opinion it would be more suitable if someone made their own draft translation than to try to start the "committee for the translation of Japanese rules".
That is what I proposed. But as doing translations is a busman's holiday for me, I wanted to do it in small stages spread over a decent period. The "committee" part would come in others agreeing on the final version. My own view on committees is based on the old adage that a committee to design a horse ends up with an elephant. In addition, by temperament I'm not committee material myself. I didn't hold out much hope for agreement among the other parties actually, but what I also hoped for as a more likely outcome (though I was still tilting towards pessimism on that, too) was that the discussants might realise that much of their passion (shall we call it?) was overdone and, in particular, at least some of their targets were misplaced.
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Ambiguity arises in the mind of the reader, not in the mind of the writer.
I have said often, and recently, here that I regard the Japanese rules text as a pig's breakfast. I also once described "Japanese rules" as an oxymoron. It doesn't happen so often nowadays, but there was a time when I (and many other people) used to rail against the instruction pamphlets in "English" that came with Japanese electrical goods and the like. They were gibberish and so actually a safety hazard. They came about because Japanese companies thought they could use Japanese people to write English leaflets. They can't. There were pig's breakfasts everywhere, and the reason I regard the J1989 rules as another PB has its basis in a similar phenomenon. The Japanese rules authors were clear, as I keep repeating, in that they stressed their Japanocentric view. They were also honest and reliable in that they wrote their rules in Japanese (and for pros). Where they fell down was in mixing this up with an attempt to internationalise their rules, partly out of benevolence and partly out of nationalism (resisting Chinese rules). If they were to do this part properly, they should have something more radical, such as co-opting western rules mavens onto the initial committee, or having the translation widely scrutinised by other translators (as the EU, for example, does even though they employ outstanding first-instance translators) and/or western rules mavens. Alternatively (and this would have been my view), they shouldn't have tried it in the first place, as so few people would care about it. The few people that did care, moreover, kicked up such a shitstorm that (according to my source there) the Japanese wished they had never started.
A major problem as I see it is that that shitstorm has never properly abated, and for much of the time has resulted in two unpleasant things: (1) Japan bashing, and (2) metaphorical attempts to bludgeon fellow rules discussants to death on forums such as this. What makes this bashing especially unpleasant is that it comes draped in arrogance and ignorance. And both -ances synergistically feed off each other. Nuclear fusion HAS been discovered!
When I worked in a newsroom, one thing that happened quite often was getting letters from members of the public who (shall we say) were a little detached from reality. Conspiracy theorists, and the like. These letters, demanding we should publish a call for action by the government, were almost always anonymous, and written in capital letters and coloured ink (green was the favourite). Most sentences ended in a series of exclamation marks (or SCREAMERS as we journalists called them). One other characteristic of these letters was their apparently impeccable logic. In fact, these letters gave rise to my scorn for much of logic because, of course, logic only works if you start in the right place. I remember one example more than others because it related to Berwick (a town I know fairly well because of family connections). Berwick is a border town (the border between Scotland and England) with a long-held odd status. Even today, for example, it is in England but its football team plays in Scotland. In the time of Queen Victoria it was apparently listed separately in her official title (Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and the British Dominions, or something like that). She used this title when signing the declaration of war with Russia in the Crimea. When the war ended, the treaty, in French, omitted Berwick in the Queen's title, and this led to the long-standing belief that Berwick remains at war with Russia. (Problems with translations at the very highest level, be it noted!) When I was a teenager, there was some attempt to pacify relations with Russia, and so there was a media event in Berwick in which a Russian diplomat and the Lord Mayor of Berwick signed a peace treaty. It was just a bit of fun really - the mayor sent a message to Moscow that the Russians could now sleep safely in their beds.
In fact, the original story was apparently a joke by a journalist, but was taken seriously enough for the Foreign Office to check their files on a couple of occasions. They found no basis for the story. But that and the mayoral "treaty" didn't sway our man with the green ink. He claimed Berwick and Russia were still at war and the Russian submarines and aeroplanes intercepted off Britain's North Sea coast was proof that the war was still on. Oh, the power of logic! Logic which he pursued relentlessly, week after week, until even we stopped laughing (you were allowed to laugh in offices in those pre-PC days). The same sort of logic that is pursued today, in fake stories about vaccines, for example - and even more vigorously and virulently now that we have the internet (and forums).
I can't pretend I've ever understood this behaviour. I could have understood if green-ink man had simply said the Russian military is off our coast and we should do something about it. (Which we do, but it doesn't necessarily make the newspapers.) In the same way, I can understand if a western go amateur says the Japanese rules are not fit for some of their purpose. But I don't understand the declarations of war against Japan, Japanese pros, or fellow discussants. As the English translation of J1989 begins (incorrectly, as it happens), "Go is a game..."