strathspey@strathspey.org:69468

Anselm Lingnau

Re: Dances from around the world

Feb. 26, 2018, 10 a.m. (Message 69468, in reply to message 69467)

Tom Halpenny wrote:

> So consider only RSCDS books published after 2000. Books 41 through 51
> published 128 dances.
> Assume Japan membership proportion has been consistent over the period.
> Expectation 7 dances from Japan = 5.5% x 128 dances.

There are two issues with that hypothesis.

1. It assumes that the “density” of newly devised dances per RSCDS member
   that are available for the RSCDS to publish is the same across the world,
   which is not necessarily true (not all the prolific dance devisers in Japan
   might be members of the Society, or they might be embarrassed to submit
   their product for evaluation, which given Japanese reservations about
   “losing face” may be a major confounding factor).

2. The actual process of getting dances in for evaluation and processing them
   differs from one RSCDS book to the next. Your “proportional” hypothesis
   carries some weight for “free-for-all” books with anonymous evaluation like
   Books 47, 48 or 52 where any RSCDS member is invited to submit a dance,
   but, e.g., Book 49 and (IIRC) Book 45 asked for at most one dance per
   *branch*, and there are way fewer branches in Japan than there are in the
   UK or USA. Also, while we did try to judge dances with as little concern
   about the identity and origin of their devisers as possible when preparing
   those books that I was connected with (starting with Book 48) I can't speak
   to the methodology of the earlier books.

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Mainz, Germany ......................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Yes, people want compassion. You know what else they want? Treatments that
actually work.                           -- Steven Novella, “Homeopathic Rant”