For better or worse, this thread illustrates something I've noticed
elsewhere:
Whenever someone spends dozens or hundreds of hours working on something
that will benefit many other people, a significant number of people will
complain that there is something dishonest or disgraceful about it.
I've seen many instances of this, and that is perhaps the case here. I
don't care whether an email message seems to have been cleaned up or
written by AI. The author may not have the linguistic skills needed to
write the message on their own. What matters is the content, and in this
case, it seems very likely that the content is both real and valuable.
It's impossible (for me at least) to imagine any way it could not be.
The culture of mistrust that has manifested itself on this list may now
have destroyed the one real chance we have of bringing XyWrite into the
twenty-first century. I very much hope that the person who is working on
this will have the grace to ignore the mistrust and continue working.
and I would certainly hope to hear more about this project.
My guess is that I'm not alone in thinking this. Anyone who shares my
view - and I hope that the original poster will consider joining in this
- is welcome to get in touch with me at
edward-dot-mendelson-at-columbia-dot-edu and I'll be glad to share the
information with others who get in touch in the same way. But I hope
someone else has already taken steps in the right direction, and my
offer here is superfluous.