Re: [s-d] [s-b] Consultation

[Ed Murphy <emurphy42@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ais523 wrote:

> On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 17:20 -0800, Ed Murphy wrote:
>> This omits "reasonably" in a couple of places, and we've agreed that the
>> whole thing hinges on that qualifier.
> Aha, this seems to be an argument about the meaning of the word
> "reasonably" (explaining why we're coming to different opinions on
> this). I consider being "reasonably accessible" a weaker condition than
> being "accessible", in the same way that "reasonably tall" is a weaker
> condition than "tall". "reasonably accessible" does not mean "reasonable
> and accessible", in my opinion. Googling define:reasonably gives me
> '''to a moderately sufficient extent or degree; "pretty big"; "pretty
> bad"; "jolly decent of him"; "the shoes are priced reasonably"; "he is
> fairly ...''' as the first definition (the others are for the base word
> "reasonable", which has a different meaning from the idiomatic
> "reasonably"). I'd say that being accessible is a sufficient condition
> for being reasonably accessible; but that a forum could, for instance,
> be reasonably accessible without being completely accessible. This EF is
> completely accessible, therefore fulfils the condition of being
> reasonably accessible.

While "reasonably" can weaken standards in some senses (e.g. a forum
used for a seven-day procedure wouldn't cease to be "reasonably
accessible" just because it accidentally went down for five minutes
during day four), it also arguably strengthens the standard in another
sense - namely, from "theoretically" (you could access it, if only you
knew the address) to "practically" (you actually do know the address,
or can reasonably figure it out as in the base64 example).
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