Responsibility and Bestowing Official Status

So listener Alexander wrote into a robot at the inccomple d. com to say, when is something official Do you have to publish it somewhere for it to be official? Can you tell something to just one person but claim that it is now official On the other hand, when is something unofficial? For example, in the official question mark, show notes of each episode of the talkhow with John Grouper, John links to transcripts by David Smith, but refers to them as unofficial What would it take for them to stop being unofficial Does he have to host them himself Does he have to pay for them? or does he simply have to claim that they are official Thank you from Alexander from Sweden who says I am an unofficial fan or if this makes us into the podcast, perhaps I am now an official fan. What do you think The transcript thing is a good example because the officialness can be bestowed by the entity that is able to do that, which would be John Gruber in this case, or whoever is in charge of the talk show could Nothing could change about the transcripts other than Grouber blessing them and saying, this is the official transcript because he's the one who decides what is and isn't official for the talk show. and it's true of anything else. There has to be sort of Not a governing body, but like an entity that makes that distinction and that that distinction must be bestowed by the entity with the authority to bestow it. And if John links to it but calls it unofficial, he is specifically saying, this is useful, but it's not official. I asked John Grouuper what he thought of this. yesterday. and he said My short answer would be I would have to take responsibility for them make them official. resesponsibility for them appearing, their accuracy and their continued availability. Instead, David Smith just decided he would do a podcast search engine which is very nice of him I had this where somebody was like, hey I looked I tried to look this up because he does upgrade as well. And u And there are a few weeks of upgrade that are missing. And my response was, I don't know, David gets to it when he gets to it. And it's that simple. It's not an official transcript. I have no responsibility for it. I understand what Grouber is saying here, which is He's not going to make it official because he, you know, David has not promised to keep it up Grouper is not making sure that if David doesn't keep it up, he's going to take it over. He's not making sure it happens and that they're accurate. and it is a it is unofficial because it's like it's useful to you. But it's not something that like I have taken responsibility for. I think that actually is a pretty good explanation The nuance of what Grouber said He's explaining his reasoning for not bestowing official official But but that reasoning has no connection to officialness. If he decides to make it the official transcript, he can also not take any responsibility for it because he is the entity that gets to bestow the officialness or not officialness. Of course. It's perfectly fine for the official transcript to be wrong or have missing pieces or whatever, but to be a fly by night operation that is bad and all that right. You right, But this is I thought it was a good view into his why he makes it unofficial. It's like linking to it doesn't make it official. There's a whole bunch of other things he would choose to do before he would do claim that it's official. although you're right. He could Just claim it's official. I mean, there's a lot of sponsorships that are it's the official, you know, shohine polish of major League baseball or whatever. maybe it's a bad game. Maybe it's aad shine or whatever like it basically means like from the outside, like when when something isn't official And you complain about it. You can'tlain complain about it to the body that would make it official because you're like, it's un official. It's like, it's not thing. Right? So I'm whatever your feelings about it good or bad, I can't take credit for it. just, you know, complain to someone else. But once you say it's the official thing and it sucks, Then your complaints can directly be levied towards the officiating body that made it official. and you know, maybe nothing will still happen, like whatever. But likes that's what designating something as official means. It means that you are saying that this is, you know, the official whatever of major League baseball. like you are linking yourself to that in a way where you are giving it the official blessing and it doesn't mean that you have to take responsibility for it, that it has to be good, that it has to be complete or anything. All you are is just making that link and you're able to make that link and unmake that link out based on any reasoning you want. and Grober simply explained why what his reasoning is for not designating it as official. And I would say Alexander from Sweden If you want to designate yourself as officially a fan, of this podcast. I would say That's up to you because don't we don't have don't have there is no entity that officiates fandom for our podcast. We could make such an entity, but we don't have one. Like bands sometimes have one. You're member of the fang cllub. offic. I would argue that As an individual, you decide if you would say that you're a fan of something. you don't get to call it official unless there's some kind of officiating thing and he is not an officiating body for fandom of this show. H I don't know. Maybe not. You're right. Well Thank you to our unofficial fan. Unless do we want tona start a body? don't there is no officiating body for fandom. You can be a fandom. You can call yourself a fan or not. but there is no entity that will bestow officialness upon your fandom. We do not have a fan club. Sorry friend of the show we can bestow, but not official fandom Sorry, we could choose to, but we don't. There is no there is no entity that bestows that. There's no one who has been stowed with the. Just we'll follow that away for future use. R or nine