A query...

[Mark P. Line]

Claire Bowern wrote:
>
>>> And to return to my earlier mantra, archiving and web publication
>>> aren't
>>> the same thing.
>>
>> If the archive is located in webspace, what differences are you thinking
>> of?
>
> well, the difference between 80 hours of recordings digitised at 44.1
> KHz /16bit versus the same amount of data as mp3s, for a start (the
> difference is about 14 gig, give or take). Try that on dialup!

So, the technological infrastructure of linguistic science should be
predicated on dialup?

If certain online data cannot be used in any meaningful way at dialup
speeds, then those who would use such data in a meaningful way need a
faster connection. The dog wags the tail.


>>>> (I have an opinion, but I'm not a grey eminence. I would be wondering
>>>> if
>>>> you had informed consent to collect linguistic data from people who
>>>> have
>>>> never studied linguistics.)
>>> Yes, but only after a long discussion about what we were going to do,
>>> and continual renegotiation throughout the fieldwork, once the people
>>> involved had a better idea about what the work involves, what the
>>> consequences would most likely be, and so on.
>>
>> So, did you go into the electronics of your audio equipment so that they
>> understood all about semiconductors and stuff?
>>
>> No, of course not. So why isn't it possible to gain the same level of
>> "informed" consent with respect to the way you wish to allow other
>> researchers like you look at the data sometimes?
>>
>
> aah, you don't know my gukulngu, yapamittji and marmuku. We did actually
> have a very interesting discussion of how analogue tape recorders work
> versus digital recording at one stage.
>
> I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't possible, just that it's probably
> one of the biggest issues in web dissemination (at least where I work).

Okay. If you can talk to them about analogue versus digital audio
recording, then I simply see no excuse not to talk to them about computers
and web-based dissemination of data.


-- Mark

Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX