[An-lang] Moving Blust’s Legacy Forward: Archiving for the Next Era

[Yuko Kitada]

Dear Alex and Colleagues,

Thank you, Alex, for sharing the history of the ACD’s transition to https://acd.clld.org/. It’s heartwarming to hear about your exchanges with Bob Blust and his trust in you as steward, as reflected in his 2021 email. His leadership in moving the ACD to the CLDF format with Robert Forkel’s support, after Steve Trussel’s passing in 2020, underscores his commitment to its evolution. Your dedication is commendable, and the GitHub version control is a valuable step toward transparency.

While you and Blust are brilliant scholars, I believe the ACD’s reliance on individual expertise, as a work in progress, could be strengthened by anchoring it in peer-reviewed sources. As I mentioned in my reply to Sander, I know it’s tough to take on more work, but what if we started distinguishing peer-reviewed entries, like Austronesian Etymologies (AE1: Oceanic Linguistics 19, 1980; AE2: 22, 1983/84; AE3: 25, 1986), from unpublished additions? This could help us achieve the kind of rigorous quality seen in Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan databases. No rush—just something to consider for the future. In the long term, expanding peer-reviewed contributions could bring all entries to this standard, avoiding risks of over-canonizing Blust’s legacy, though I recognize this might add to your workload as custodian.

I’d welcome thoughts on how we, as a community, can collaborate to support this—perhaps starting with a list to flag AE1-3 entries? This could align with Blust’s vision for an evolving ACD while ensuring its scholarly foundation. Thanks again, Alex, for your openness and for keeping this conversation constructive.
Best regards,

Warm regards,
Yuko
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