opportunity to exchange RST analyses; Website changes;

[William Mann]

Dear RST List folks:

Very soon, possibly within a week, there will be a new possibility of
exchanging and commenting on RST analyses.  This is prompted by
opportunities for a particular study group in the Netherlands, but it will
also be possible to see RST analyses from people around the globe, and to
have others see and comment on your analyses.

It will work as follows:  People will identify texts in English, Spanish or
French, analyze them using the RST tool, and submit them by sending an email
with particular attached files to me.  I will post them to the Web at a new
location.  The process is currently being beta-tested.

There are a few restrictions on what I can handle, but except for certain
summer periods I hope to be able to post analyses to the web within a week
or so of when I receive them.  Comments on particular analyses or more
general questions raised by the process will be exchanged through this list.
Details on the restrictions will be available on the same website where the
postings appear.

For classes that are now in session and expecting to continue meeting for 4
weeks or more, this will give an opportunity for class members to comment on
each others' analyses as well as receive comments on their own work.  This
is a limited-duration experiment, which will terminate at the end of
November 2001, or earlier if for some reason it becomes unmanageable.

So, if you are interested, you should expect this possibility to become
available very soon.

==========

In addition, there are a number of changes to the RST website.

Some have had trouble downloading the RST tool.  The RST website was changed
this week to reflect a new source address, making available version    25a.

Relation name files in French and Spanish are now available.  They will be
encountered by clicking on
[French pages]   or  [Spanish pages]  respectively.

I have decided to discontinue putting a zipped copy of the whole website on
the site.  The version that is there, now about a year old, will soon
disappear.  The main reason for not continuing this is that Internet
Explorer is now able to download current versions of entire websites on
request, and most folks seem to be able to either borrow a copy of IE for
the purpose, or download their own.

In an issue of the journal Verbum to appear soon there will be an article,
in French, about the scientific status of RST.  In a separate message I
expect to offer access to an English language version.

Special thanks to the folks who have notified me about unsuspected website
problems.  The problems would never have been corrected without such help.

I would especially appreciate any comments you may have about the
exchange-of-analyses system.

Best wishes,

Bill Mann

=============================
 William C. Mann
SIL in USA
6739 Cross Creek Estates Road
Lancaster, SC 29720
USA
(803) 286-6461

 bill_mann at sil.org