乡音苑 3.0

On 23 January 2021, the 10th anniversary of our initial launch of the site back in 2011, we officially launched the third iteration of the project. We have completely re-built the site from scratch, making considerable improvements on the previous codebase.

However, due to the fact that this is ultimately a one-person job, we are launching the new version of the site in stages. The first stage is the full site, but without the functionality to edit or add recordings.

Please note this is temporary.

In February, the ability to edit transcripts and upload new recordings will return.

Why do it this way?

The second iteration, which was launched in 2016, was lacking in certain features that would have improved usability. We knew it at the time, but due to other responsibilities we didn't have the time or manpower to implement them. We don't want to do that again, so we are taking out time.

A number of new features have already been implemented, including a number of new ways to navigate to different stories. We have more of this in the works, which will slowly be added over the coming weeks.

Additionally, there's one more major change:

Editing

As of this iteration of the site, we are taking a much more active role in editing transcriptions. Due to the potential use among academic linguists, those who might wish to develop curricula to second language learners, and heritage speakers who just want easier access, we are implementing a policy to take an active part in making sure the more significant errors that are inherent in any crowd-sourced project are taken care of.

This means we ill be going through every recording that has been submitted before in order to correct mis-labeled language varieties and incorrectly placed geographic locations, as well as making sure each recording has the appropriate structural information such as waveforms and segmenting.

Conclusion

That's the gist of it. We apologise for the delay, and the period of restricted use, but it was our feeling that this was preferable to a simply broken earlier version of the site.

We hope you understand, and we appreciate your patience.