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Electronic Ev.

Sean Upton wrote:
> First, USENET is being archived (for the most part) back about 2 years by
> DejaNews.  One of the freaky things about this is the permanance of all
> those flames, etc, that people think will just be there for 2 weeks and
> then expire.  The good part is that it becomes much easier to use
> Newsgroup evidence in round and still be accountable.  The whole quals
> problem still exists, but there are qualified people out there:  One of
> the authors for a lot of cool evidence from our satelite case last year
> did a lot of posting on alt.war, as well as his writing in defense
> journals.

Similar is found on sci.nanotech, and in listserves such as Deep-E. Some of 
this ev is just too fast for publication, some of it just misses the paper 
publication realm for lack of submission. However, much of it is very good.

> Mailing lists with archives:  THE URL OF THE ARCHIVE SHOULD BE INCLUDED
> IN THE CITE.  PERIOD.  MAKES LIFE A LOT EASIER.

I also thinks the email address of the author should be included and the 
identifying document title/number. This would also be a good practice for 
people who cite GovDocs.

> Mailing lists w/o archives:  This is a little tricky, but I have to agree
> with what Gordon has to say.  That makes sense.  Also, what about
> archiving evidence on one of the debate web sites (such as DC or
> debate.net), with a search engine -- the only drawback is the tons and
> tons of disk space that would take up.  I seriously doubt either Debate
> Central or Debate.net has the disk space to do this kind of thing - but
> it's a furture possibility -- who knows?

Perhaps another listserve: DB8EV-L which would be archived. People would post 
the ev to the list, it would be archived, and then go into a text-searchable 
document. I've seen some public domain CGI search scripts, so disk space is 
the only limiter. Should be a person who is pretty stationary (as opposed to a 
grad asst. or debater who will move on in a couple of years) and a system that 
is reliable (as opposed to Chico's Yoyodyne system).
 
> EVIDENCE FROM THE WEB:  Full cite means complete URL, not a referencing
> URL that just references the server name.  That is not complete.
> Filenames!  I think the web is mainstream enough to be considered a
> reliable source of information, as long as we follow the same guidelines
> as to quals, etc, that we follow elsewhere.  Also, sometimes dates are
> hard to find on Web pages, so the YEAR alone should be the minimum date.
> I'm still curious what we do when it seems imposible to find a date:  for
> all we know a page could have been sitting there without update for
> years... Any thoughts?

Oxford University Press, Christian Science Monitor, Time, ACLU, NACLA, EDF, 
NMFS, EPA, NOAA, AP, and a whole alphabet soup of ev sources post regularly to 
the net. Some of the most published names in Radical Ecology and International 
Political Economy provide evidence. A plethora of GovDocs are on the web. 
The web provides better access to more material and at a quicker rate than any 
other research network (including Lexis, which you can also access through the 
web, provided you have a password: http://www.lexis-nexis.com/ )...

As for dates: Most web pages will have a "This page written or maintained 
by..." and an email address. Ask them... If they don't know, don't cite it. 
Same goes for source qualifications.

> INTERNET EVIDENCE IN GENERAL:  Accept it.  You'll see it in rounds and it
> is completely legit.  Just use the same standards that we apply to other
> evidence.  Permanence is not that great of a problem -- and there are easy
> solutions.  The internet provides a good research medium for smaller schools
> without ready access to either lexis/nexis or big research libraries.  It
> also provides an electronic alternative to the homogeny and troubles with
> lexis/nexis evidence.

Internet access costs are plummeting. No budget should be so small as to not 
be able to afford internet access... The computer system might cost a 
thousand, or a little under if you're smart about the shopping, but unlimited 
hours internet access should not run more than $25 a month... Let's see... 
That's $300 a year... And Lexis just bumped our account cost up to $1900 
(still a steal, but a 90% leap in price!)... $1000 for the computer, $300 for 
the unlimited hours local access... Gee, looks pretty reasonable... And if 
you're really poor, you can likely find a computer corporation willing to 
donate an old 486 system to your squad... 

Pat Gehrke
CSU Chico
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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