rationalizing the set of workstation options?

[marybeckman]

Since we're trying to have relatively inexperienced segmenters work only with these two options:
.waisman$ = "Waisman Lab"
.shevlin$ = "Shevlin Hall Lab"
and the others (i.e., the transcribers, taggers, and segmentation checkers) are all savvy enough to understand the issues that led us to have the different arrangements, could we maybe rationalize the set of other options and their names a bit so that we don't have multiple versions of the same arrangement and the names refer to the arrangement instead of to individuals? For example, if we gave clear guidelines for how to set up directories and drive name for the 1-TB USB drives with a Mac (and if Pat were willing to rename his USB drive, etc.), then:
.mac_vpn$ = "Mac via VPN"
.rose_split$ = "Rose (Split)"
.reidy_split$ = "Reidy (Split)"
all could be:
.mac_audio_usb = "Mac (audio on USB)"
and if other script developers who will be copying a few audio files onto their Mac laptop hard drives set up their directory structures in the same way that Mary's done (i.e., /LearningToTalk/Tier2/ ... as the mirror of tier2 on the UMN server), then:
.beckman$ = "Beckman"
could be:
.mac_audio_hard_drive$ = "Mac (audio on hard drive)"

[patrickreidy]

I'm not sure I understand why having many available workstations is a problem. We can certainly rename some of the workstations that are oddly named (i.e., why Bianca uses Mac via RDC when working on a Waisman computer). Also, I'm not willing to rename my USB drive because I have other files on it that reference the drive by its current name, and renaming my drive would lead to me having to modify all these files.

[marybeckman]

Right, the only real issue with having many available workstations is that it makes the list to scroll through quite long for workstations at the bottom. And the bigger issue is that we don't know why the "Mac via RDC" specification works for Bianca and for Michelle, but the "Shevlin Hall" specification (which worked for Allie) did not work for Michelle, etc. Was it the machine in the Waisman Lab that they were using (Michelle was working on the machine along the outside wall that is just to the left of the refrigerator) or was it the VPN program (Michelle was using Cisco Any Connect I think) or was it something else? So if we can agree that the specs that are used by the segmenters and the majority of other taggers are at the top, and if we can figure out the parameters and rationalize the names to be more mnemonic for the segmenters and other taggers, it doesn't matter how many other specs we add for the four of us script developers.