Github

All data is stored in a github repo. If you feel uncomfortable using the git command line tool, a Github desktop application is available for macOS and Windows. Github-based collaboration follows a branch-based workflow. That means that you work in a separate branch and only when you are happy with your changes, you create a pull request for them to be merged into the main branch. Follow these instructions to get started:

1. If you don’t have an account yet, follow these instructions.
2. Contact us to be added to the caribank organization and receive access for the repo.
3. Clone the repository to your computer(s).
4. Create a branch with your name or label. Make sure that your local clone is always set to that branch.

Editing CSV files

Once you have a local copy of the data, you can edit the CSV files. To do so, LibreOffice is recommended (alternative suggestions are welcome). Make sure to specify UTF-8 encoding and separation by comma (and nothing else) in the opening dialog. The following files are relevant:

• reconstruction/morphs.csv is an annotation spreadsheet
• reconstruction/forms.csv is an annotation spreadsheet
• reconstruction/cognatesets.csv contains identified cognate sets
• reconstruction/proto_forms.csv contains reconstructed forms
• etc/contributors.csv contains information about all contributors

Read the general annotation guidelines for instructions how to annotate. When you are done, review your changes and submit a pull request – it is perfectly OK to submit a pull request that only has one new annotation or a bugfix or something.

Command line workflow

There is also an interactive CLI workflow which can be called with make annotate from the base directory. It is experimental but hopefully self-explanatory.