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+--- Thread: Is a decent specialist report a luxury? (/showthread.php?tid=4679)
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - redexile - 28th December 2012
BAJR Wrote:S
Perhaps we should look at solutions to the issues. ones that both delve into the murky world of what it is all for... to how a re-evaluation of what is the current norm could work in practice. OR and I am serious... should we all just collectively shrug and pull out the crayons to further dumb down or service to the level of
Pot was found - it was old... and my 3 year old nephew has dun a guid drawin of it for you too... ( no extra cost )...
I think we have reached the point where if we don't do something about it, everything is going to go to sh*t completely, if it hasn't already. The IfA are clearly unwilling or incapable, and DCAs don't have the political clout - if they push too hard, they'll be overruled by higher-ups in the councils, or jumped on by expensive lawyers. Like someone said earlier, we need some sort of nationally accepted framework for briefs, and, as we've suggested, we need a different method of funding which removes the developers from the equation completely other than as a revenue source. The current system is bust. RESCUE are probably about the best pressure group we've got, but they're pretty much skint and need new members, and lots of them.
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - P Prentice - 28th December 2012
BAJR Wrote:So PP... given that you have relatively succinctly summed up the issues - and Redexiles points are well made allowing this discussion to roll along. ( oh and Dino is only semi-divine )
Perhaps we should look at solutions to the issues. ones that both delve into the murky world of what it is all for... to how a re-evaluation of what is the current norm could work in practice. OR and I am serious... should we all just collectively shrug and pull out the crayons to further dumb down or service to the level of
Pot was found - it was old... and my 3 year old nephew has dun a guid drawin of it for you too... ( no extra cost )...
Invoice... next job please.
It seems to me that here on BAJR we all agree that it is "per ce" wrong and not good for the professional as a whole. but somebody is doing it? Or are we doing it without thinking? Are we the Conservative voter that must be out there but nobody admits to being?
for me the answer is clear. nobody works without a liscence. liscences are issued with areas of competence. competence is tested and peer reviwed. liscences are withdrawn if standards are not met. you know where i am going with this -
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Dinosaur - 28th December 2012
...that we'll all have to dumb down to IFA-accepted standards? God forbid! :0
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - P Prentice - 28th December 2012
Dinosaur Wrote:...that we'll all have to dumb down to IFA-accepted standards? God forbid! :0but your mob already quote them as the standards that you will adhere to in every wsi you produce
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - redexile - 28th December 2012
Dinosaur Wrote:...that we'll all have to dumb down to IFA-accepted standards? God forbid! :0
I really think the best way forward is to forget about the IfA - they've had their chance and they're clearly not up to it for a number of reasons. Ultimately, it's down to the DCAs, but they need the power to be able to send reports back. They've got it in theory but won't actually have it until both they and HERs are mandatory requirements of local authorities, and they are really able to stop development if work isn't up to scratch. If a contractor gets held up a few times due to the archys they employ not being good enough, they'll soon stop using them, and word would get around pretty quickly I suspect. One for ALGAO (or whatever they're called nowadays!), but we're in a situation where we're losing DCAs all over the place because they're not a statutory requirement. Once they're gone, it's game over in terms of anything resembling work done to any sort of decent standard. Or indeed any work being done at all, other than by the goodwill of the developer, which is how it was in the days before PPG16, and we don't want to go back there, but it's where we're heading. Wood Quay, anyone?
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Dinosaur - 28th December 2012
P Prentice Wrote:but your mob already quote them as the standards that you will adhere to in every wsi you produce
Don't have much choice since all the curators religeously include that in all the cut-and-paste specs they churn out
I for one do at least try to tailor the things slightly so that they're more relevent to the job at hand, eg recently getting OSL written in to one for a site where I knew the proposed C14 wasn't going to get off the ground (poor charcoal survival for some reason), whereas just following the 'letter of the law' would have followed all the standards etc but resulted in an awful lot of undated archaeology - mind you, with the cost of OSL we won't be doing that too often!
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Dinosaur - 28th December 2012
Think part of IFAs problem is that they have to set their standards down at a level where a sufficient number of their RAOs are able to conform - that doesn't mean the rest of us can't at least aspire to something better?
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - redexile - 28th December 2012
Dinosaur Wrote:Think part of IFAs problem is that they have to set their standards down at a level where a sufficient number of their RAOs are able to conform - that doesn't mean the rest of us can't at least aspire to something better?
One of them certainly, but this brings back to the old problem - cost up the job to do it properly, and you'll lose out to someone who doesn't
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - P Prentice - 28th December 2012
no matter what you two reactionaries care to perpetuate, the standards crisis is not the fault of the ifa. standards might well have progressively slipped since the introdction of the freeforall in the early 90s, but the ifa remain the only body actively engaged in setting standards - algao seem incapable. if these (industry) standards are failing it is the repsonsibility of every professional archaeologist to do something (other than carp), by presenting the evidence and not unsubstantiated hearsay.
the main problem with the ifa standards, as you so adroitly pointed out dinosaur, is that curators use them as a cureall, without actually understanding what could be achieved from the site and the recoverable data.
@redexile - quite like some of your academia showcased papers - might have something to offer you shortly
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Dinosaur - 28th December 2012
In the OSL example above, going back to the curator at an early stage with a well-argued response to the original spec (a large chunk of which prioritised obtaining dating evidence for a previously much-dug but undated major monument) worked out ok - relatively little effort (although admittedly a chunk of cash for the client) will hopefully have turned a 'after all that we still don't know how old it is' into a useful body of data of national significance - provided the client doesn't wince too much at the cost of having the work finished...and we still got the work, although on the downside I've still got to write the thing up