Historical Events Database - Coordination

[Mikey]

Data, I added a couple of events and sources to Events COF. Could you please review them?

To submit an event for review, under "Feedback for this Event" choose "Reviewing" and then click "Send feedback". However, I quickly looked at them:

- Event #4913 had one empty text (forgot to save?)
- Events #4911 - #4912 had only Russian text. We need both: Original and your translation. Add your translation at the beginning, and then add a footnote with the Russian original.

For Sources: Ideally you can find PDFs and upload them into the HED for archiving. If not, no problem. However, you should also record the Russian original title, author and publisher in cyrillic in the "Notes" field of a Source.

Other than that, good job! :)

 

[Altair]

Data, I added a couple of events and sources to Events COF. Could you please review them?

To submit an event for review, under "Feedback for this Event" choose "Reviewing" and then click "Send feedback". However, I quickly looked at them:

- Event #4913 had one empty text (forgot to save?)
- Events #4911 - #4912 had only Russian text. We need both: Original and your translation. Add your translation at the beginning, and then add a footnote with the Russian original.

For Sources: Ideally you can find PDFs and upload them into the HED for archiving. If not, no problem. However, you should also record the Russian original title, author and publisher in cyrillic in the "Notes" field of a Source.

Other than that, good job! :)

Well, the problem is following. All the events are from the book I mentioned here http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,37255.msg583057.html#msg583057 (Borisenkov E.P Extreme weather events in Russian Chronicles). On one hundred pages all the events from the Russian Chronicles are displayed in tabular form: year, description, sometimes a citation in Old-Russian, source. My questions:
- most Russians wouldn't understand Old-Russian citations completely. I understand it to some extent but it would be hard to provide exact translation into English. Is it still worth to provide original quote and more or less accurate English translation?
- Should I specify as source the book mentioned or the original source (Russian Chronicle)?
- The book provides a description of an event (in modern Russian) but not always a direct citation (though always a reference to the original source) as a it's the case with Event #4913. Should I then skip events without any direct citation?

 

[Mikey]

- most Russians wouldn't understand Old-Russian citations completely. I understand it to some extent but it would be hard to provide exact translation into English. Is it still worth to provide original quote and more or less accurate English translation?

Yes, the original must be quoted exactly as given. The target language of our HED project, and, as Laura mentioned earlier, of more and more of historical research, is English. So you need to make an English translation as close as possible.

- Should I specify as source the book mentioned or the original source (Russian Chronicle)?

It depends. Ideally, you go back to the earliest availabe (to you) source, which is the original, not the copy. 'Available' means: You have either a physical copy, a PDF or a web resource. This is connected with the most work, but sometimes it may be worth it, for example to find more interesting stuff, or to get more context. For 'simple' events it may not be worth the effort, and in this case you specify as source the book you're copy-pasting/typing from -- the Chronicle. If the Chronicle gives citation info, include that info as given.

- The book provides a description of an event (in modern Russian) but not always a direct citation (though always a reference to the original source) as a it's the case with Event #4913. Should I then skip events without any direct citation?

No, if the modern modern version is interesting enough, then include it. But whenever there is a translation involved, there is potential for information loss (think intentional or accidental cover ups?) and/or information skewing. In such cases it may be worth locating the original and compare it with the translation.

 

[Altair]

Thanks for the clarification, Data. I added some more events and sources. Should I send them to you or to Keit for review?

 

[Mikey]

Assign the review to me.

 

[Mikey]

Altair, please submit only one event at a time. I need time to review, and my feedback to you should inform subsequent submissions. Thanks!

 

[Altair]

Altair, please submit only one event at a time. I need time to review, and my feedback to you should inform subsequent submissions. Thanks!

Ok, thank you for letting me know.

 

[Mikey]

Altair, for the Borisenkov book, and others: Could you always add the given location, event type, and source to the original and translated texts? You added the location and event type to the Summary field, which is good, but it's better to have the Texts as complete as possible. To see what I mean, I edited your Event #4913 accordingly (bold text added) http://hed.quantumfuturegroup.org/events/4913-lezeiau:

Byzantium: Earthquake. Many towns and palaces destroyed
Византия: Землетрясение. Разрушено множество городов и «палат». ПСРЛ, т. 9, с. 1 1

Same for events E#4917 up to E#4924. I've failed them so that you can fix it.

Also:

In Event #4917, Text #7807 describes 2 events: a) drought and b) famine due to crop failure. Could you create a new Event for the crop failure and re-attach the same Text #7807 to it (you can do that by entering the text id to the field "Add existing Text ID")? We want to break things down as much as possible for later statistical evaluation.

Thanks!

 

[Altair]

Altair, for the Borisenkov book, and others: Could you always add the given location, event type, and source to the original and translated texts? You added the location and event type to the Summary field, which is good, but it's better to have the Texts as complete as possible. To see what I mean, I edited your Event #4913 accordingly (bold text added) http://hed.quantumfuturegroup.org/events/4913-lezeiau:

Byzantium: Earthquake. Many towns and palaces destroyed
Византия: Землетрясение. Разрушено множество городов и «палат». ПСРЛ, т. 9, с. 1 1

Same for events E#4917 up to E#4924. I've failed them so that you can fix it.

Also:

In Event #4917, Text #7807 describes 2 events: a) drought and b) famine due to crop failure. Could you create a new Event for the crop failure and re-attach the same Text #7807 to it (you can do that by entering the text id to the field "Add existing Text ID")? We want to break things down as much as possible for later statistical evaluation.

Thanks!

Thank you for the corrections, Data. I'll correct the events in question.

 

[Altair]

Data, I corrected the events. Can I assign the whole bunch to you for review?

 

[Mikey]

Data, I corrected the events. Can I assign the whole bunch to you for review?

No, only 1 or max. 2 per batch. Thanks!

 

[Dirgni]

Hi Data,

I noticed these (when you have a lot of free time you could decide to do something or not) :):

It may come handy if it would be possible to look for "all wanted" events between two years.
When you search for events of a certain time (e.g. all events from 500 AD to 600 AD) you go to events list and click to next or page number until you see the time you are looking for. In public view there are 9 pages - so not much to click. In editor view there are a many lot of pages more. You can look for a decade if you put in the higher digits of the year (e.g. 60 if you search decade 600 AD to 609 AD).

It is not possible to search for keywords in events as keywords are mostly included in texts now.
In public interface and editor view you can only search the quoted text itself via summary. In editor view you can also search "text" of texts but not keywords.

 

[Mikey]

Hi Data,

I noticed these (when you have a lot of free time you could decide to do something or not) :):

Thanks for the suggestions Dirgni. I'll see if I can add that in.

 

[Zadius Sky]

The only thing left on my list that is up to AD 500 is the Earthquake of 365. You suggested that Zadig could take this entry, but he haven't responded to your question.

Ignore this event for now, we'll do it later.

I'm just wondering about the status of this event? That is what's left from my list for the pre-500AD period. I've been submitting later dates from my list once a week. Thanks.

 

[Mikey]

I'm just wondering about the status of this event? That is what's left from my list for the pre-500AD period. I've been submitting later dates from my list once a week. Thanks.

You can do it now if you want. Later, I'll merge the two Events. Thanks!