Historical Events Database - Coordination

[Approaching Infinity]

A few bugs I've encountered so far:

ANTHOLOGIES

For modern sources, I'll be using a couple anthologies, which do not have an author, but rather an editor and numerous contributors. Can the DB be set up so that if a work does not have an author, it displays the editor instead of author for publication (e.g., in the preview window)? Right now, it just leaves that part blank. (Or should we put the editor in the author field for books of this type?)

Right now the source options don't really allow for a good identification of a particular chapter in an anthology. For example, if I'm citing chapter 3, written by a particular author, there's no way to do that. Here's how such a work is usually referenced:

Author Name, 'Chapter Name', in Book Title, edited by Editor Name.

Possible solution using existing options: enter these chapters as individual 'article' entries? (The book title would go under "journal title", and the editor could go in the editor field.)

OTHER ISSUES

-sort texts: If there are a lot of texts in an event, the 'sort texts' page is tough: it just shows the event numbers for each of the texts. Could it be programmed so that it shows the event number and some more identifiable info, e.g., the author name of the text? For example, I'll be sorting the texts chronologically, and if I see "Cicero" I know to place that text before "Plutarch". Otherwise, I have to go back and forth or make a list of the numbers and which texts they are. It's fine for events with just a few texts, but trickier for those with many.

-If a number in any of the book/volume/chapter/verse/page fields has to be reset to '0', it shows up in the preview as such, e.g. Vell. 3:3-0.

-When a range of verses are entered, they don't output correctly in the preview. For example, if it's chapter 30, verses 2-4, the preview shows: 30.2--30.4. It should show: 30:2--4. For increased functionality, it might help to include 2 additional verse fields, so that we could have an example like 10.3--12.4 (3rd verse of chapter 10 to 4th verse of chapter 12).

-“Some weird name” doesn’t seem work in the author field (e.g., "Velleius Paterculus" shows up as _Paterculus"_) [EDIT: actually, looks like this works, it just looks funny on the Events Index screen]

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Also, for the Caesar database, because so many events don't have specific dates (e.g. month and day), Jason had a 'relative sequence' number field. So if the dates were unknown, even if the sequence was, we could enter a number and the events would be sorted by that number. Is that data still somewhere, or can a field be added so that it can be re-entered?

 

[Dirgni]

Thank you for the "Include in Publication" check box, Data.

I found that sometimes one text could have more than one event. For example events E#2077 and E#2078 share the same text but have got a text element each. Is is possible to include an existing text object into a new event object?

 

[Mikey]

Data, I have only managed today to edit two Sources tabs for Wars of the Jews and Antiquities of the Jews in the Kindle Edition format and made those as complete as possible with the information I currently have at my disposal.

Please check them thoroughly to ascertain that this is exactly what we need in such cases. It was a rather tedious affair which took a whole evening to complete.

I know it's tedious, but the good news is: a Source has to be set up only once, then it can be re-used many times without changing anything :)

Both your Sources are looking good. Feeback:
Edition field: Don't put "Edition", just put "Kindle".
Publisher field: Don't put the original name in brackets, this will clutter the citation output. Put it into the notes field.
Editor field: Don't put academic titles or notes, just the name, in the syntax given in the User Manual

In addition to your two Josephus Sources, I created another one, S#488, just to have it archived. I uploaded the PDF from this page: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/josephus/complete.html.

I didn't upload any PDF-files yet although I have one (in an alternative edition) but specified the URL from where I got that one since it is also available in HTML-format for reading on-line, apart from a download.

I also included the web addresses (URLs) of the two on-line versions of both which I regularly consulted while doing my reading.

Just make sure that when you input URLs, they point to the actually described Source. Don't misuse the input fields for personal notes or pointers. Otherwise we're introducing confusion into our own database. If you need to store not completely related links/notes/infos, just keep them in a file on your computer.

If I understand the procedures correctly, I have to repeat this endeavor for the Loeb Classical Edition as well. That will take a little more effort so please be patient.

You only have to add Loeb Edition Sources when you're actually quoting from it. I created one Josephus/Loeb Source today, it's S#487, and I needed it for one of Laura's entries that I assigned to me.

One remark of a technical nature: it's rather clumsy that one cannot enter the year of publication directly manually and is obliged to use the inbuilt counter feature. It takes quite some time to get from zero to 2010 -- not to mention cramps while continuously pressing the mouse button without moving the mouse and its pointer away from its target.

This shouldn't be this way. In both Google Chrome and Firefox, I can type into the numeric fields with my keyboard. Can you try again? Which browser do you use?

Considering the time consuming affair of getting the sources in perfect shape, I don't think that I'll be able to fulfill my promise of submitting at least one entry for reviewing in the current week.

That's okay. When I decided for the current Source system, I felt guilty that it would create a lot of background work. But I still can't think of a cleaner and more exact way to do it. So, thanks for all your hard work.

 

[Mikey]

Thanks Data -- I just tried to fix it, but was still locked out. I sent a reply back to you copying the error message that I got.

I relaxed the freezing rules for Sources a bit. Now you also can edit Sources for "Review failed" Events. So, you can try again and it should work now.

Here's what it says at the beginning of the appendix:

That's important info for others. I've turned the "Notes field" for Sources into a big text area. All editors: Please add Source-specific important info (like abbreviation explanations etc.) into this field, it will be included in the publication.

I hope that helps -- do you want me to continue to include those references, or would you prefer them to be left out? If I do include them, is the "derived from" field the best place to put them?

It seems to be okay to continue doing it. But please read the according section in the User Manual ("What to select as an ancient source") for the purpose of the "Derived from" and "Witness" fields.

I can make a point to do that, although I'll have to find a good time to access a scanner at my library since they are quite large. Do you guys already have a copy of Yeomans (1991)? I was under the impression that you did, but if not, the appendix is less than 100 pages. If you'd like the whole book, it's 485 pages.

As for Archaeoastronomy in East Asia, the two primary sections (comets/meteor showers) comprise 440 pages, and the entire book is 754 pages long. It would be quite a job, but I'm willing to try if you think it would be useful to have in digital format.

It would be nice to have everything digitized, but maybe this can be done by other helpers who are not interested in actually entering data into the HED. Maybe focus on entering data first, otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and we'll get nowhere.

 

[Mikey]

For modern sources, I'll be using a couple anthologies, which do not have an author, but rather an editor and numerous contributors. Can the DB be set up so that if a work does not have an author, it displays the editor instead of author for publication (e.g., in the preview window)? Right now, it just leaves that part blank. (Or should we put the editor in the author field for books of this type?)

Yeah, I've already encountered this problem a couple days ago. I would say: if it's an anthology, leave the author field blank. I can add in a citation-formatting rule that will change the citation pattern when the author field is empty.

Right now the source options don't really allow for a good identification of a particular chapter in an anthology. For example, if I'm citing chapter 3, written by a particular author, there's no way to do that. Here's how such a work is usually referenced:

I see the problem. I will make it the following way (hopefully today): If the author field in the Source is blank, it's assumed to be an anthology. Then, you will get an additional author field for each Text. This way, even citations from anthologies still will be exact.

-sort texts: If there are a lot of texts in an event, the 'sort texts' page is tough: it just shows the event numbers for each of the texts. Could it be programmed so that it shows the event number and some more identifiable info, e.g., the author name of the text? For example, I'll be sorting the texts chronologically, and if I see "Cicero" I know to place that text before "Plutarch". Otherwise, I have to go back and forth or make a list of the numbers and which texts they are. It's fine for events with just a few texts, but trickier for those with many.

Yes, sorting display not optimal. I'll fix this too (hopefully today).

-If a number in any of the book/volume/chapter/verse/page fields has to be reset to '0', it shows up in the preview as such, e.g. Vell. 3:3-0.

I'll make it so that a 0 will not show up (preview and publication). For now, just pretend the zeros are not there, you won't have to fix it later.

-When a range of verses are entered, they don't output correctly in the preview. For example, if it's chapter 30, verses 2-4, the preview shows: 30.2--30.4. It should show: 30:2--4.

Technically, "30.2--30.4" is not incorrect ;) But I agree that it doesn't confirm to citation conventions. I will improve the citation algorithm later to drop the invariant chapter number, but the way to input chapters and verses will not change.

For increased functionality, it might help to include 2 additional verse fields, so that we could have an example like 10.3--12.4 (3rd verse of chapter 10 to 4th verse of chapter 12).

You can do "10.3--12.4" already: chapter_from=10, chapter_to=12, verse_from=3, verse_to=4.

-“Some weird name” doesn’t seem work in the author field (e.g., "Velleius Paterculus" shows up as _Paterculus"_) [EDIT: actually, looks like this works, it just looks funny on the Events Index screen]

I'll improve the display in the Events#Index screen for author names.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Yeah, I've already encountered this problem a couple days ago. I would say: if it's an anthology, leave the author field blank. I can add in a citation-formatting rule that will change the citation pattern when the author field is empty.

I see the problem. I will make it the following way (hopefully today): If the author field in the Source is blank, it's assumed to be an anthology. Then, you will get an additional author field for each Text. This way, even citations from anthologies still will be exact.

Yes, sorting display not optimal. I'll fix this too (hopefully today).

I'll make it so that a 0 will not show up (preview and publication). For now, just pretend the zeros are not there, you won't have to fix it later.

Thanks!

-When a range of verses are entered, they don't output correctly in the preview. For example, if it's chapter 30, verses 2-4, the preview shows: 30.2--30.4. It should show: 30:2--4.

Technically, "30.2--30.4" is not incorrect ;) But I agree that it doesn't confirm to citation conventions. I will improve the citation algorithm later to drop the invariant chapter number, but the way to input chapters and verses will not change.

For increased functionality, it might help to include 2 additional verse fields, so that we could have an example like 10.3--12.4 (3rd verse of chapter 10 to 4th verse of chapter 12).

You can do "10.3--12.4" already: chapter_from=10, chapter_to=12, verse_from=3, verse_to=4.

D'oh! You're right. This works both ways.

 

[Mikey]

Also, for the Caesar database, because so many events don't have specific dates (e.g. month and day), Jason had a 'relative sequence' number field. So if the dates were unknown, even if the sequence was, we could enter a number and the events would be sorted by that number. Is that data still somewhere, or can a field be added so that it can be re-entered?

You at least have to set the year. If the year is uncertain, specify the uncertainty. E.g. If 7 undated things happened from 10BC to 20 BC, input as year 15BC, and set the uncertainty to 5 years. You then can add as many Texts to this Event as you like. But if you want to have several Events with the same year (15BC) plus uncertainty, the order of the Events would be the order of creation in the HED, which is probably not what you want. For this case, I could make it so that you can input a high month number as the sorting element. E.g. if the month number is greater than 12, it will not be displayed, but it will be taken into account for sorting. Would this work?

 

[Mikey]

Thank you for the "Include in Publication" check box, Data.

I found that sometimes one text could have more than one event. For example events E#2077 and E#2078 share the same text but have got a text element each. Is is possible to include an existing text object into a new event object?

We don't want duplication. For E#2077 you could leave the part about the flood, and delete the part about the fireball. Vice versa for E#2078.

If we really have identical texts that we can't modify in this way, we will solve it with cross-references: Leave the earliest Text, and then simply put the following code in the text box where the duplicate would appear:

See {crossref:T#1828}

The HED will then replace this code in curly brackets with either a Hyperlink to the other Text, or will print the page number of the other Text.

 

[Mikey]

-If a number in any of the book/volume/chapter/verse/page fields has to be reset to '0', it shows up in the preview as such, e.g. Vell. 3:3-0.

I'll make it so that a 0 will not show up (preview and publication). For now, just pretend the zeros are not there, you won't have to fix it later.

Thinking about it, you should be able to delete all contents from numeric input fields (I am able to in Chrome and Firefox). In this case, zero will not show up. Could you try this again? Maybe it's a browser-specific behavior.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

-If a number in any of the book/volume/chapter/verse/page fields has to be reset to '0', it shows up in the preview as such, e.g. Vell. 3:3-0.

I'll make it so that a 0 will not show up (preview and publication). For now, just pretend the zeros are not there, you won't have to fix it later.

Thinking about it, you should be able to delete all contents from numeric input fields (I am able to in Chrome and Firefox). In this case, zero will not show up. Could you try this again? Maybe it's a browser-specific behavior.

Just tested this. Regular delete doesn't work, but 'fn+del' does.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

You at least have to set the year. If the year is uncertain, specify the uncertainty. E.g. If 7 undated things happened from 10BC to 20 BC, input as year 15BC, and set the uncertainty to 5 years. You then can add as many Texts to this Event as you like. But if you want to have several Events with the same year (15BC) plus uncertainty, the order of the Events would be the order of creation in the HED, which is probably not what you want. For this case, I could make it so that you can input a high month number as the sorting element. E.g. if the month number is greater than 12, it will not be displayed, but it will be taken into account for sorting. Would this work?

Yeah, there are some years that will have something like 50 or more events where we know the year and the (rough) relative sequence, but no exact dates. I'm not sure if the high month option will work, because the sequence needs to be retained for all events, whether the date is known or not.

For example, let's say these 10 (fake) events represent the events in 45 BC:

45 Jan.
45 ?
45 ?
45 ?
45 Mar.
45 Mar 14
45 ?
45 ?
45 Summer
45 Dec

They need to show up exactly in that order. For example, we may know that the "Mar. 45" event happens before the "Mar 14, 45" event, but not know the exact date. And we know the ones without dates happen in this sequence. The trick Jason used was to put a 'sorting field'. So, I could number each event (1-10) and it would sort the events by those numbers. Or, I could number them: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc. That would give room for adding more events in between, and retain a precise sequence. Is that possible using the month option you're thinking of?

 

[Palinurus]

Both your Sources are looking good. Feeback:
Edition field: Don't put "Edition", just put "Kindle".
Publisher field: Don't put the original name in brackets, this will clutter the citation output. Put it into the notes field.
Editor field: Don't put academic titles or notes, just the name, in the syntax given in the User Manual

I changed those fields accordingly in both sources.

In addition to your two Josephus Sources, I created another one, S#488, just to have it archived. I uploaded the PDF from this page: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/josephus/complete.html.

That one didn't show up on its own in the Source Index as of yet, so I couldn't edit it or check it out. I've left its mention in both the HTML-field and the PDF-url field of both sources intact for now, even though it's an alternative publisher for the same translation. Hope that's okay with you. I also harmonized those mentions to make them identical for both sources.

I didn't upload any PDF-files yet although I have one (in an alternative edition) but specified the URL from where I got that one since it is also available in HTML-format for reading on-line, apart from a download.

I also included the web addresses (URLs) of the two on-line versions of both which I regularly consulted while doing my reading.

Just make sure that when you input URLs, they point to the actually described Source. Don't misuse the input fields for personal notes or pointers. Otherwise we're introducing confusion into our own database. If you need to store not completely related links/notes/infos, just keep them in a file on your computer.

Although those on-line versions contain the same translation as the Kindle but not from that specific publisher, I've deleted the mentions of those two versions in both sources but retained them on my own computer. I could replace them at any time, would you on reflection still prefer to have them in the database.

If I understand the procedures correctly, I have to repeat this endeavor for the Loeb Classical Edition as well. That will take a little more effort so please be patient.

You only have to add Loeb Edition Sources when you're actually quoting from it. I created one Josephus/Loeb Source today, it's S#487, and I needed it for one of Laura's entries that I assigned to me.

Thanks for the explanation. I hadn't understood correctly, apparently. So I won't have to make sources for the Loebs then, after all. I've never directly quoted from the Loebs since I don't have them at my disposal.

However, the real problem is that for every quote from the Whiston translation I've also mentioned each time the corresponding Loeb numbers (in the format Chapter, Lines -- like for instance: Ant. 17, 27-35). Should I delete those mentions when I'm revising my original entries, or do you want them saved? For what I know, it seems customary or at least conventional to give both references if possible. Furthermore, when others (like Laura apparently) use those editions it would be systemically more correct when I should do that too. I just would have to compare both text quotes when they become available, to see whether there are any substantial differences between them. Please advise on what to do here.

One remark of a technical nature: it's rather clumsy that one cannot enter the year of publication directly manually and is obliged to use the inbuilt counter feature. It takes quite some time to get from zero to 2010 -- not to mention cramps while continuously pressing the mouse button without moving the mouse and its pointer away from its target.

This shouldn't be this way. In both Google Chrome and Firefox, I can type into the numeric fields with my keyboard. Can you try again? Which browser do you use?

I'm using Firefox and couldn't, otherwise that would have been the preferred course of action. Nor could I copy/paste from the one source to the other because I can't highlight the number either.

I tried again just now but couldn't remove the existing 2010 number using the backspace key, nor could I highlight the number to remove it by cutting it out (via the right click drop down menu). In that field I'm only able to use the counter thingy ATM.

One last remark: in the Google Books URL field I noticed that Google automatically resets any entry to its local version (in my case Dutch) although I had expressly started with the general international version (books.google.com). That would occur for all other cases outside the USA as well, I think.

When you have inspected both sources once more and approved them, I surmise you could give them definitive status thereafter.

 

[Palinurus]

-If a number in any of the book/volume/chapter/verse/page fields has to be reset to '0', it shows up in the preview as such, e.g. Vell. 3:3-0.

I'll make it so that a 0 will not show up (preview and publication). For now, just pretend the zeros are not there, you won't have to fix it later.

Thinking about it, you should be able to delete all contents from numeric input fields (I am able to in Chrome and Firefox). In this case, zero will not show up. Could you try this again? Maybe it's a browser-specific behavior.

Just tested this. Regular delete doesn't work, but 'fn+del' does.

Thanks for the tip. I might need to use that little detour later on as well.

 

[Dirgni]

We don't want duplication. For E#2077 you could leave the part about the flood, and delete the part about the fireball. Vice versa for E#2078.

If we really have identical texts that we can't modify in this way, we will solve it with cross-references: Leave the earliest Text, and then simply put the following code in the text box where the duplicate would appear:

See {crossref:T#1828}

The HED will then replace this code in curly brackets with either a Hyperlink to the other Text, or will print the page number of the other Text.

Great! Thanks a lot Data. A very good solution for the book and for the database you can search for the text IMHO.
And duplicates adé. :D

zadigs entries should be connected with a "source" "Histoire des Francs – Grégoire de Tours et Frédégaire". Should I make new entries for my additions or could you assign the entries to me?

You can create new entries, I will delete mine.

Thank you Zadig. I created new ones (Still to be checked):

ID 660 --> 4259
ID 578 --> 4260
ID 587 --> 4258
ID 583 --> 4257
ID 582 --> 4256