MAMEMS and Approaching Byzantium meeting 2024-02-02¶

The meeting will be about data entry for the MAMEMS and the Approaching Byzantium project.
Updated information in the course of the meeting is in color. Every participant is welcome to add and adapt.

Participants¶

• OpenAtlas: Alexander Watzinger
• MAMEMS: Vanessa Rose Obaldia
• Approaching Byzantium: Nicholas Melvani

Topics¶

• Update Nicholas about #2127
• New feature image annotation

Data entry¶

• How to add actors at move events
  Persons can be added directly in the event form. Groups have to be linked via the "actor" tab, more detailed information is available in the manual
• Are archival documents considered to be artifacts for the purposes of the MAMEMS project?
  This depends on what kind of information is available and should be entered, e.g. if information about physical properties (ink color, type of paper, condition, ...) or e.g. involvement in a move event, linking an artifact to the source would be sensible.
• If place of birth or death unknown = anonymous?
  if e.g. a location of death is unavailable this field should be left blank. If an approximate area is known it could be mapped as a certain area, see: manual
• Should countries be listed in subcategory of Administrative Unit?
  Yes, if it is relevant for the project. But in general a localization on the map would be much more important
• Are locations defined according to their status during the time of the actor or now? Also, should we include descriptions of places?
  They are mostly defined for the time the project is about. Description of places can be entered if they are project relevant and/or this information is otherwise hard to find.
• Order of aliases
  Aliases are order alphabetically in the user interface. Every alias has the same "importance" and the order has no meaning in itself.
• Adding aliases
  Every alias should have their own entry (it's not meant to write multiple aliases in one field)

Needs further actions/decisions¶

Following questions should be discussed within the research team(s) because they are more about content than technical aspects of OpenAtlas.

• Names and title
  If the title is important it should be mapped as an actor function to have this information in a structured way and with context (e.g. King of Spain).
  The title can be included in the name too, in case it helps with recognition (e.g. "Queen Elizabeth" or "... son of Sam") but this is something that should be discussed in the project team.
• Usage of language type at person
  Currently a person can have one or more language associated via the language type. It is not clear how this is meant (main language, all known languages, ...).
  It would be a good idea to clarify that in the description of the "language" custom type. That way additional information will be available at the form too.
• Usage of language at source (annotations)
  The questions was that when other languages were used in later annotations, if they should be included in the language types of the source. This should be discussed in the project team.

Update about further decisions¶

We discussed these at the MAMEMS meeting at 28. February and here is the feedback from Zachary:

• Name and title
  The title shouldn't be part of the name. Functions/professions of a person should be tracked via relations to a group, see manual.
• Usage of language type
  At sources it means the language(s) in which the text is written. At person it is meant the languages the person is fluent in.
  This text was also added as description of the language type and is now available in forms as a tool tip as well.
• Usage of language at source (annotations)
  The language(s) chosen at source should not be about annotation because this could get confusing.
  If the language(s) of annotations is important (it isn't at the MAMEMS project because of set time frame) an additional custom type for annotation languages could be added.