War Diaries Talk

Wrong year

  • alfredadams by alfredadams

    I am working on 1 Div Machine Gun Company 1 Feb 1916 - 28 Feb 1918 and was tagging from the beginning, the month disappeared but I kept going with just the date because it was sequential. Having just finished July the page has gone to August 1915. it is quite clear but it therefore disputes the dating as given on the heading ie 1916-18. Presumably the author knew the year he was writing and so I am thinking some misfile or dating error. Obviously I won't know until I progress to further along the pages or months. In the meantime I have hashtagged it 1915 because I didn't know how else to bring it to someone's attention.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Thanks for letting us know. Inevitably, we're finding some issues with mis-filing etc, and it looks like that might be what you have here. I'll let the National Archives know, but in the meantime please just continue to tag the date as it appears on the diary page. Thanks again!

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  • alfredadams by alfredadams

    I have now got to the end of August and the next cover page is dated Sept. 1916, as I can't go back to check, I wonder if the author of diary just made a mistake at the beginning of August when he wrote 1915.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Possibly. I've added it to the list of things for the National Archives to check, anyway.

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  • IKINAWANA by IKINAWANA

    Got a related question. If we get a diary page with no month and year, only the day, do we just skip the date and then use a hashtag to let you know?

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    No, don't skip it. Put in as much of the date as you can. You can type it in the top text box. There's no value in hashtagging it to let us know - there's not a thing we can do about it. Remember the point of crowdsourcing is that a "best fit" is taken from at least 5 sets of tags. There will be someone who started the diary earlier on and knows from a previous page what the month and year are, so in the end it will all work out.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Yes, just as Heather says, we'll be able to fill in any blanks later on, but it'll help us enormously if you include all the info you can, even if it is just the day. Thanks!

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  • totenkopf by totenkopf

    Talking about dates I feel terrible because being a newibe I entered the date on every page month and day correct but the person filling in the page never put in the year till like x many pages later and I could not go back and change the year back by one year ???

    Also I am working on a Sanitation section 4a ,2nd cavalry div. and they "talk" about German Measles other sickness as well and other things but I dont know how to " hashtag" if that is what I should do as well.

    I want to be a help not a hinder, and enter as much info as I can.
    Another thing the person will list a certain area that they are in in the left hand space ,but in the text he will also state something like " went to xyz today and then went to xyz also " but again the main place in the left handed section of the place will be the same ,perhaps their head quarters ,should I try to also list all those other "xyz" places as well?

    thanks in advance ,Frank

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Don't worry, Frank - you are helping!

    The year isn't a problem. We can go back and change that. Even if you've made a mistake, at least four other people will tag the same page, so it should be correct in the majority of cases.

    To hashtag illnesses or other medical things, use #medical and then add another hashtag to specify the condition. So, in this case: #medical #germanmeasles

    For places, if the unit is obviously at a place, then check the 'Is the unit currently here box' on the place tag. If it's just somewhere the visiting, but not stopping at, then you can still tag it, but leave this box unchecked.

    Hope that helps!

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  • totenkopf by totenkopf in response to ral104's comment.

    Thanks ral 104 . Also I have been listing any persons mentioned on the page for example it might state "picked up person xyz and ,xyz and xyz ' so in those cases I put down their rank and name but picked "other' in the box because they were not the writer of the page but I felt it would help the overall search of persons so I listed them .
    I'm still not 100% sure where you place the tag on the page ,on the margin in the "blue' outside of the page etc,etc but I am sure you good people will guide me .

    I still don't understand how I have gone thru 90 something pages but on the "face ' of the diary it will still say " 5% " but I know it must be more than that?
    Thanks Frank

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    No problem, Frank. You need to place the tags over the information you're tagging. So where Person X is mentioned in the diary page, put the tag over their name.

    The 90 pages you've gone through won't be completed until at least four other people have also tagged them. That way, we get a consensus with the data, which cuts down on errors. So when more people start tagging the diary you're working on, you'll begin to see the % completed increase.

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  • IKINAWANA by IKINAWANA

    Thanks Rob and Heather. It didn't occur to me that I could enter just the month and day until you mentioned this. Thank you!

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    No problem, Kris. It's not particularly obvious 😃

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  • Juannd by Juannd

    I 'm wondering if it is possible to return to a page I have clicked on as Finished? I'm worried that I omitted to tag a person's name in an entry. Many thanks, Julie.

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  • wildcatjenny by wildcatjenny moderator in response to Juannd's comment.

    Hi Julie,
    I am sorry to report that once you click "Finished" you can not reopen the page. While this can be frustrating, please don't let it concern you too much.

    Each diary page is tagged by 5 or more persons before it is considered "complete". It is unlikely that the same name would be missed by everyone who tags the page. This is the beauty of the system. No matter how hard we try not to - we all make mistakes. Just do the best you can and keep moving. Working together we will create a usable historical database.

    We appreciate your conscientious efforts!

    wildcatjenny

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  • suelaine by suelaine

    I just blew it. I just pressed "finish" when I hadn't even started the page. It had very faint writing and was involved with dense information about the new make up of the group. I see above that I can't go back.

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    No I'm afraid you can't , but don't worry, as @wildcatjenny says above the way the system works makes up for that and we've all done it at least once!

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