War Diaries Talk

Why can't I tag places / activities / other units / etc in Orders pages? [Because we are interested in what actually happened]

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator

    The tags available in Orders are limited as we are interested in what the units reported as happening to them. Not what they were told to do. We are interested in people named in orders and a limited set of other information.

    Field guide: http://www.operationwardiary.org/#/guide/orders

    p.s. the same principle applies to 'OTHER' pages -- we are not seeking anything from them.

    Posted

  • makfai by makfai

    Can I ask why you are not interested in them? As a researcher I may be interested in those topics to compare what was in the orders to what happened as recorded in the diaries because, as the saying goes 'they never survive first contact with the enemy!'

    Posted

  • Maj971 by Maj971

    I'm a little frustrated that I am not able to Tag a unit when it is e.g. 'In Reserve' prior to an attack; or the Disposition of Bn Coy's prior to an attack, as well as the Coy Commanders and those officers e.g. i/c of 'bombers' or 'transport' etc. Also, the inclusion of an Other Unit tag for 'To Front' or 'To Rear' would be useful, as would 'Defensive Position' for the primary Unit.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator in response to Maj971's comment.

    This is an FAQ about tagging Orders and not the right thread to raise this in. Can you possibly repost it here http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000008/discussions/DWD00001b0

    Posted

  • itsmestephanie by itsmestephanie

    I agree with the general sentiment expressed here. A lot more information can and should be tagged from these pages. One day someone will come along, realise the huge opportunity/potential that was missed in this first project, will try to re-launch it with proper tags, and will find nobody prepared to read the pages all over again.

    While you may have created this project for your own narrow needs, you could (and should) widen your horizon and enable tagging for needs that other researchers might have, now or in the future. (Yes this is a collaborative project, it's supposed to be give-give, not give-take).

    For example ammunition columns specify how much ammo. they deliver - why not enable tagging of this 'hard' info. Many questions/comments have been made concerning other tags that could be added (e.g. friendly fire/accidental deaths; 'general' casualties where casualty type not specified). Activities of ambulance, sanitary, R.E. corps. Tracking of horses killed either in action or due to injury . Ability to specify in "reserve", "support" and "front" trenches. 'Demob', 'temporary detachment/attachment' as person tags. And on and on and on.

    Being able to correct previous tags when information is clarified in subsequent pages.

    I think we all agree that WWI was a tremendous waste of good will, energy, effort, good people - is this project going to reflect this waste?

    Posted

  • Mark_Stokes by Mark_Stokes

    I agree with the above post. It is frustrating to go through nearly a month's supply of war diaries, with no reference to the year in them, to find it at the end of the month. Also I have found different spelling of place names, that actually exist on the map, unlike an earlier miswriting or a person's name that had previously been only partially readable .There is no way of going back and amending your work.

    For who's benefit are we spending all this time and money (it costs to run my laptop etc) I thought I may be able to help families find their relatives, but unless they are an officer, they are seldom mentioned by name.

    Posted

  • milh0use by milh0use

    Many questions/comments have been made concerning other tags that could be added (e.g. friendly fire/accidental deaths; 'general' casualties where casualty type not specified). Activities of ambulance, sanitary, R.E. corps. Tracking of horses killed either in action or due to injury . Ability to specify in "reserve", "support" and "front" trenches. 'Demob', 'temporary detachment/attachment' as person tags. And on and on and on.

    Volunteers are welcome to hash-tag subjects in the talk pages and those hash tags and comments can be linked back to the original image (as long as you click the "Talk Comments" link at the top of the diary pane) once the data is extracted. There is also a balance to be struck between completeness of the information and giving people a task that is manageable such that we don't discourage volunteers. Do remember that we need classifications from multiple users before each page is considered complete, and the more difficult we make the task, the smaller the number of volunteers will want to participate.

    It is frustrating to go through nearly a month's supply of war diaries, with no reference to the year in them, to find it at the end of the month.

    We do have the context of each of the pages within the diary, so where there is information like a year missing from a classification, we will be able to infer that from a simple rule like "where the year is missing, use the most recently entered year from an earlier page", so don't worry too much about partial dates.

    Likewise with placenames, we may be able to do some selective normalisation of entered names. Once a diary sequence is complete, we can output a list of placenames and try to spot spelling differences.

    Posted

  • Josie_Holford by Josie_Holford in response to itsmestephanie's comment.

    Agreed. It seems like a missed opportunity. The solution some take is to use the "Talk" area to add this information. But of course the "Talk" area doesn't actually seem to be intended for actual "talk."

    Posted