[OHM] Mapping what's on the ground and other good practices

[Richard Welty]

On 3/1/13 4:54 PM, Ed Dykhuizen wrote:
> I can probably throw in some input here. I don't know if you'll be able to
> construct standards for acceptability beforehand. Maybe there can be some
> -- no Atlantises, for example -- but I imagine that there are going to be a
> ton of disputes that won't get resolved, and in order to show something
> coherent, you'll have to rely on the judgments of a bunch of qualified
> editors. Sometimes you'll want to show both sides, like the possible routes
> of Hannibal or the Kashmir dispute. Sometimes you'll have to just ignore
> theories that have less traction in historical discourse. You could set up
> methods for resolving disagreements beforehand, but probably can't start
> out with many specific standards of what constitutes historical accuracy.
>
+1

even in the history of the American Civil War, which is only 150 years past,
there are both known and unknown problems in historic knowledge, and
erroneous conventional wisdom that is in some cases being detected and
fixed, and in other cases, well, not being fixed.

the further in the past you go, the worse it's going to be.

richard