Pleiades Hack Day

I'm thinking it's time. Time we designated a particular day to give over to ganging up on Pleiades content and making it better. Looking at the low-hanging-and-annoying-fruit list, the first thing that comes to mind is improving our titles and descriptions to facilitate discovery and disambiguation. I've laid out what I see as the landscape in a document on the Pleiades site: Improving Titles and Descriptions for Prominent Places.

So what remains is to see who would be willing to devote at least a couple of hours (if not a whole day) to this enterprise and to fix a day for it. You don't need to be an expert to help with this job. Anyone interested at all in ancient geography who has basic web skills and can get on the internet at the scheduled time should be able to make a substantive contribution, whether they are a student, a scholar or an interested "layperson".

If you're interested, leave a comment on my blog and I'll send you a link to a doodle poll to do the scheduling.

Meetup: The Future of the Ancient World Image Bank

So, my brain has mashed up its happiness at the success of last week's Pleiades community meetup with the hanging conversations that started in response to my blog post on Pleiades machine tags in Flickr. Nate Nagy (AWIB Managing Editor) and I had a good conversation a couple of weeks ago about the future of AWIB, one that would be more open and collaborative than the current model.

I'd like to light a fire under (and refine) those ideas. I'm starting a Doodle poll to find a time for a "future of AWIB" meetup, to be held via Google+. I'll send invites to all of our contacts on Flickr and others who have expressed interest. Please post a comment here if you'd like to be part of the event.

Unexpected End to a Halloween Tradition

There's a thread going about this on Facebook, but since that's a walled garden I'm going to repeat my initial post here for the consideration of a wider audience (assuming there is an audience):

So the answer to the question "When are we going to hear about the Randolph School Halloween Carnival this year" seems to be: "there's not going to be one; it's been rebranded as the 'first-ever Raider Ruckus'". Color me sad and frustrated. An extended pep rally is fine and good, but the Halloween Carnival was a great tradition and gave our kids a fantastic venue for the holiday. The question now is: "what rationale, and driven by whom, brought about this change?"

And, no, I'm guessing they're not aware that the Urban Dictionary glosses a "raider ruckus" as a "drug dealer" (citing a lyric from Method Man's What the Blood Clot).

Taygete Atlantis (Dig Blogs) Returns to Service

I've just returned the Taygete Atlantis Archaeological Dig Blog Aggregator to service, with the following changes:

• Deleted "Pyla-Koutsopetria Graduate Student Perspectives" (feed and blog return 404)
• Deleted "Pyla-Koutsopetria Season Staff Blog" (feed and blog return 404)
• Deleted "Pyla-Koutsopetria Undergraduate Perspectives" (feed and blog return 404)
• Deleted "ArchAurore's Blog on Archaeology" (feed and blog return 404)
• Added "Tell Edfu - The 2011 Season" (hat-tip to Chuck Jones at the OI History Blog)
• Added "Kizilburun Project Blog"

You can view the full subscription list on the Taygete Atlantis page, or download it in OPML form to install in your own feed reader. 

Please drop me a line if you know of excavation blogs that should be added.

Recently Added to Maia Atlantis

The following blogs have recently been added to the Maia Atlantis Feed Aggregator:

• Bill Caraher (The New Archaeology of the Mediterranean World)
• ArcLand News
• L’Association Française pour l’étude de l’âge du Fer (Le Blog de l'AFEAF)
• Antiquité, Moyen Age, Méthodes: Séminaire de méthodologie des doctorants de l'Ecole doctorale I "Mondes anciens et médiévaux" de l'université de Paris-Sorbonne
• Thibaud Fournet et al. (Balneorient) 
• André Cauty (Intelligence Arithmétique Maya)
• Aurélien Berra (Philologie à venir)
• Benjamin Girard-Millereau et al. (PRISME: pratiques rituelles et symboliques en Méditerranée nord-occidentale protohistorique)
• Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire et al. (CITERE: Circulations, territoires et réseaux en Europe de l’âge classique aux Lumières)
• Samuel Hardy (Conflict Antiquities)
• Samuel Hardy (Human Rights Archaeology)
• Nathan Craig and Margaret Vega (Looting = Huaqueando)
• Roberta Mazza (Ancient History and Papyrology)
• Ancient People and Things
• Ségolène Tarte (From Artefact to Meaning)

Recently Added to Electra Atlantis

The following blogs have recently been added to the Electra Atlantis feed aggregator:

• The Signal: Digital Preservation
• Bill Caraher (The New Archaeology of the Mediterranean World)
• Ségolène Tarte (From Artefact to Meaning)
• Aurélien Berra (Philologie à venir)
• Praxis Program at the Scholars' Lab
• SCARLET (Special Collections using Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching)
• LODLAM: Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives and Museums (June 2-3, 2011, San Francisco)

Maia Atlantis Returns to Service, With Changes

The Maia Atlantis feed aggregator has just been put back into service. The following blogs are no longer indexed:

• Arkeologi Lampung: feed not well-formed
• Fernando Lillo Redonet (Latín y Cultura Clásica en el siglo XXI): feed hangs on request
• Nick Nicholas (Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος): feed contains invalid unicode character
• CHS Fellowships Research Blog: feed returns 404 "not found"
• Antiquity Lives: feed returns 404 "not found"
• Épave sous-marine : Arles-Rhône 3: feed not well-formed