LP9: Digital Classicist Wiki

Written by Rosemary Selth

The other week I attended Activity 4 of the Linked Pasts Symposium 2023 – a geo-themed sprint for the Digital Classicist Wiki. Although MANTO doesn’t only focus on geographical data, it seemed like it would be a useful introduction to the Digital Classicist Wiki and would give me the tools needed to keep pages relating to MANTO and other Mythlab initiatives up-to-date. 

The first session was a brief but comprehensive introduction to the Digital Classicist Wiki, going over the basics of how to edit and create entries on the wiki and the most necessary information to include. Prior to the session I was given a login to the site to allow me to start editing pages myself. Although MANTO was not on the prepared list of geo-themed projects that needed to be updated, I was made very welcome and encouraged to attend the second session. 

On the following day, I attended the sprint itself – some people edited pages related to their own projects while others did some general updates to old pages on geo-themed projects. Although each worked individually, the activity allowed people to ask questions when necessary. I spent this hour updating the MANTO page with links to the public interface and an updated list of classical texts from which MANTO draws its data. I was also able to update the Mythlab page, create a brief entry for Canopos and link both it and the MANTO entry back to Mythlab. I was surprised just how simple and intuitive the process was. It will be very easy to make updates to these pages in future as MANTO and other Mythlab projects are expanded. 

Many thanks to Tom Gheldof and Valeria Vitale for organising such a useful introduction to this valuable resource.