Thinker Browser FAQ
From Inpho Wiki
What am I supposed to do here?
Your task on the thinker page (login required) is to help verify/provide biographical information about philosophers in our database. This information will greatly help us enhance the areas of our ontology having to do with philosophical thinkers. You should browse through the pages, viewing the entries in our biographical database on philosophers you are familiar with. Once on a particular philosopher's page, you can enter information about that philosopher such as birth dates, death dates, professions, name other philosophers who taught that person and rate their degree of influence, and so on. Some of the information has been "slurped" from various sources on the Internet, and this information should all be regarded as "uncertain". In addition to entering information from scratch, you can assist our task by "marking" information we have obtained as accurate or inaccurate.
Why can't I enter a birthdate for a philosopher? The box is grayed out and I can't change the date.
We currently allow people to manually enter birthdates for philosophers on a "first come, first serve" basis. If there is a date for a philosopher and it is grayed out, this means we already have obtained a birthdate/deathdate for that philosopher. If you know this date to be incorrect, please let us know by clicking on the "report" button. This will take you to another page, where you may suggest the correct date. The case will then be reviewed by an SEP editor, and appropriate changes will be made to the database.
How should I handle "BC"/"BCE" dates?
BC/BCE dates should be entered as negative numbers (just precede the number by a "-"). Our system will process the date appropriately.
What if there is some uncertainty regarding the precise birth or death dates of a philosopher? Can I enter a range?
Date ranges can be indicated by putting a "-" between two dates. E.g: "120-122", "-360--358".
How do I browse to the entry for a certain philosopher?
You can browse to the entry of a certain philosopher by entering the name in the "browse database for" field. This field (and others on the page) uses an autocomplete feature that searches our (extensive) philosopher database for the name in which you are interested. Once the appropriate name shows up, click on that name to confirm the autocomplete and then click the "go" button next to the search box. This will display the all biographical information currently possessed for that philosopher. (Sometimes the autocomplete feature takes time to load; please be patient!).
If you cannot find the philosopher for which you are searching, you might try alternate spellings or variants of the name. If a philosopher is not contained in our system, please let us know. Only editors can currently add philosophers to the database; but if you would like a name added, please let us know at inpho@indiana.edu.
What does the "degree of influence" mean?
The degree of influence follows its intuitive interpretation. A very strong degree of influence on the target philosopher would indicate that most of that person's work can be seen as guided by or a reaction to the work of the other philosopher. No influence should indicate that the name is on the list by mistake, and that the target philosopher was no more than minimally aware of the other's work.
Once entered, degrees of influence will be indicated by shading. A dark green shade indicates a strong degree of influence; a lighter green indicates a weaker degree of influence. Red indicates no influence.
What does "teacher of" and "student of" mean?
These indicate professional relationships that hold/held between philosophers. They should be confined to professional relationships of central importance, like dissertation advisers, or teachers who had very significant effects on the student's views.
Note that in order to mark a "teacher" or "student" record as being accurate or inaccurate, you must first click on the appropriate name and then indicate yes or no and clicking on the "mark" button.
What is the "alternate names" box for?
Many philosophers have nicknames and alternate spellings of names. You can greatly assist our automated methods by helping us locate alternative spellings, nicknames, and transliterations for philosophers. Enter in alternative spellings and click "Add" to submit the name to our list of aliases.
