Edit Instructions

This encyclopaedia was set up and maintained by Susanne M Hoffmann (ed.). Concept, idea, framework by Susanne M Hoffmann based on necessities that emerged from several projects of research and development such as:

• the wish to store and continuously update/ maintain her own research finds in the history of astronomy, e.g.
  • ancient Greek star catalogues (Hipparchus, Aratus, Eratosthenes)
  • ancient Babylonian star & constellation catalogues (README)
  • her research method to connect mathematical astronomical data with cultural data and the absence of a storage system for the latter
  • inspired by the philological project of an astronomical dictionary entitled "Planetarium Babylonicum" by Felix Gössmann (1950).
• Stellarium software development and the increasing amout of sky culture data
• the need of the IAU Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)

Hence, the ASE is the intellectual property of Susanne M Hoffmann (ed.) and all authors: like proceedings volumes in the age of books.

For any question: please contact Susanne M Hoffmann.

Authors

The content, however, is of course not only generated by one person alone. The content is contributed by selected scholars with whom the editor collaborates, foremost the Working Group on Star Names of the IAU. The author information is always given pagewise (currently: at the bottom). Like in research papers: authors are all people who contributed anything: the student who edited the references, the postdoc who made the maps and images, as well as the professor who wrote or edited the main text.

You have to accept that your contribution is reworked by others, as this is the core idea of an encyclopaedia:

• We want to be up to date: when a new paper appears, its new finds will be included.
• PLEASE DON'T DELETE other authors's contribution! This is not an amateur project, so please treat your colleagues with RESPECT. In case of doubt: ask the colleague and/or the editor!
• Please edit other scholars pages with respect: remember, your edit will make you co-author, so if you would only change a comma, consider reaching out to the colleague instead. However, if you rework the entire page to improve the English, the style or whatever, then go ahead: your work will be acknowledged by co-authorship. This is rather common in all disciplines of research.
• Never edit citations! A citation - no matter if it is from a website-book (like http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/contents.html) or a book on paper: citations are statements of other authors, so please treat them with the usual citation rules.
• We only include published work to be sure that the original will be available and is reviewed (at least by editors, ideally in a peer-reviewing process).
• However, our researchers sometimes find new things while writing the ASE: so, in some cases, you will read things here in slightly different ways then in publications. Yet, if the newly generated knowledge is a bigger issue, the author would first get it published in a book or paper before including the information here.
• This encyclopaedia is created in the framework of the IAU - so it will be considered authoritative (as our naming of stars is). Although the ASE is a working tool for the IAU WGSN, we are especially cautious: we do not offer preliminary "working tables", not any minutes of internal discussions (only arguments for or against other options of naming like spelling variants, name variants, other stars), but only compiled information. While preparing a star name discussion, a lemma/ page might be incomplete (as a matter of fact).

List of Contributors

Sky Cultures

Overview Page

Each culture has an overview page on which is a list of words in tabular layout:

word in original language (with native characters)	word in (English akademic) Romanisation	transliteration: simplified	translation (English)	Commentary
This column may contain Sanskrit, Arabic or whatever non-Latin letters, or CKJ-signs or anything that exists in Unicode.	This spelling may consist diacritics has a hyperlink to the lemma page.	for many languages, there is version of spelling without diacritics, e.g. Chinese "Běi Dǒu" becomes "Beidou" or Arabic al-Ḫāṭib may become al-Khatib.	we need a simple (one word, ideally) tranlation that gives at least a glance of the meaning. Details are spelled out on the lemma page. For instances, if the term is the name of an ancient deity, it would be sufficient to state here "Deity" and perhaps the realm (if simple enough).	this column is for basic dictionary instructions, e.g. "see other lemma" with the other lemma hyperlinked or "obsolete spelling of ..." with hyperlink to the other term

Side Menu

In the upper left side menu, we create a list of cultures.

The traditional written cultures from Eurasia are called "Planetarium ..." in acknowledgement of Gössmann's work.

However, it does not make sense to translate all Indigenous cultures's names to Latin (which is an extinct language). So, we started to use the Stellarium terminology, e.g. for "Balinese Sky Culture" and other.

In the future, this menu will get too long and will be replaced with a geographical map (we already have test versions of it, but it is still under development). Please ask Susanne M Hoffmann for more information.

ASE page schema (two slightly different versions)

Lemma Pages

The lemma pages follow a strict schema, as the ASE is meant to contain information on astronomical data, philology and the history of transfer and transformation of words and images, namely change of vocubulary (etymology) and change of the position/ star/ asterism to which they are applied.

Please make sure that you include images of

• the oldest depiction of the star name/ constellation name that you know: this might be detail of a map where it is depicted, a star catalogue where the name is mentioned, or any other source
• any depiction of the real object that it designates: e.g. if it designates a giraffe, then find an adequate photograph of the animal or take one in the next zoo, if it normally designates a historical instrument or a deity, then people from other cultures would probably not know what you are talking about with any historical depiction (museums, temple walls, etc.)

Edit Help (page)

Format of the Page

All pages have a standardized layout.

We are currently designing an input form to help authors not to forget any information. Yet, we are still in the test phase.

For the time being, we work with so-called "Patterns".

Editing

Most users would want to edit in the mode of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Then, the editor looks like this:

You can switch to "Edit source" on the right to edit in source code mode. In most cases this will be unnecessary.

In the upper menu, you have all functions that you typically need:

• a drop down menu for the editing ("Paragraph" or "Headline" or "Block quote")
• bold, italic, underlined ... and so on,
• hyperlink: ∞
• "Cite"
• list formating (bullet point list or numbered list, increase/decrease indent)
• "Insert" for images, tables etc.
• and special characters.

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  ASE Editor - the button for dropdown menu of text type

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  ASE Editor - the button for "text formatting" marked

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  ASE Editor - the button for "hyperlink" marked

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  ASE Editor - the button and menu for citation marked

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  ASE Editor - the button for "insert a list" marked

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  ASE Editor - insert menu marked

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  ASE Editor - the button for "special character" marked

Note that the "Special Characters" menu has a scroll down menu:

Use the scroll bar on the left to select your wished character set.

Citation

Note that currently only the "Basic" function works. The other options are displayed but do not work yet: blame Susanne M Hoffmann.

Image Uploads and Inclusion

find UPLOAD FILE in sidemenu

In the editor menu, there is the pretty obvious option to include an image. This opens a file browser where you can also upload images. However, then you need to remember to set the licence for your uploaded image manually. As we are humans and tend to forget formalities, it is highly recommend to use this menu only to insert files that are already uploaded.

For new uploads of files, please scroll to the "UPLOAD FILE" menu at the left sidemenu.

I personally always have it open in another tab.

File Uploads

Other file uploads (video, PDF of historical documents) can also be done with the same upload menu.

Please make sure that you have the right to share it under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.

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  upload menu: licence selector

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  upload menu: licence selector

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  full upload menu

Categories

All entries must have at least four categories from these areas.

When you are done with editing a specific page, please make sure that the "Categories" are set and that they are set properly.

This is highly important for links to other software projects, specifically Stellarium, but also for our Encyclopaedia (so that it appears in the correct selections when automatically generated).

1. Switch to "Edit source" mode (see above)
2. scroll down to the very bottom of the page
3. add categories manually with the command [[ Category: ...]]
4. The list of valid categories can be found here.

Please make sure you set at least five categories:

1. for the geographical region according to the UN-schema
2. for the language
3. for the culture
4. for the object type (always "Asterism" but also ""Star name" or "Constellation" or "IAU-Star name"?)
5. for the IAU-constellation(s) of its position in three letter-abbreviation (e.g. "Cam" or "Oct")

our "Digital Library" Pages (References)

In addition to the references that are given on specific lemma pages, we also maintain lists of frequently cited literature. Originally, these pages came into being to make it easier for the authors and editor for copy & pasting the references to the lemma page. However, they also provide a huge advantage when we write papers/ books.

Furthermore, in this digital format, we can provide much more material - e.g. the full historical map or digital 3D-globe from which a detail is presented on a lemma page.

Therefore, we like to also continue the library sub-project, as it provides additional value to researchers: very much like in the age of books when you have lists of references chapterwise and additionally at the end of the book one much longer compilation.