Crowdsource Pleiades, Online Classical Atlas

Pleiades, the online classical atlas, is inviting the (scholarly) public to “adopt” a classical place for Valentine’s Day.  Tom Elliot at Horothesia writes:

Here are some examples of things you could do (many of them quickly) to enhance the content in Pleiades:

• Add a modern name for an ancient settlement (see, for example: http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/579885, sub “Names:”)

• Add Greek orthography to an existing ancient name record that only has a transliteration (compare, for example, http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/638753/stauropolis and http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/599612/arsinoeia)

• Add a link to a corresponding entry in:
  • Wikipedia (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/142847211, sub “References:”)
  • The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites at Perseus (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/599659, sub “References”)
  • FastiOnline (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/481808, sub “References”)

• Add a link to the website of a current excavation of that site (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/550595, sub “Details” and “References”)

• Add a link to a book in the Internet Archive or Google Books that treats the place or name in question (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/638753/ninoe, sub “Primary Reference Citations:”)

• Flesh out the description of a place
  • A little bit (e.g., compare http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/912910/ to the original version of the resource, as imported)
  • A lot (e.g., compare http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/727153 to the original version)

Here are some ways you could use links to Pleiades to enrich content elsewhere on the web

• Add a Pleiades URI to a blog post or web site that you author or edit (e.g., http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2011/01/schliemann-diaries-online-at-ascsa.html — scroll down)
• Add a Pleiades URI to comments on a Flickr or Panoramio or Picasa image (e.g., http://www.flickr.com/photos/isawnyu/5054947503/)

I’m trying to decide what place to adopt; since Pleiades only covers the Greek and Roman world, my favorite Bronze Age sites are not included.  (Ooh, I just thought of one for me – I’ll do Halieis!)  Surely you have a favorite, too?

I’m also writing to a couple of the faculty members I work with to suggest this as an assignment for their classes – even as an optional, extra-credit sort of assignment.  In Classics this semester there’s a 2000-level class in Classical Archaeology and a 4000-level class in Roman Cities, where the major semester assignment is to report on a specific place – this would fit right in to either, and since we lost a week at the start of the semester, syllabi are still in flux for many faculty.