EvT version 005 codenamed “Hormin”…

…is finally here. Although this version of the inventory is only slightly more voluminous than the previous one (743 units versus 726 in version 004), the changes are significant.

• The tag ontology of the inventory has been thoroughly reconsidered. The previous versions have witnessed its natural evolution and somewhat “organic” proliferation of the new tags, what ultimately led to highly complex structure which was not necessarily the most user-friendly. The tag ontology of the present version has been rearranged on the theoretical and operational level and all the units of the database have been tagged anew. In result, the system is far more coherent and consequent and, naturally, all the tabs of the website are up to date.
• A special case of the above was the removal of the redundant literary genres present in the database. Two such genres have been discarded: the cultic protocol [cult] and the proverb [prov]. Both were very rare and contained too few specific traits which would differentiate them from the other genres. The textual units previously tagged with either of the two are now classified as belonging to one of the other genres, while additional tags have been used to highlight their contents: #aboutentities/#proverbial instead of #prov and #spheresoflife/#halakhah instead of #cult. This means that the genre classification algorithm has also been changed.
• The distinction between the personal and general names has been discarded.
• Due to persistent slowdowns of the sheet processing, the summaries of the database had to be removed – until I find some sensible solution to this problem.
• As always, some minor errors in spelling have been corrected courtesy of the inventory users who were kind enough to point it out in the feedback section. Thank you so much!

The present version of the database has been prepared as a part of my research project The Supernatural Entities and Their Relationships with Humans according to the Babylonian Talmud from the Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives (SONATA 14; Registration number: 2018/31/D/HS1/00513) financed by the National Science Center, Poland.

To be expected in the next version:

• I hope to bring back the summaries contained in the sheet.
• Although the particular tags are self-explanatory, I am working on the short descriptions thereof to be included on the website.
• Also, as already indicated in the previous post, I plan to add new tags to denote some formal aspects of the textual units.

Since I am in the midst of these tasks it seems fairly safe to set the estimated date of the publication of the version 006 for no sooner than autumn 2020. Meanwhile, get yourself some Halloween candies and enjoy the demonic company of Hormin the son of Lilith (Bava Batra 73a-b).