Leftover fields

PanditProject is a highly structured database, an approach that lets us supply you with the ability to filter data in many useful ways. We offer a dedicated field for any recurring discrete piece of data.

There are often additional data for which there is no dedicated field. We don't want to lose this precious data, of course. Such leftover facts should be entered into unstructured text fields using the instructions and conventions given below. Following these conventions helps both human readers and machines. Please make an effort to follow them.

We use two main text fields to enter facts for which there is no dedicated field: "Discrete facts" and "Sets of inseparable facts." You can find both at the bottom of the form of most entity types. For both fields, follow these general instructions:

  1. Use the fact fields only if the data does not match any semantically dedicated field.
  2. Whenever possible, use the "Discrete facts" field for any additional data, and use the "Sets of inseparable facts" field only when the facts are truly inseparable.
  3. If the data is about another entity, enter it under that other entity (not the one that you are creating or editing) and ensure that the two entities are related.

Field: "Discrete facts"

Whenever you can, prefer this field over "Sets of inseparable facts."

Break data down

Divide a paragraph or a complex sentence into separate simpler sentences and enter each as a separate fact.

However, a sentence may be too long to fit into one line (one value), and you cannot break it down without losing its meaning. In such a case, don't break it just for the sake of making the pieces short enough to enter into one line; instead, use the "Sets of inseparable facts" field.

Wording conventions

  1. Enter the information in the shortest way possible.
    • Good example: Refutation of the Uktiniṣṭhābharaṇam.
    • Bad example: Work is a refutation of the Uktiniṣṭhābharaṇam.
  2. Don't repeat the name of the entity.
    • Good example: Born in the second half of the seventeenth century.
    • Bad example: Rāmabhadra Dīkṣiṭa was born in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Field: "Sets of inseparable facts"

Use only when the data make up a closely-knit narrative that you cannot divide into discrete facts without losing its meaning.

The following case is an excellent example of the use of this field because the two points are related. In a work entity names Guṇagāṅkīyaṃ, this text is added:

  • Kuṇacākarar mentions a work with this name in his commentary to the first kārikai of Amitacākarar's Yāpparuṅkalakkārikai. He notes two points of similarity between Amitacākarar's work and a "work on Kannada meter calls Guṇagāṅkīyaṁ". One is that both works contain a second-person address to a woman (makaṭūu-muṉṉilai). The other is that both involve a "submission to the assembly" (avai-y-aṭakkam).