All registered users can add a new entry in the “Sites” category. There are three ways to do this:
1. By clicking the large plus-sign icon at the bottom-center of the map
2. By clicking “Create New Site” on the menu (the top-left corner) 3. By clicking the button “Create New Site” on the Take Part page
All three options take you straight to the “New Entry” input form. You need to fill out three required fields in order to create a new Site: title, category, and address. If you do not know a specific address to associate with your new Site, you can also add the Site as part of the information about the location (i.e. village/town/city, red location marker on the map). To do so, click the corresponding “location marker” on the map to view the information listed there. Within the info panel, click the button “Add New Site.” You can then insert and save all the information about the new Site. If a user later finds out the new Site’s specific address, they can add it later and the Site will be given its own clickable marker on the map.
Open knowledge projects always run the risk of inaccurate information being contributed. This risk cannot be avoided altogether.
However, we know from collaborative websites such as Wikipedia that the more people edit articles, the higher the quality of their content. Jewish Places also has users on the ground in the individual regions who can fact-check information better than a small editorial team ever could. We rely on the public to spot and correct errors as quickly as possible.
When evaluating the quality of a specific article, there are a few useful reference points: Has all the information been substantiated with cited sources? Is the information consistent with other content on the website? How many users have edited the article so far? Does the content come from one of Jewish Places’ official partners? If you are having doubts about a particular article, you can send an email to jewish-places@jmberlin.de.
All registered users are able to add or correct the information about the existing sites and locations on Jewish Places. To edit an entry, you need to enter edit mode. To do so, click the pencil icon on the top-right of the entry’s info panel. In that mode, you are able to edit any individual piece of content, such as the address, images, history, or description. In the “Description” section, you can use the rich-text editor to insert lists, sections, or links into the text. Adding links to specific words is a helpful way to explain hard-to-understand specialized terms through another website (e.g. Wikipedia). While in edit mode, you can also add in missing images, links, or sources.
Please note: for technical reasons, the timeline can only be edited in German. If you would like to modify or add to an entry’s timeline in English, please write us an email and we will be happy to input it for you.
New entries are translated after a week by an automated translation service (DeepL) into German or English. That does not apply to edits made to existing entry elements. Thus, entries in German and English may be different.
If you click on a Site or Location, the “info panel” will open on the left side of the screen. There, you will see all the information gathered so far about that Site or Location.
If you are logged in to Jewish Places, you will see four different icons at the top of the info panel. One of them looks like a bell. If you click the bell, it turns dark: that means you have now followed (subscribed to) this entry and will be notified whenever someone else edits the entry’s content.
You can view a list of all the entries you have followed if you open the menu on the dark-blue bar on the left, then click “User Profile.”
There are various types of mistakes that can be improved: spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, but also factual errors.
Any registered user can make corrections. As long as you have registered with your name and email address, you can improve mistakes. You can register here – it’s easy! Even if it’s just a single comma, every contribution improves the quality of the website.
If you are unsure whether your proposed change is right, go ahead and make your change. It will be reviewed by the editorial team. If your change turns out to be incorrect, the previous version can be easily restored. Jewish Places tracks all changes.
If there is no straightforward fix for a mistake, you can click the button labeled “Report a Problem” to send your change request to the editorial team, who will do their best to correct it quickly. If an article is fundamentally false, click “Request Deletion” to request for the entry to be taken down altogether.
Jewish Places should be user-friendly for anyone, including people without prior knowledge of Jewish history. You can help other users by explaining specialized terms, reducing the use of foreign words (or translating them in parentheses), and writing in an accessible style.
All the information that you add to Jewish Places should be factually correct and demonstrable. Please verify information as best you can. However, if you do make a mistake despite your best efforts, it is no big deal. Other users and the editorial team will help correct the collective text.
Overall, we strive for a nonviolent and inclusive use of words. For example, texts written by our network use gender-neutral language. We also use quotation marks to distance ourselves from outdated or Nazi labels for victim groups, such as Sinti and Roma, and use such terms minimally and exclusively in historical contexts.
Here is how to cite your sources:
Books with one author:
Last name, first name. Title: Subtitle. City: Publisher, Year.
e.g. Elon, Amos. The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743–1933. New York: Picador, 2002.
An essay in an edited anthology:
Last name, first name. “Title of the Essay,” in Editor’s Firstname Lastname, ed. Title of Anthology. City: Publisher, Year, page numbers.
e.g.
Valencia, Heather. “A Yiddish Poet Engages with German Society: A. N. Stencl’s Weimar Period,” in Yiddish in Weimar Berlin. London: Routledge, 2010, pp. 54–72.
Essay in a magazine or journal:
Derek Penslar, “The German-Jewish Soldier: From Participant to Victim.” German History vol. 29, no. 3 (2011), pp. 423–444.
Newspaper article:
Harding, Luke. “Sixty years after war, first rabbis ordained in Germany.” The Guardian, 14 Sep 2006.
Archival sources:
Göttingen Regional Archive, Fahlbusch Papers, box 41, no. 211: Lücke, Heinrich: Groß Lengden. Unsigned typescript. No location, n.d. (= no date)
Any registered user can upload their own images to the Jewish Places website and describe them in more detail. There are two ways to do this:
1. While using the desktop version (that is, working on a large screen, including laptops and tablets): Before you upload an image to the website, it needs to be saved on your device. Next, on the website, select the associated info panel for the Site or Location to which you would like to add the image. In the info panel, click the pencil icon on the top right. You are now in edit mode. Now, in the “Media” section, click the plus-sign icon on the right. Next, click “Photo.” In th next step, find the image you saved and confirm your selection by clicking “Open.” Back on the website, click “Save.” Your image is uploaded. In the form that follows, you need to specify a title, the legal information, and the source of the image. All the other form fields are optional. In the next step, you need to specify the license under which you would like to publish your image. Releasing an image under the CC-by-SA 4.0 means that the image may be published and disseminated by anyone, but only under the same conditions and with attribution of the copyright holder.
If you are not sure whether you are permitted to publish an image (that you haven’t photographed yourself) under this license, you can select the option “There are obstacles to free licensing. I would like to discuss this further.” and elaborate on your reservations to the Jewish Places editorial team.
2. If you are on the go, you can save your image or video to your mobile device and easily upload it to Jewish Places. On the info panel for the Site in question, click the pencil symbol and log in. Next, go to the “Media” section and click the plus-sign icon on the right side of the info panel. Then follow the above instructions.
Videos are embedded in Jewish Places via interfaces with YouTube and Vimeo. To embed a video, you first need to upload it to either YouTube or Vimeo. For more information on how, see the instructions provided by YouTube and Vimeo. After you’ve uploaded your video to one of the platforms, you will obtain a link (URL), which you can easily insert in the edit form under “Media.” Please ensure that your video does not violate anyone’s personality rights as defined by German law (such as close-ups of individuals without their consent).