EDITORIAL
Upgrades (and a note on conflict data)
By: Jon Brunberg | posted: 7/29/2013 11:25:14 AM
Next year I will celebrate the 10th anniversary for this project – and this website. It was in late 2003 that I decided to develop the concept for a global war memorial, and I set up the website in the spring of 2014 after some initial research and fundraising. Since then I have come to think of the website as an integral and essential part of the concept for a global war memorial for all who died because of war since 1945. Not only has it served, and continue to serve, as a tool for presenting data relating to armed conflicts and my thoughts on memoralization in contemporary cultures, it has also been a great help in my attempt to get an overview of the organizations and institutions that work with data gathering and the creation of war memorials.
After a major redesign of the website in 2010 there has been numerous bugs and information gaps that I have not had the time to attend to properly. I’m therefore glad to announce a new upgrade of the website that takes care of some of the glitches. Most of the novelties are "under the hood" but you’ll notice that there’s a new search page and improvements in searches and cross-referencing between for example wars and memorials.
I’ve also started a major update of the data in the war database after a new report by Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) was released in the beginning of July. As you’ve probably already noticed I’m referencing UCDP:s datasets for battle deaths a lot in the war section and specially for interstate wars after 1975. Most of that data was not, however, referenced at all and I’m now working to rectify that by adding notes on fatality numbers on the details page of each conflict. I’m also reviewing and updating the fatality numbers for each conflict starting with the ongoing ones.
The war section was never meant to be “accurate” in a scientific sense, but as this website draws more and more visitors and my numbers are being referenced to at websites such as Wikipedia I feel the urge to be more transparent and coherent when it comes to such a sensitive and often politicized issue as fatalities in war. To achieve that will, however, take some time and I hope you have patience with my efforts.
News
