Why are the “reliability” fields no longer used in the full coin record pages for individual Celtic coin specimens, as they were in the Epaticcus prototype?
In the Epaticcus prototype, and the first phase of the Celtic Coin Index Online proper, the “reliability” fields were retained from the Oxford database. The reliability relates to the quality of the data, in the opinion of the cataloguer. There is no standard system for assessing the reliability of reported information. We have observed that, over time, various cataloguers have assessed reliability in different ways: some appear to have used a 3 point scale, while others have used a 5 point scale; furthermore, comments regarding reliability often contradict the reliability ratings themselves. Since these fields are based on subjective judgments that are not consistent from one cataloguer to the next, over a span of forty years, and considering that these fields do not represent any hard data, we have thought they were more confusing than helpful. We believe that future researchers cannot do better than to assess the totality of the data based on the criteria they think most pertinent.
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