Probably because Who Knew Whom<\/em> hasn\u2019t got there yet; the way it grows is by expansion via direct acquaintanceship from what\u2019s already in place, so usually it\u2019s just a matter of time. But it may be that although the person in question appeared to be linked to an existing individual, we couldn\u2019t substantiate the acquaintanceship to our satisfaction (see \u201cCAN I SUGGEST\u2026\u201d below.) Or, whatever your opinion of X\u2019s significance in the great scheme of things, we weren\u2019t so convinced. Sorry, but Who Knew Whom<\/em> couldn\u2019t exist without evaluative judgments being applied; the line between inclusion and exclusion has to be a fine one.<\/p>\n Yes, you certainly can: email us from the \u2019Who We Are\/Contact\u2019 page. But please do Who Knew Whom<\/em> a favour by sending us one or more authoritative URL\u2019s that will enable us to substantiate your statement (and please understand that even the best sites can be fallible.) If an acquaintanceship is noted in Who Knew Whom<\/em>, you can trust that it\u2019s been well researched: we don\u2019t take it as gospel just because it\u2019s been published elsewhere. Who Knew Whom<\/em>\u2019s reference library is modest by others\u2019 standards, so if you\u2019ve found the information in a wonderful book, please provide the reference, but understand that we probably haven\u2019t got that particular volume on our shelves. That\u2019s why we ask for URL\u2019s too.<\/p>\n There are several answers to this. In general, the more recent someone is, the more information is available on them (as long as they\u2019ve been around long enough to get written about.) Also, the easier it tends to be to evaluate the information about them: confirming the accuracy of information is critical to Who Knew Whom<\/em>\u2019s progress. Above all else though, in the picture of the 20thC, the grain is so much clearer: so much more detail is visible (and of course it\u2019s the immediate hinterland to where we are now, an important consideration for Who Knew Whom<\/em>.) The further back you go, the more the converse of all this is true. Taken together, these factors mean that Who Knew Whom<\/em> represents history with a non-linear scale of progression; the perspective, as it were, of the rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n Who Knew Whom<\/em> is in fact very keen to embrace cultural doers and thinkers wherever they\u2019re from: the spirit of pluralism is in its genes. But for reasons of pure pragmatism, the decision was made to start the mapping firmly within the Western sphere: we felt that it was in our interest to build up an initial body of information using easily accessible and easily verifiable sources (see above.) The idea is that this step-by-step process of mapping should lead sooner or later to all kinds of individuals and cultural nexuses that in Western circles have not been seen as central (if they\u2019ve been appreciated at all.) We\u2019ll have to see how well this works out.<\/p>\n The idea of what counts as \u2018culture\u2019 of course evolves all the time, and the general view today is much more pluralistic and decentred than even a couple of decades ago (despite the undeniably Latin roots of the term, and the way that these reflect its historical evolution as an idea within the Western mainstream.) Whether the idea of culture, as expressed in English and other languages of European origin, can ever be truly independent of this legacy is another question. Who Knew Whom<\/em> is certainly interested in helping it try.<\/p>\n Guess. You have to remember which of the two groups, historically and geographically, has generally been in a better position to \u2018achieve.\u2019 Then you have to consider that this disproportionality is still strongly reflected in almost all of the cultural resources (books, websites, etc.) that a project like Who Knew Whom<\/em> is dependent on, in seeking information on individuals. Who Knew Whom<\/em> is as interested as anyone in extending our knowledge of significant players who happened to be female; but we can only work with available information.<\/p>\n Our project is essentially cartographic. Our job, as we see it, is to look around, sometimes poking into corners that may not have been in full view, and note what we find; happily including any connections we can authenticate that may extend one or another kind of \u2019minority\u2019 representation. We are not equipped, however, to undertake a wholesale rewriting of cultural history; that would be for others to take on.<\/p>\n Maybe (relatively speaking, of course), or maybe not\u2026 and we\u2019re as robustly opinionated as anyone. One thing Who Knew Whom<\/em> tries not to indulge in is intellectual or aesthetic censorship. If we include someone, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that we like what they\u2019re known for. Culture, as Who Knew Whom<\/em> understands it, has to embrace the awkward facts of what sometimes are awkward achievements. On top of that, the general view of culture changes all the time. People who were widely regarded as peripheral or uninteresting a quarter-century ago are sometimes now seen as central and of major significance; and vice versa. Often it\u2019s a fine line between someone we include and someone else we exclude; but inclusion is always for a reason (that painter, writer, biologist, etc. may still have been a significant influence on their circle of acquaintances, for example.) If visitors to this site all approved of everyone in the database, we\u2019d probably be failing in our duty to culture and to the often oppositional dialogues that help to sustain it. In short, if X is there, it\u2019s because we thought on balance that life would have been that bit less interesting without them.<\/p>\n Short answer: anything from 1 to 50 or 60. Who Knew Whom<\/em> has to place an upper limit on things, for reasons primarily connected with screen legibility and the general quality of user-experience. Not surprisingly, given what is now known about social networks, some individuals featured in Who Knew Whom<\/em> have emerged as super-connectors, with dozens of genuinely significant acquaintanceships; Andr\u00e9 Breton, dubbed the \u2018Pope of Surrealism\u2019 for the congregation he gathered and his habit of excommunicating former colleagues, was one of the first of these to appear. Such people are clearly interesting, not just for their works, but also because of the way they exemplify cultural connectiveness. The exact upper limit on what Who Knew Whom<\/em> can display is something we\u2019re still fine-tuning, and on rare occasions (where a particular individual has more acquaintances recorded in our database than our self-imposed constraints allow to be displayed at the same time), different visits to the same person could result in slightly different selections of their acquaintanceships being presented.<\/p>\n The cursive script used for the Who Knew Whom<\/em> logo, and elsewhere in the site, is from the Handsome Pro family, designed by Nick Shinn of Shinntype in Toronto. It does all kinds of intelligent things that other cursive fonts don\u2019t. All other type is Verdana, designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft, who in an enlightened moment recognised the need for a sans-serif font specifically designed for screen viewing, and made it available to all of us.<\/p>\n Well\u2026 of course you can: information is there to be used. But please be careful about what you take, and please be respectful of our own hard work in putting it together. If you\u2019re writing a student essay, it\u2019s careless (and will probably get you less credit) if you don\u2019t properly acknowledge the source, and it\u2019s plagiarism if you try to pass off our words as your own thought. If it\u2019s your own website you\u2019re building, you could be compounding those sins. In either case, it\u2019s our experience that sloppy work always gets rumbled sooner or later\u2026 usually sooner.<\/p>\n On a more positive note, culture works by transmission, and if you\u2019re taking from this site because you want to spread the word about someone or something, or because something in it helps you construct an argument, flesh out a picture or construct something new, then you\u2019re sharing in that process. Just make sure you do it as well as you can, and credit Who Knew Whom<\/em> and www.culturalcartography.net properly!<\/p>\n No, so please don\u2019t ask. In our book, it\u2019s for you to do, not us. But you say you need it tomorrow, you\u2019re about to fail, and all you want is a few dozen words? Tough. We believe wholeheartedly in education, and would like to think that this site can act as a useful resource. But all of our instincts, beliefs and experience convince us that the real benefit of education, to the student, comes from the student doing the hard work. Sorry, but that means it\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WHY ISN\u2019T MY FAVOURITE PERSON THERE? Probably because Who Knew Whom hasn\u2019t got there yet; the way it grows is by expansion via direct acquaintanceship from what\u2019s already in place, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20","page","type-page","status-publish"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6246,"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions\/6246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalcartography.net\/wkw-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}CAN I SUGGEST YOU ADD IN THAT X WAS A BOSOM BUDDY OF Y?<\/h3>\n
WHY SO MANY MORE PEOPLE FROM THE 20th CENTURY THAN THE 18th?<\/h3>\n
WHY THE HEAVY ACCENT ON \u2019WESTERN\u2019 CULTURE?<\/h3>\n
WHY THE PREPONDERANCE OF MEN OVER WOMEN?<\/h3>\n
BUT X WAS SUCH A DODGY PAINTER\/WRITER\/BIOLOGIST\/ETC.<\/h3>\n
HOW MANY ACQUAINTANCES CAN ONE PERSON HAVE?<\/h3>\n
TALKING OF THE SCREEN VIEW: WHAT ARE THOSE TYPEFACES?<\/h3>\n
CAN I COPY INFORMATION FROM Who Knew Whom<\/em> STRAIGHT INTO MY ESSAY\/PROJECT\/RESEARCH DOCUMENT?<\/h3>\n
CAN YOU DO MY HOMEWORK FOR ME?<\/h3>\n