[bksvol-discuss] Re: Thoughts on Validating and Rejecting
- From: "Katie Star" <kaitlyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 19:25:02 -0700
Hello Lisa,
You make some good points in your well written mail.
Yes, if all scanners did the cleanup, spell check , made corrections of
scannos and other errors then a validator would only need to do what is laid
out in the guidelines. Maybe once we get the new staff up and running and
now that the admin queue is getting down to a very manageable number some of
these issues can be addressed.
Fairness and equality in compensation for both scanners and validators maybe
should be revisited. I am sure when Bookshare launched four plus years ago
this system worked and it was a starting point. Now that Bookshare has a
solid base of volunteers maybe a channel for the current group could be
opened up for us to put our input in and in some kind of open forum we as
lovers of books and reading help define a system that will reflect the
reality of what is being done in the process. The key is a channel of open
communication opposed to just dozens of posts that we hope one day will be
addressed.
I hope everyone had a good weekend! I enjoyed taking in the Rose Festival
here in Portland Oregon. Saturday I went to the Parade of Roses and today
spent the day on the river front cheering on the dragon boat teams:)
Katie Hill
Miracles happen not in opposition to Nature, but in opposition to
what we know of Nature.
-St. Augustine
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lisa Belville
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 10:26 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Thoughts on Validating and Rejecting
Hi, Monica.
As someone who only validates, I am in complete agreement with you.
I feel like sometimes we Validators are held to a higher standard of work
than submitters. Before anyone flames me... Not all submitters are guilty
of this; it's obvious that most submitters put a great deal of effort into
their scans, correcting common scannOs, making sure pages are present and
accounted for, etc.. The fact that submitters like Carrie, Scott, Katie and
Shelley are on this list and are willing to answer questions and clarify
things for us speaks volumes.
However, I have validated, and attempted to validate, books where this
wasn't
the case. We have discussed certain submitters on here that do not care
about the quality of the books they submit for Bookshare, and those
submitters are the ones who seem only to be interested in earning their
$2.50 credit.
I can accept the original rationale for the difference in credit for a
submitter and a validator. I think it was believe that submitters would
submit mostly legible scans, so the validator's job of ensuring the book was
complete and that the copyright information was intact was a fair exchange.
However, as many of us can attest, this is not where validating ends for
most of us. There are a few submitters who make it really easy to earn that
fifty cent credit because they have gone the extra mile to clean up their
scans, and because they are willing to re-scan portions of a book to
make it easier for us. However, it's been my experience that a few of the
frequent submitters... and here again, this isn't referring to anyone on
this
list... do not make themselves accessible to us, and still they get their
credit after the validator has spent more time cleaning up the book than the
original submitter did scanning and submitting it. yes, it is my choice as
a validator to spend this extra time making corrections and modifications,
but I shouldn't have to if the submitter does his/her job properly. doing
this has tought me more than I ever thought I knew about the functionality
of MS Word, which has come in handy outside of the Bookshare arena.
<smiles>
Still, I wouldn't mind only earning fifty cents credit if every scan were
spotless.
But if I have to spend hours correcting scannO's, determining where pages
should end or begin, determining scanno's from actual words while trying to
preserve the original layout of the book, earning only fifty cents credit
seems ludicrous, since I have basically done the work of the original
submitter. Most of us have jobs, school, lives outside of Bookshare. I see
nothing wrong with rejecting a book because it's quality is so poor it would
be more efficient to re-scan it.
Not all of us have the means or inclination to obtain a copy of Kurzweil.
If the implication is that Kurzweil is the software of choice for submitters
and validators because it can make mass corrections simpler and more
efficient, then Bookshare is going to loose a lot of talented validators.
I will admit that over the past few months, I've become a validation snob.
There are some books I will not download for review if I see the submitter's
name and know that that particular submitter routinely submits scans that
are too time-consuming and require too much correction for me. I only have
a set amount of patience for some things, especially since Bookshare has
empahsized the need to increase the quality of its library. Maybe rejecting
books submitted by a few people will encourage them to re-scan a book or
two.
I think the key here is to encourage quality from the beginning, and this
means increasing the quality of submissions. If this means a book is
rejected, this is the price we will have to pay for insuring quality. It
comes back to the question of Quantity over Quality. Would Bookshare rather
have one hundred thousand books of varying quality or fifty thousand books
of excellent quality?
I really don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings here, I'm only trying to
explain why some of us feel it's necessary to reject a book rather than fix
it up. I don't think we're being lazy or trying to undermine the mission of
Bookshare by rejecting a book we feel needs too much work.
Lisa
----- Original Message -----
From: "Monica Willyard" <plumlipstick@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 5:39 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: rejected "Flash Flood" by Diann Mills
> Elizabeth, I appreciate your willingness to rescue poorly scanned books.
> However, I do think that it is the responsibility of the submitter to
> insert some page breaks into their books and to do a basic spellcheck.
> Not all validaters are willing to do the painstaking work of
> reconstructing a book, and Dan was well within his right as a validater to
> reject a book of poor quality and that lacks page breaks. I see a lot of
> people on this list who are scolded for following the rules and rejecting
> books according to Bookshare's stated policies. I agree that there are
> times when discussing a possible rejection with the list can be helpful.
> Something about posts like this comes across to me as second-guessing
> decisions made by a validater and that has the potential to undermine
> his/her confidence. I no longer post about the books I reject to this
> list because of responses like this one. I update Jake's list, and that
> is as far as I'm willing to go with posting on this issue. I'm willing to
> look at my reaction to your post, and maybe I'm just having a rough week
> and am over-reacting to it. I want to be fair to you, and yet something
> about this issue gets under my skin. Thanks for listening to me try to
> sort this all out.
>
>
> Monica
> Visit my blog at: http://plumlipstick.livejournal.com
>
>
> On Wednesday 6/7/2006 05:32 PM, you wrote:
>>Please, if you find a book like that with a lot of scano typing errors,
>>put it back on step 1. A lot of correcting can be done on just those
>>kinds of errors with k1000. You may want to talk about your reasons for
>>rejecting a book on this list before actually rejecting it. Then, you may
>>find you can release certain books for others to work on who have access
>>to tools you may not have.
>>
>>E.
>
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