[bksvol-discuss] Re: Need Help to Confirm Bug In Bookshare Tools
- From: "EVAN REESE" <mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:04:10 -0400
Well, just checked the Daisy file, and the two errors we found are in the xml
file. However, here the words seem to be split by hard returns, rather than
spaces as they are in the brf version. I've pasted the lines where they occur
below.
"I assure you," the man calls back as he vanishes into the fog, "luck w
ill have nothing to do with it."
Then a few lines down:
Among those who hear him is a gi
rl. She puts a dirty hand over her mouth and does a little jig of delight to
keep ...
But, as I said, these are in a section that is all in italics, and I'm
beginning to think that that may have something to do with it, somehow. I hope
so, because that would restrict these kinds of errors to a much smaller
potential space than the whole book.
Evan
----- Original Message -----
From: Mayrie ReNae
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 1:16 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Need Help to Confirm Bug In Bookshare Tools
Hi Evan,
I'll definitely download a book that I proofread to check for this kind
of error.
However, I wonder. When using the brf files, will the weird spacing
occur if bookshare thinks that you are using a different size braille display
than you are actually using? I know that in my account I needed to specify the
size of braille display I use to download brf files.
Did you check the xml or daisy file on your book to see if it is just a
brf thing?
Mayrie
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of EVAN REESE
Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2009 6:26 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Need Help to Confirm Bug In Bookshare Tools
Hello All,
Lissi and I have discovered that in one recent book we did, errors were
introduced by the Bookshare processing that were not in the original rtf
submission. These errors take the form of words being split, often in strange
places--that is, not between syllables. I was checking the quality of a recent
book we did and discovered that the word "girl" appeared in one place as "gi
rl", and the word "will" appeared as "w ill". That was in just the first few
pages. It seems likely that more of these will appear if I keep reading. We
checked Lissi's proofread rtf file, and neither of these errors were there. I
had seen this odd word splitting in some other books, some of which I was
thinking of rescanning, and just assumed they were scannoes that were not
noticed by the proofreader. (I'm sure that many of you know that lots of books
get into the collection without a REAL proofreading, even now.) It never
occurred to me until today that these errors would come from Bookshare's tools.
It was a bit of a shock, in fact.
Lissi did mention that when she has clicked on the link for misspellings when
checking in a book, she has sometimes seen letter groupings tagged as errors
that she was not able to find in the rtf file, so she was unable to correct
them. When she was not able to find the misspellings in the file, she ignored
them, figuring that Bookshare was just wrong. That is not as strange a position
to take is it may sound, since Bookshare cannot even give a consistent word
count on the submission form!
I use brf files, but if these errors are being introduced before braille
translation, then they would probably appear in the Daisy version of the book
as well.
We plan to check some of our other books to see how prevalent this problem
is, but we can at least say for certain that the Bookshare tools introduced
errors in at least this book that were not in the file that was checked back in
after proofreading. It seems very unlikely that this particular book would be
unique. If this happened to this book, then it is likely happening to others.
That's what we want your help with. We would be very grateful if some of you
out there would be willing to check a proofreading or two of your own and see
if this problem exists in those books. I think it would be best to check
proofreading's, not submissions, to eliminate the possibility of errors that
might have crept in between submission and proofreading. I know this may take a
bit of time, since not only do you need to find any split words, but then you
need to compare the Bookshare version with the original rtf file so that it can
be shown that those errors are not in the file that was checked back in to
Bookshare. It is probably best to check the most recent proofreading's to
ensure that any problems you discover were not the result of tools that have
been superseded. The book we found these split words in was added to the
collection on June 18. On the other hand, I don't think that huge numbers of
examples need to be found in each book. If just a few examples are identified
in several recently added books, that should be enough evidence to prove that
the Bookshare tools are adding these errors. Maybe, if a few more people can
confirm this, we can get it looked into.
Thanks a lot for any help in this investigation. It's a little disappointing
to think that those of us who do our very best to get the highest quality books
into the collection might be having our work degraded by a software glitch of
some kind. We're hoping to get some confirmation of this particular glitch so
we can quash it as soon as possible to ensure the best reading experience for
readers. I know most of you here agree on that, otherwise you probably wouldn't
be subscribed.
Thanks again for helping us check into this if you can.
Evan
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