There is always the danger of vandalism, but it appears that at Wikipedia it is removed very quickly. Wikipedia, though, has a very large participant community. I have a watch list there and when I check it I am always hoping to get a chance to delete vandalism, but I notice that when it does happen someone removes it usually within five minutes or so. At least twice, though, I was quick enough to remove it myself. Wikipedia is not the model that I am thinking of for Bookshare though. As I said, I am thinking of Open Library as the model. I have never seen a tag there that appeared to be deliberate vandalism and even at Wikipedia the deliberate vandalism is only a very small minority of the edits. I do disagree with some of the Open Library tags now and then though. Recently I was looking at The Dolphins of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. One of the subject tags identified it as a fantasy. Well, a lot of people think the Pern novels are fantasy because most of them have the word dragon in the title and dragons are a fantasy trophe. If you actually read the books, though, it will be apparent that they are not fantasy. I improved the Open Library listing by removing the fantasy tag and replacing it with a science fiction tag. This illustrates the fact that the tagging process is a continuously dynamic thing. Tags that are there one day may be gone the next day and nothing is set in stone. I suppose some people might consider this to be a disadvantage, but it does not strike me as much of one since mistakes can always be made and the real disadvantage would be to be stuck with those mistakes. I do think that this would be a very strong remedy for the problems we have with the Bookshare classification system. Want a subcategory? Add it. Find a book that has not been categorized? Categorize it on the spot.
_ _ _"One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all." - Richard Dawkins
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rogerbailey81 The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html----- Original Message ----- From: "Regina Alvarado" <regina.alvarado6@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 4:56 PMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...
I have seen this. Sometimes I wonder if what is put in is true, but it seems to be, and as you said Roger tags giving incorrect information can be removed. I like that idea. Scott? Think we could someday?Reggie -------------------------------------------------- From: "Roger Loran Bailey" <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 11:17 AM To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...A number of sites have user added tags, like Paperbackswap.com, Amazon or OpenLibrary.org. Open Library uses them in a way that is closest to what I think Bookshare should have. At Open Library they are trying to create a page full of bibliographic data for every book that has ever been published. So far they have just short of 25 million listings, most of which have been gathered with bots. That means that a lot of that bibliographic data is inconsistent or incomplete. They, therefore, invite anyone who might be browsing their site to improve the entries. It is similar to Wikipedia in that respect. One can add a description, publishing history, tables of contents, number of pages and so forth. One of the things that is editable by users is categorization. They have categories of tags already available such as topics, dates, places or people mentioned in the book. The user will simply type in the missing category and click save. Then on the page for the book that category will be displayed. Click that tag and every book that any user has given that tag for will appear. When you search the entire collection for any key word you want, at the bottom of the results is a list of tags that various users have given books in your search results. You can then narrow your search by clicking any of those tags. I think that would be an excellent solution for Bookshare for both the books that have a paucity of categorization and for the paucity of categories available. Bookshare has a number of categories as it is, but I am sure that you or anyone else could think of additional categories that would be helpful or subcategories within any of these categories, The problem with that, though, is that the category structure would become entirely unwieldy. With user generated tags, though, as many categories and subcategories as you could think of could be added and, if you thought any of them was inappropriate, could be removed._ _ _"One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all." - Richard DawkinsFollow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rogerbailey81 The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html----- Original Message ----- From: "Regina Alvarado" <regina.alvarado6@xxxxxxxxx>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 10:34 AMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...Roger: What is a user added tag? Enlighten this fossil, please. Thanks Curious in Dearborn Heights -------------------------------------------------- From: "Roger Loran Bailey" <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 10:29 AM To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...I have noticed that a lot of publisher quality books have a paucity of metadata. I wonder if making a quality report with the suggested categorization would help. By the way, I think this is an additional argument for my idea of user added tags._ _ _"One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all." - Richard DawkinsFollow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rogerbailey81 The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html----- Original Message ----- From: "Nat Barrett" <hawaiianstar@xxxxxxxxx>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 7:16 AMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...Hello,I was wondering about something. And I didn't know where else to throw this out except the volunteer list.Anyway, just now I clicked on the new to collection page. I was surprised to see quite a few publisher quality Harlequin books.The thing is, I didn't remember seeing them earlier, when I cruised through the romance category Thursday afternoon.Thinking maybe they were recently added since the date of addition was 5/13/2011 and where I am it's only a little after 1 a.m. Friday morning as I type this, I thought maybe it was very recent.However, I clicked to browse the romance category again, and I was correct. Those books I saw on the new to collection page were not listed in the romance category. In fact, when I clicked on one of the books listed on the new to collection page, they didn't have a category selected at all. Or at least, not that I saw.Is this a simple oversight or is there a reason for this? I'm just a little confused because normally when I want a romance, I look at the romance category page for new additions.I'll work through this if this is the way. But I'm going to find it a little more time consuming to check out what's done by Harlequin and what's a fiction novel with heavy romantic influence. If that makes sense to everyone. Lol.Thanks for listening to me ramble, Natalie To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 6119 (20110513) __________The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.comTo unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. 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