[bksvol-discuss] Re: hold for revisited

  • From: "Estelnalissi" <airadil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 17:50:48 -0500

Hahaha, your comment about list members' concern - or lack of same - over bandwidth consumption is certainly on the mark.I take it back! <smile>.


Also, I'm certain you are correct that the detractors and practitioners of the hold for practice will probably not reach agreement. I have used hold fors for some books and not for others, and I will continue to do so. I care a great deal about the quality of my submissions, and I know certain validators will catch errors that I have missed because they will actually read the book, not merely do the minimum job and send it up to the admin queue. Some books I have scanned, and plan to do next year, need special attention from those with special skills and I know they will get the attention they deserve from someone who cares at least as much about the book as I do, not someone who is merely out to rack up enough credits to get next year's membership for free. Then there are other books - straight fiction, (just basically paragraphs of text) - that I have read all the way through and done a thorough spell check on, which I have no problem submitting and that I know will be fine if they fall into the hands of someone who wants a quick $2.50 with hardly any work.

As far as your concern about the hold for practice being misused goes: Well, how many things in life can you name that cannot be, and haven't been, misused at some time or other. That, in and of itself hardly seems to be a good reason for abandoning something - especially in the light of what I and some other more articulate posters here have written as to the benefits they perceive in continuing it. .

Evan


----- Original Message ----- From: <talmage@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 9:45 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: hold for revisited


Hi Evan,

I never claimed this was a significant problem, just a practice that I believe is being misused from its original intent. Having been on the list for 6 years now, the one thing I can assure you however, is that for the members that actually hang in on the list, band width usage doesn't seem to be a primary concern. What originally inspired me to post on this, was the day there were 6 hold for titles all the same on the step 1 page, and a volunteer that rejoined the list only temporarily to shop for a hold for partner.

I was going to let this topic die an ignominious, and well deserved death, as neither the practitioners of the hold for faith, nor the detractors of it are likely to come to consensus on the matter, and most people don't really care one way or the other, but, (and yes you knew there was a but), I just came across some things I thought were a bit ironic and wanted to share them before I call it quits.

The 3% I referred to in a previous message was a statistic passed to me by another member, and referred only to the 10 books presently on the Step 1 page. When we expand our horizons a bit, and include books in process, we had a total of 42 Books, but 1 was a duplicate so we end up with 41. On the Step 1 page, the oldest book (by 3 days) was an Ark book rated Fair, but the next 3 oldest were all hold for books. In keeping with Allison's excellent suggestion regarding Ark books, I downloaded the oldest, so now the 3 oldest are all hold for books.

A bit more irony, the book that originally got me to post,
"The Brethren"
#47275 is Out for Validation,
while,
"The Brethren"
47280 is Awaiting Administrator Approval,
and,
"the Brethren"

47139 is in the administrator's rejection queue.

The 2 first are both hold for books (I didn't include that part of the title as I don't know the circumstances of the hold and it may be for good and valid reasons), but the 3rd book that is in the rejection queue, is the oldest, didn't have a hold for affixed to it, I believe it was rated at the same quality level as the others, was submitted by a different user, and I believe it was rejected as a duplicate without ever being looked at.

Dave

At 08:46 PM 12/4/2007, you wrote:
Hi, Dave, you have a point that it may be hard to find a cause and effect relationship between the number of hold fors on Step One and any kind of significant impact on the quality of the collection. But that is precisely because the proportion is so small. The figure of 3 percent or so for the proportion of books there would hardly seem to indicate a major epidemic of cliquishness or exclusionism breaking out among Bookshare volunteers.

In short, given this very small proportion, which is easily verified, I fail to see why you are spending so much bandwidth on this subject. It would hardly seem to merit it.

Evan

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