Hi, Jesse! I understand why there are two synopses now. I definitely didn't mean that we should nuke the long synopsis, as I too find them extremely helpful. Maybe, then, we should just allow the short synopsis to be a little longer. Just a thought! And thanks as always for clearing things up a bit around here! <Smile> Jana ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 11:08 AM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc. > Personally, I like having the ability to see a long synopsis when it is > available, so I would be disappointed to see it illiminated. I just wanted > to give my opinion in this unofficial and unsolicited E-mail poll. :-) > > Thank you for your answer about the textarea tag. Some html guides online > must be incorrect, which I suspected since my tests with it didn't work. > Could you tell me if there is a reason why textarea is used instead of input > when input would allow for easy limiting of the number of characters > entered? I know there may very well be a good reason for the other tag that > I just don't know about. I know it will allow 200 characters as a length, > because I tested that. > Thanks. > > Sarah Van Oosterwijck > curious entity at earthlink dot net > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jesse Fahnestock" <Jesse.F@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:06 AM > Subject: [bksvol-discuss] synopses, quality, etc. > > > > Hey all -- sorry I've been offline for some lively conversation! I'll try > to weigh in where necessary. As always, please feel free to email me offline > about any of these issues. > > > > 1. Synopses: Just to be clear, while I understand the desire for synopses, > books missing one or both forms of synopsis should not be rejected on that > basis, by volunteer or administrator. I have no problem with the urging and > cajoling of our fellow volunteers to include them, but making them mandatory > would simply be prohibitive and discouraging for some of our submitters, > especially those who submit in bulk. > > > > 2. The synopsis bug: There are a few cases where the synopsis being > entered will not stick: namely, books that have previously been submitted > and approved, whether or not they have since been withdrawn. In those cases > the original synopses will stick. Validators are able to change the synopses > on brand new submissions, however, so please don't be discouraged! The vast > majority of your synopses are sticking. We're working on fixing it for books > that have already existed on Bookshare.org, but it's been a tricky one. > > > > 3. Synopses from other sources: please do not copy synopses from > Amazon.com or any other source, unless it is the same copy found on the book > jacket. That is copyrighted material, and while it is "quotable" in a news > context (like Alison's newsletter) it should not be used as the synopsis in > our collection. > > > > 4. Site improvements: the categories issue is a long-standing one, and one > we've spent a lot of time trying to plan for. While we do acknowledge the > need for better category management, making changes would require a large > amount of database work (not to mention likely manual recategorization), > and, if it were not a completely robust solution, might need to be done over > and over again. The full-scale answer is to change our metadata source > entirely to something like what the library of congress uses. This change is > probably a ways out still, but given our limited resources, it probably > makes more sense to make that change once rather than try to take > half-steps. > > > > The notification for users of rejection reasons is on the way, I'm told. > Look for it in a rejection notice coming to you soon! (grin) > > > > The short synopsis field is a textarea field, and that does not accept the > maxlength attribute. As Sara (I think) noted, fixing the length would > require javascript, which is problematic for many users. I will float the > idea for a single synopsis -- keep in mind that this will be displayed on > the search results page, however, so it would still need to be pretty > limited. You couldn't have a 100-word synopsis there. > > > > 5. Regarding text quality: I love the fact that this group has high > standards -- I'm consistently amazed at the effort being put into the scans > of others by our volunteers. But I'd encourage us to try to avoid accusatory > messages when it comes to text quality. There are many mitigating factors, > some of which have already been pointed out here, and we would be wrong to > discourage anyone from submitting the books they want to share. So let's > focus on ensuring the readability and legibility of what has been submitted, > and of course encouraging our fellow scanners with tips and techniques as > many of us already do. > > > > > > ________________________ > > > > Jesse Fahnestock > > Collection Development Coordinator, Bookshare.org > > www.bookshare.org > > > > A Project of The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity > > 480 S. California Ave., Suite 201 > > Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609 USA > > (650)475-5440 x133 > > (650) 475-1066 FAX > > jesse@xxxxxxxxxxxx > > www.benetech.org > > > >