I don't think the hold for issue needs "self correcting" as long as there are some volunteers who are going to take a large portion of the books that are sent up without a hold for, and send them through to the Admin Queue in just a few minutes without any actual proofreading. Perhaps the hold for situation will "self correct" when this abuse of the Check In page is dealt with first.
Would you really argue that people who want to ensure that their books get actual proofreading are abusing the system because they want to avoid their books falling into the hands of those who, it can be argued, really are abusing the system?
Evan----- Original Message ----- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 4:11 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: where are all the submits
Hi Reggie. The holds aren't processed through anyone on staff and aren't regulated by anyone. Basically, when a person uploads a book, they can putthe words hold for and a person's name before that title. That's how a bookis held for someone. It is supposed to be used when a book needs specific attention from a specific person such as for fixing tables, picturedescriptions, and such, or if the proofreader has a print copy of a book andis working on cleaning up a raw scan or replacing pages. As with any othertool, it can be abused or overused. It doesn't mean the tool itself is bad,but it's application can be. Some holds have a legitimate reason for beingon the list while others probably don't. We have some volunteers who processtheir held books quickly and who do a great service for us by coping with charts and tables that a blind submitter can't handle alone. Since we as volunteers can't directly affect Bookshare policy, it may seem that we're powerless to fix this situation. That's not true though because we are a group of creative, committed, mature adults who know how to get things done. I think we can be most useful by spreading the word that newsubmissions are wanted and by making sure that our off-list friends get thesupport they need for using the new site. If the hold for issue shows no signs of self-correcting, we can express our concerns to volunteer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx to make staff aware of our thoughts. We can reachout to people who used to submit books who got discouraged because we didn'thave enough proofreaders to work on their books. Some of these people were producing nearly perfect scans. Many of you remember these people if you think about it for a minute. We can also encourage new volunteers byreaching out to work with them, to help them learn to scan or proofread, togive them a chance to work on our books, and to encourage them if they're feeling overwhelmed. As a group, we made this system work very well for 3years without a volunteer coordinator because of the maturity and commitmentof each member of the group. We can do that again with the hold for issueand the lack of interesting books to work on. It'll take some time and somepatience to help each other. We still have those things, don't we? Monica Willyard "The best way to predict the future is to create it." -- Peter Drucker -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Reggie & Brooks Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 3:38 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: where are all the submitsCuriously everyone, although I have another book with a hold so don't worry, how does just about every book get a hold for? I think we as volunteers are only supposed to have 2 holds, but like E. I wonder how we have gotten downto only being able to validate books on alcoholism and philosophy. Not a problem at the moment, but once I get through the books I have? How does a book get a hold? Do they all go through Pavi? Reggie -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of E. Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 3:13 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: where are all the submitsI am not personally interested in proofing books about alcohol and substanceabuse or group psychology or books about naval warfare at this time. That does cut down on my choices quite a lot. E. At 03:05 PM 3/21/2009, you wrote:Hi Elizabeth and others. If you look at the Books In Processing list, you'll see that there are around 160 books checked out for proofreading. Many of those are fiction, and that leads me to believe that we have an active community of proofreaders who work on books very shortly after they are submitted. I think what's going on is that we have shifted in our balance so that we have more proofreaders than submitters. I also think submitters are doing more careful proofreading on our submits, so we're putting up fewer books, but the books can also beproofread more quickly by the proofreader.Another factor that may be slowing down the flow of new books is that some of our volunteers who are not on this list haven't learned how to submit books on the new site yet. Finally, another factor is that several of our more prolific submitters are now working for Bookshare. All of these factors seem to have changed the balance for us. For several years, the mantra was that submitters needed to stop scanning and help with proofreading. We started doing that, and several of us tried to switch hit to play both roles. Now the word needs to get out that submitters can safely go back to submitting books. I dislike working as a proofreader with a passion, but it's taking me awhile to get back into submitting mode because I have three books I have to finishproofreading.Then I plan to quit and go back to scanning and cleaning up my own books so I can submit them. There is still plenty of important and honorable work for proofreaders to do right now. There were 111 books awaiting proofreading when I looked at the list. Some of the nonfiction books awaiting approval are short, and it would be cool if some of our proofreaders would be willing to take on just one of them. You can see the page count on a book before checking it out, and that makes it easy to find shorter ones. No one has to do them, and I think it's a good thing to work on books that interest us when those are available to us. On the other hand, the nonfiction books do have to be processed, either approved or rejected, by someone from the volunteers or staff. I have two nonfictionbooks checked out right now because I want to do my part.To me, working on books that interest me is like enjoying flowers and fresh produce from a garden. I'd rather do that all the time. Processing some types of nonfiction books is more work, like pulling weeds or plowing and preparing soil. It's not as much fun, but it needs to be done to make the Bookshare system work well for everyone. If those who are willing would take just one book from the check out list, we could get those books approved and go back to doing things that we find more exciting. For me, that's scanning books. For someone else, that may be proofreading science fiction or mysteries. Monica WillyardTo 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 ofavailable commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line. 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 ofavailable commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line. 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.
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