Hi, Ilene. Hmm. I hadn't considered the point you're making here. I'm sending this as a CC to Claire for some clarification since I know that Bookshare is actively working to replace all books that are rated fair in the current collection. I'm not sure what to do about it in practical terms. I won't put a fair book into the Bookshare collection, and I've been rejecting them if I can't fix them to be at least good. As a reader, I'd be pretty upset to find a book I want to read and have it be messed up. I don't know how to make the Bookshare rules and my desire for readable books work together here. Of course, I could just skip working on fair rated books as some have chosen to do. That's the easy solution. Or I could just pass them into the Bookshare collection as is and then do a BSO to replace the book. The only down side there is that I'd get double credit from Bookshare, once for validating and once for doing the BSO. That seems unethical to me. I guess the only solution I can ethically live with is to return them to step 1 if I can't fix them up without rescanning them. That means another volunteer will be stuck with them down the line, and that doesn't seem right either. If other people feel as ambivalent as I do on this subject, it's no wonder these books keep hanging around on step 1.
If the Bookshare rules should be followed regarding fair books, there will be a lot of unreadable books coming from step 1, around 40 if my count is right. I've seen many of them, and the Bookshare members will not appreciate their condition. No wonder Bookshare hides these books from new members by default. :(
Monica Willyard Ilene Sirocca wrote:
I certainly sympathize with this suggestion, but I do have a problem with it. The problem is that so far, books are not supposed to be rejected because they are rated fair. If they were, we wouldn't have the fair rating allowed in the first place. If a validator who is also a scanner rejects the original scanner's fair book and then submits a scan of her own, she takes away the original scanner's credits, no matter how undeserved they might be in terms of book quality, and gives them to herself. This is not your intention, but this is what happens. If Bookshare wants to have more excellent scans it has to go to the root of the problem and not allow people to submit fair scans, or maybe even good ones although that's more debatable I suppose. Yes, some scanners may drop out if they're held to a higher responsibility, so that has to be part of the consideration of this matter. But if excellent books is what we are after, the original rules have to be tougher. If just getting as many books as possible is the goal, then fair scans have to stay. Personally, I'd vote for a slower groth rate and a higher quality. There's my two cents' worth. Ilene
