[bksvol-discuss] Re: Thoughts on Validating and Rejecting
- From: "Silvara" <silvara@xxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:28:50 -0400
Hi Lisa:
I definitely agree with your comments. I also find myself not downloading
certain books that I would like because I know it will take some time to
fix.
***
Grace
For scanning and validating tips
check out
http://www.jbrownell.com/bks/tl.asp
For ideas of books to scan check out:
the No Book Left Behind AKA
Reject list
http://www.jbrownell.com/bks/reject.asp
Rescan List
http://www.jbrownell.com/bks/rescan.asp
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisa Belville" <lisab12@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 1:25 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Thoughts on Validating and Rejecting
Hi, Monica.
As someone who only validates, I am in complete agreement with you.
I feel like sometimes we Validators are held to a higher standard of work
than submitters. Before anyone flames me... Not all submitters are guilty
of this; it's obvious that most submitters put a great deal of effort into
their scans, correcting common scannOs, making sure pages are present and
accounted for, etc.. The fact that submitters like Carrie, Scott, Katie
and Shelley are on this list and are willing to answer questions and
clarify things for us speaks volumes.
However, I have validated, and attempted to validate, books where this
wasn't
the case. We have discussed certain submitters on here that do not care
about the quality of the books they submit for Bookshare, and those
submitters are the ones who seem only to be interested in earning their
$2.50 credit.
I can accept the original rationale for the difference in credit for a
submitter and a validator. I think it was believe that submitters would
submit mostly legible scans, so the validator's job of ensuring the book
was
complete and that the copyright information was intact was a fair
exchange.
However, as many of us can attest, this is not where validating ends for
most of us. There are a few submitters who make it really easy to earn
that fifty cent credit because they have gone the extra mile to clean up
their scans, and because they are willing to re-scan portions of a book to
make it easier for us. However, it's been my experience that a few of the
frequent submitters... and here again, this isn't referring to anyone on
this
list... do not make themselves accessible to us, and still they get their
credit after the validator has spent more time cleaning up the book than
the
original submitter did scanning and submitting it. yes, it is my choice
as a validator to spend this extra time making corrections and
modifications, but I shouldn't have to if the submitter does his/her job
properly. doing this has tought me more than I ever thought I knew about
the functionality of MS Word, which has come in handy outside of the
Bookshare arena. <smiles>
Still, I wouldn't mind only earning fifty cents credit if every scan were
spotless.
But if I have to spend hours correcting scannO's, determining where pages
should end or begin, determining scanno's from actual words while trying
to
preserve the original layout of the book, earning only fifty cents credit
seems ludicrous, since I have basically done the work of the original
submitter. Most of us have jobs, school, lives outside of Bookshare. I
see nothing wrong with rejecting a book because it's quality is so poor it
would be more efficient to re-scan it.
Not all of us have the means or inclination to obtain a copy of Kurzweil.
If the implication is that Kurzweil is the software of choice for
submitters
and validators because it can make mass corrections simpler and more
efficient, then Bookshare is going to loose a lot of talented validators.
I will admit that over the past few months, I've become a validation snob.
There are some books I will not download for review if I see the
submitter's
name and know that that particular submitter routinely submits scans that
are too time-consuming and require too much correction for me. I only
have
a set amount of patience for some things, especially since Bookshare has
empahsized the need to increase the quality of its library. Maybe
rejecting books submitted by a few people will encourage them to re-scan a
book or two.
I think the key here is to encourage quality from the beginning, and this
means increasing the quality of submissions. If this means a book is
rejected, this is the price we will have to pay for insuring quality. It
comes back to the question of Quantity over Quality. Would Bookshare
rather have one hundred thousand books of varying quality or fifty
thousand books of excellent quality?
I really don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings here, I'm only trying to
explain why some of us feel it's necessary to reject a book rather than
fix it up. I don't think we're being lazy or trying to undermine the
mission of Bookshare by rejecting a book we feel needs too much work.
Lisa
----- Original Message -----
From: "Monica Willyard" <plumlipstick@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 5:39 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: rejected "Flash Flood" by Diann Mills
Elizabeth, I appreciate your willingness to rescue poorly scanned books.
However, I do think that it is the responsibility of the submitter to
insert some page breaks into their books and to do a basic spellcheck.
Not all validaters are willing to do the painstaking work of
reconstructing a book, and Dan was well within his right as a validater
to
reject a book of poor quality and that lacks page breaks. I see a lot of
people on this list who are scolded for following the rules and rejecting
books according to Bookshare's stated policies. I agree that there are
times when discussing a possible rejection with the list can be helpful.
Something about posts like this comes across to me as second-guessing
decisions made by a validater and that has the potential to undermine
his/her confidence. I no longer post about the books I reject to this
list because of responses like this one. I update Jake's list, and that
is as far as I'm willing to go with posting on this issue. I'm willing
to
look at my reaction to your post, and maybe I'm just having a rough week
and am over-reacting to it. I want to be fair to you, and yet something
about this issue gets under my skin. Thanks for listening to me try to
sort this all out.
Monica
Visit my blog at: http://plumlipstick.livejournal.com
On Wednesday 6/7/2006 05:32 PM, you wrote:
Please, if you find a book like that with a lot of scano typing errors,
put it back on step 1. A lot of correcting can be done on just those
kinds of errors with k1000. You may want to talk about your reasons for
rejecting a book on this list before actually rejecting it. Then, you
may
find you can release certain books for others to work on who have access
to tools you may not have.
E.
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