Hi. Gosh, I hope this doesn't happen! I would be very opposed to my email
address being given to submitters. I do agree that somehow a submitter's
email address needs to be available to the validator, but not the
reverse. I would probably either use a fake address or stop validating if
my email address was shared. I know I'm not unique. Many people are
concerned about their privacy and do not want their address given
out. Besides this could potentially make them a larger spam target. No
thanks! Also, I wouldn't want a submitter breathing down my neck if they
decided that I've been taking too long. If you started bugging me after a
month, I would probably just ignore you so it would do you no good, or else
I would release the book and the backlog would only get worse than it
already is.
I think that sometimes the staff does validate books, especially if there
is a rush for some reason, but I think it is a very small amount and should
be increased. However, then even fewer books would be approved because
they are trying to validate and clean up. The system is supposed to work
as a community effort and I think it is mostly working, but you're right in
that it has flaws.
Unfortunately, here's the standard answer in a community like this. What
are you going to do about it? In other words, what are you, as a
volunteer, going to do to see that some of this happens? You can't change
the bookshare software, but you could set up some form of tagging system
that validators could use. This would be optional of course. You could
also start posting notes when you begin validating a book or after you've
accepted and resubmitted it. You could write to the support people and
offer to develop such a system for them. The point is that that is how
things get done in a volunteer-based community like this. I personally
don't think that the above is necessarily practical and you would have to
sell people on the idea of using whatever system you develop, but it's an
option.
At 10:46 AM 1/24/2005 -0500, you wrote:
What this discussion tells me is that the current system, once a book is initially submitted, has some flaws that need addressing.
A lot of these could be handled with a bit of automation. For one, once a book is downloaded for validation, an automated email should go to the original submitter telling him/her who has it with their email address should they decide to contact that individual. The validator ought to receive an email giving them the info on the submission page such as who submitted the book, the comments, etc as these sometimes can prove invaluable. Similar notices should go out when a validated book is returned, renewed, whatever. Moreover, perhaps some of the volunteer time in Palo Alto could be directed not only to scanning but to validating because a book on the Step 1 is just as much a potential addition to the collection as one being scanned.
As I said initially, once the programming code were incorporated into the Bookshare software, all of those notifications would be automated requiring no administrative time or effort. And it might even save administrative time as I can only imagine how many msgs a week may be directed to support asking what happened to this or that. We see some of these kinds of msgs on the lists; and I'd gather that only a small percentage of volunteers actually post on lists.
Also such notices would serve as a nudge to validators to finish their work as they are no longer working anonymously. Also, as an example, if you had one of my books for 3 months, and if it concerned me, I could then ask you if you requiring my help with something, whatever.
I appreciate it when a validator tells me they're working on something of mine, if they have a question on something, etc. Our mutual goal is to get a book ready for final approval that is in the best shape possible. And the validation system serves as a check in helping the submitter in the event they overlooked something obvious.
