[bksvol-discuss] Re: adult content designation
- From: Debby Franson <the.bee@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 08:46:07 -0500
Hi Nicole and everyone!
What could possibly trip the trigger to cause a children's book to be rated
as adult content? I occasionally see a message on the list from a
submitter asking that the proofer uncheck the adult content box. Maybe the
harmless word pussycat is one.
Debby
At 03:36 PM 5/11/2010, Melissa Smith wrote
It sure seems extreme to me that one instance of a word is enough to
trigger the adult designation. I would be interested to know what words
are considered so extreme as to trigger with just one instance. I can't
think of a word that I would consider that extreme. I've recently
submitted and proofed some books with quite a bit of sexual content that
were not marked as adult. However, other books with less or similar
content were marked as such.
Melissa Smith
On 5/11/2010 3:23 PM, EVAN REESE wrote:
One instance of a particular word is enough to trigger the algorithm to
give a book an adult rating? I believe that is extremely unreasonable.
I would be interested to know who decided on such a draconian filtering
system.
It may be true that a staff member can override the decision of the
algorithm, but how often does that happen? Certainly proofreaders can
override it as well, but you are still letting the algorithm trump the
human judgment of submitters.
Then there are all those publisher donated books. Is a staff member going
to check on each one of those to determine whether the judgment of the
algorithm is valid or not? It seems unlikely that a staff member would
have the time for that, especially in the light of the thousands of PQ
books that are projected to be coming along in the near future. If all
those books are not going to be checked by a human, then you are de facto
letting an algorithm trump human judgment, since the ability to override
it is of no meaning if it isn't being used.
Evan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicole Gnutzman" <nicoleg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Scott Rains" <scottr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Julie Carpenter"
<juliec@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:43 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] adult content designation
Dear volunteers,
I'm the Director of Literacy Operations at Benetech (you can go to
http://www.benetech.org/about/management_team.shtml#ng to check out my
profile). The Volunteer Program, Collections Development, Membership and
Technical Support groups report to me. You may see me chime in
periodically on policy-related issues raised by the volunteer list when
the policy is outside of the volunteer program, but still under the
purview of operations. I'll leave volunteer policy communication in the
capable hands of Scott and Pavi. All policy-related communication is
reviewed by me; Betsy Beaumon, General Manager, Literacy Program; and
Jim Fruchterman, Benetech's CEO.
Scott and Julie Carpenter, Collections Development Manager, brought the
adult content designation issue to my attention and we sought input from
the team at Benetech to answer your questions and concerns.
The adult content designation has been in place at Bookshare from its
launch in 2002. From the start of the membership process, minors are
protected from viewing adult content. The default for all members under
the age of 18, including students covered by the Bookshare for Education
grant, is to NOT see adult content. A parent or guardian must give
permission to Bookshare in writing for members under the age of 18 to
access books with adult content. Although the default for members over
18 is to have all content enabled in Bookshare, all members over the age
of 18 may choose to block adult content. This feature is in "My Account"
under "Preferences."
Bookshare has developed an adult content filter that runs all text
through a quality assurance (QA) process in which the text is compared
to two lists of trigger words. One list is of terms severe enough that
one instance of that word trips the adult content filter; the other list
requires multiple instances of the term to trip the filter. No matter
whether the filter is tripped or not, the final determination is still
made by a member of the collection development team. We do not allow an
algorithm to trump human judgment when it comes to placing books in the
adult content category.
Bookshare is content-neutral and strives to serve all portions of its
community. This includes members in our community who wish to opt-in to
seeing adult content and those who wish to opt-out of seeing this
material. We are grateful for all volunteer contributions to our collection.
Best,
Nicole
Nicole Gnutzman
Director, Literacy Operations
nicoleg@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.bookshare.org
www.benetech.org
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