[bksvol-discuss] Re: reading in mp3Re: Re: question: Re: page breaks
- From: "Pratik Patel" <pratikp1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:36:35 -0500
Mike,
I hope you've never tried reading those books in braille. Even if you have,
your speech understanding and/or braille understanding are such that you may
be able to decode meaning out of that type of rubbish. By definition these
romance books are supposed to be simple to read. I might as well read a
Philip Roth or a Toni Morrison Novel at that rate. A reading service that
cannot provide the type of reading pleasure without headaches of decoding
attempts needs to reconsider its mission. Bookshare is providing books for
those who do not otherwise have access to such material. That does not mean
that bookshare should be held to different quality standards. Even if
submitters are using out-of-date pieces of software, the type of quality
apparent in some of these selections is, in my opinion, unacceptable. For
this particular culprit, it's even more amazing that he/she fails to
provide even the barest detail about the selection. I've never found the
categories filled in, the short sinnapsis field says "harloquin Romance,"
and the long sinapsis field is left empty. At this stage of Bookshare's
development, if there isn't some type of quality control imposed, you are
likely to have an unmanageable system with chaos.
Sorry for the rant, folks.
Prat
Pratik Patel
Interim Director
Office of Special Services
Queens College
Director
CUNY Assistive Technology Services
The City University of New York
ppatel@xxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 9:24 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: reading in mp3Re: Re: question: Re: page
breaks
Prat
Yet those "romance books" are very readable even with their errors. Now,
if they were science or history text with dates, formulae and assorted
other data, that would be a different story.
What truly would be gained by declining those submissions given that they
are light pleasure reading and little more.
Yes, if you can figure out how the submitter could improve the quality
without much cost or pain, you'd have some rationale.
My hunch is that individual is doing those books for herself first and
foremost; and thereafter sharing.
I am all for quality improvement, teaching improved scanning techniques;
but I cannot favor that at the expense of less material being available.
I understand where you and Guido are coming from, but I don't see why
Jesse's standards of acceptance from last August are suddenly not
acceptible.
This is an instance where it is not broken, so why fix it.
The solution isn't eliminating those contributions; it is making certain
that the downloaders understand the limitations of those submissions and,
based on that, can make an informed decision of whether or not to retrieve
those books.
We'll have to agree to disagree as I doubt
either side will give in to the other. And beyond that, it not our
decision anyway!
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