[bksvol-discuss] Re: ten validations

  • From: Tony Baechler <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:50:10 -0700

Hello Jake, Dave, and everyone else. Jake makes some good points here and I agree with some of them. I'm responding to them below.

At 04:04 AM 6/18/2005 -0500, you wrote:

    I think sometimes in the past when those of us with high standards post
about it on the list, newbies can get confused as to what is required and
what is not. I think Dave was attempting to point out that each person will
have his/her style of validating and that you were describing yours. I know

Yes, I was pointing out things that I personally do and giving examples, but I was not describing mine. That method has developed over time. In the beginning, I would quickly fly through the book (I still look at it that way) and just do minimal checking. I don't necessarily hold myself to high standards on many books. With some of them, such as most nonfiction, I really don't do that much except the basic requirements. I've discovered that with some of the older books on the step one page that they are missing page breaks so I just reject those outright as per the new bookshare policy. I personally have to be interested in the book before I go through too much effort. I help that by primarily only downloading books that I'm interested in except for a few kids books which are short and easy.


Like the following you wrote:

"Again, I don't mean to be critical and I am not saying that you don't do
these things already, but I hope you don't just fly through the books and
not check for some of these basic things."

Referring to some of the procedures you describe as basic is a bit of an
understatement I think to some people. I know some BookShare users that
don't know how to use Find and Replace, so calling that basic seems a bit of
a stretch.

Well, they darn well better learn. This is very basic Word stuff, here. This is basic in K1000 and most Windows apps. This is even fairly simple in most DOS text editors. In Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS from around 1989, it's Control F10. In another old editor I have, it's F5. In most programs for Windows, it's Control F or Control H. Look at the Edit menu in any decent text editor or word processor and you'll find it. This is just elementary computer use here. I can see that sometimes they might be confused by replacing something with nothing, but all that means is to leave the replace edit box empty. That has been explained a few times on this list before. Sorry, but I must diagree with you there and I have little sympathy for someone who doesn't know this. With some of the more advanced things like matching case or whole words only, I could understand the confusion. However, with just basic find and replace, people can spend a few minutes and figure it out! We're not talking computer science major here. I know someone who has little computer knowledge, but I think even she knows how to do this or could easily learn.


I wouldn't call flying through the books someone who just checks for the
basics. Validation as evident by the amount of credit it is worth is
supposed to be an easy task and shouldn't require any of the work you
describe.

No, it shouldn't require it. As I said to Dave, I'm sorry I was unclear on that aspect. My suggestions are just that, not requirements. They weren't intended to be considered as requirements. I should have been clearer. However, I disagree with the first part of your statement. For only 50 cents, it doesn't reflect even the basic amount of effort involved. This should be at least a dollar or should be based on the book length or something. The current system is flawed. As an experiment, I decided last year to do as many validations as possible to get a free renewal. I have done fairly well and got it down to $13. I hope to get it to $10 before the end of the month. Do you realize how many books I had to validate to even do that well? One has to validate 100 books for a free renewal. That's crazy to try to do 100 books per year! Even 50 books is high, but that's about one per week and that's at least reasonable. I think many people grab the kids books just because they are easy credit. I know I have a few times. So really, at least in my opinion, everyone is vastly underpaid for the amount of effort they put in, no matter how much or how little. I suppose in a way this backs up your point in that my suggestions are simply that and not requirements. Ah well.


Now having said all that, I would have to agree with a lot of what you said
in your message. I hold myself to quite high standards, although I hate
spell checkers and won't touch the damn things unless its a school paper.

Why? I agree that the Word spell checker is especially useless, but why won't you use them? I use it on your books and usually find one or two small errors you overlooked. They are very minor, but I have found one or two before in some books. I agree that most spell checkers are not good for scanned books because OCR errors are entirely different from most spelling mistakes, but I think they help a lot. I only use speech and I have found that it picks up words which I would have missed otherwise. Also it can sometimes give word suggestions that I wouldn't have thought of but which are probably correct. Then again, sometimes they come up with some really odd things that make no sense at all.


Hopefully I have made a little sense to why perhaps Dave's reminder was
appropriate.

Oh, you did that, but I still object to the way it was gone about. I still think that it was entirely clear that I was only suggesting and I really don't see, even with your quote of my message, how this could be misunderstood. If it's too confusing, just go on to the next message or ask for help. You know, I am very seriously considering leaving the list. There seem to be one or two people who seem to have a hostile response to many of my posts, no matter how helpful I try to be or how I respond to them. I am really getting tired of it, as well as the many off topic messages. The off topic posts have been less lately, but it seems like every time I post a message like my original, just trying to give ideas or suggestions, I get responses like Dave's. Presumably everyone is given a copy of the validation instructions at the time they signed up to be a volunteer, so they can check for themselves to see what the basic requirements are. In the case of the long synopsis and copyright issue, I already apologized and dropped it. I admit that I was incorrect on that point, however I was correct in that such synopses need to clearly indicate that they were taken from the book itself somehow. Even at that I got a few negative responses for no good reason. One message simply quoting the policy would have solved the problem. I said that I might have been wrong. I don't know if you've noticed, but I now never respond to copyright questions on the list now. I was told that I was being short-tempered. I'm very, very close to un sub scribing. (The spelling is because of stupid freelists). Anyway, I'm letting this issue drop. Again, sorry I apparently continue to cause problems with my posts.
Tony Baechler
Maintainer, goldenaudio.net (TM) online archives
http://goldenaudio.net/



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