Indexers that need more training.
For your information:
Well, I got an answer back from Family Search about an indexer consistently making the same serious mistakes and they said they have a way to report malicious indexing, but not consistent, erroneous indexing when the indexer doesn't know what he's doing. All we can do is either correct the work or send it back for reindexing (which I have been doing). It used to be that Family Search would contact the indexer or his ward indexing leader to give them further training. But they said that ended with the desktop indexing. That's really sad. This indexer is doing so much work for nothing.
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It also goes back to not reading the PI. I'm reviewing the South Carolina project and I've seen mistakes that can be solved by just reading the PI. Indexing file numbers as 73 10277 instead of 10277 and indexing Charleston instead of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina. It takes a minute or two to read the PI and the PI are located in three different places. Some indexers seem to value quantity over quality.
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@erutherford Yes, I agree! I have been reviewing for many years and the last two years mistakes have increased dramatically for the same reasons you mentioned, mostly just not reading the several available instructions. I'm guessing these might be self-taught indexers who have never had online or in person guidance or in the case of foreign language indexers they seem unable to read the English project instructions and/or the templates for each batch. I try to correct short ones but long batches need reindexing.
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I have also encountered similar problems when reviewing. I, too, have been reviewing for many years and agree that mistakes are increasing. I'm not sure why there is such a big increase but I do wish there was a way that new indexers could be shown their errors like we used to get shown years ago. I know it was stopped for other reasons, but maybe they could just do it for new indexers for a limited period of time.
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Amen to all of the above. Often there's little "in person guidance" available and too many people nowadays are in too much of a hurry to listen and learn from lessons that experience and history can teach or show. Sometimes I doubt that very many of those who make such erroneous mistakes read this forum or look for answers here. Example, they don't know how use the Search button right at the top of the page or they just don't want to Ask a Question. And lots of people don't have the patience to wait for an answer from a human, they expect computers to provide instantaneous advice. Ah well, that's progress 😊
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I am reviewing city directories. With the latest part of the project, the instructions were changed. The pop-up that opens before you see your pages says (in bold): "DO NOT mark "no, no extractable data" if you cannot read the batch, simply return the batch." Every prior part of the project has said this in the instructions, but just this latest part has it reiterated in the pop-up.
I have had more batches marked as "no, no extractable data" since that was added to that pop-up. (Sometimes even on legible pages!) 😮
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That again goes back to indexers not reading the PI, pop-up and/or not caring. With batches that are clearly indexable, but marked, NNED, mark it Yes on Step 1, then click on Batch —→ Reindex Batch. Since the batch will be blank, choose the default setting, Keep the indexed data, and click Return Batch for Reindexing. The batch will then be able for (obviously) indexing and hopefully it will be picked up by a competent indexer.
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