Helping poor indexing volunteers
When reviewing various indexed batches, I never cease to be amazed at some of the clumsily-indexed batches. I know the volunteers mean well and I know we are indebted to them for their efforts. However, is there not someone to follow-up on poor indexing, possibly providing some one-on-one assistance? It would move the work forward in an ever-quicker way. Today I reviewed perhaps the very worst indexing job - not that many of the names were misspelled, but that the project instructions were not followed.
Comments
-
The best approach to take when reviewing a really badly indexed batch is to use the new form "Reasons to Reindex Batch" and then send it back for reindexing. To activate the form, with the batch open click on the Help tab. Click on Labs and you will see the instructions for activating the form. This is currently the only way to get an indexer or a reviewer some extra help.
2 -
As a fairly experienced indexer, I often wish there was a way to get feedback on my indexing. In years back, I would index 2 or 3 batches then wait for feedback before continuing to work on this particular project. Often the feedback made my work much more accurate. I know we do not want to make anyone feel badly, yet we learn with feedback.
2 -
To avoid issues with people feeling bad, but still allow feedback, it would be so great to allow people to opt in to feedback from reviewers. When a reviewer gets a batch from someone that has opted to receive feedback they could be given the option to send back comments, and the reviewer could even get their own review to help the feedback be constructive, knowing that the original submitter could rate their review 1-5 stars.
2 -
@Troy Spjute a 360 degree review would be great. There are a lot of reviewers who don't know read the project instructions, the field helps, or understand the general guidelines. That is a huge problem in allowing every reviewer to give feedback to indexers. When we had arbitrators in the old program, it wasn't so great.
Using the new form is the best way for now until those at FamilySearch figure out how to make all of this work.
1