World Archives Project

Hooray!!!!

Here are the results for our Kansas leg of the trip.

Jane led the group with 2410 records keyed*, she was followed by Kim, from Virginia, with 1683 and Cassandra, from Indiana, with 1531.

And for reviewers these two stood out – Paul, from Oregon, reviewed 2518 records and Kathleen, from Illinois, reviewed 1469.

* Contributors are only eligible to win one prize during the Challenge period.

I have been keying Kansas census for the last few days, must have done 200 or more, and my total records keyed does not change.,

Wonder if you’ll get a useful, intelligent explanation as to what the problem is and whether it will actually get fixed. Other people who have pointed out problems simply are blown off with guesses as to what may be going wrong. In any case, rest assured, whatever the problem is, you’ll be told it’s your fault. This puts the credibility of these databases and this entire effort at question.
I, for one, resent being treated as if I were too stupid to understand a reasonable, concise explanation, especially when it’s obvious these are systems and procedures problems.
I believe this effort is too important to stop pushing for solutions to the problems that many of us recognize, that Ancestry refuses to acknowledge.

I’ve been doing some of these Kansas census records lately, too. This is one of those projects that I truly think should be arbitrated rather than reviewed. Handwriting interpretation is too subjective, in my opinion, to just rely on two people’s opinions.

I went from “exceptional” to “needs improvement” once my favorite project was completed and I started doing these. Knowing that it is likely *only* due to handwriting interpretation on pale, grainy images is rather frustrating. After all, this type of record is so simple – especially compared to the project I was doing – that it can be the only explanation.

Okay, I’m done griping for now…

@marji

I have submitted more bug reports than anybody (several hundred, i think). I can say that they do get looked at. You don’t always get an immediate reply as they need to confirm the problem. And some are hard to duplicate.

The records not accounted for thing does in fact have multiple causes. without knowing which batch numbers were affected, it’s not possible to tell what happened in your case.

Some most of the causes aren’t bugs. But consequences of how the system is supposed to work.

1) Records submitted after expiration deadline. This is possible in some scenarios. It’s too late, the batch has been given to somebody else. The system will acknowledge that you submitted but won’t count your records because they weren’t accepted.

2) You cancelled a partial batch. Quite sorry, but when you cancel, you don’t submit records. Therefor you don’t get credited as having completed them.

3) You keyed a bunch of records, but then changed to a cover page. Or other no data form, or marked the image as duplicate. Sorry. You only get records counted that are present in the final revision of your index.

4) Arbitration: in arbitration mode (2 indexes, i arbitrator) only the records which you change are counted. In review mode you get all of them counted.

5) Sometimes there is a delay in updating the stats. Which means they will show up later.

6) I have to say this: 90 day totals are different from lifetime totals and sometimes do decrease when old batches drop off of the 90 day count.

7) BUG. This is where you need to report the event and include batch numbers. So the cause can be identified.

I can also list some scenarios that will not affect your totals.

One of the things that is being for is a save to server feature which will be quite useful and deal with #2 above.

Whatever the reviewer does to your work will not affect your record count. Only your accuracy rate.

Amen Marji!!!!!

Wouldn’t it be great if the personal stats would work for each project? I might be just me, but I like to know how I’m doing, whether it is indexing or arbitrating. I can’t even remember the last time they were working.

Meanwhile, I hope challenge winners receive their prizes. The prize I won in the year end challenge has supposedly been shipped twice. I don’t mind contributing, even when no prizes are offered, but don’t offer prizes if you do not intend to ship them.

Hello Anna,

Kansas City and County Census 2278165-293 I was unable to read 0 of the 10 pages. I went page by page and marked as such. Frustrating that the entire document was unreadable. Moving on. . .

Kelly