Eye of the storm, part II, or how I learned to love the cheaters...
"In eye of the storm", I was giving you some tips on editing problematic transcripts that looked good and were in fact awful. It makes one wonder how some of those actually got passed the grading system. Alas, no system is perfect, and most graders proceed with at best a sampling of the audio track. Only when the word density is very low do we get a hint that there may be a problem. Others get passed because the grader scanned, but did not read the transcript. If you want to start grading transcripts, you should have a good eye for details, and being a quick reader sure helps. I don't mean to say you just read the whole text start to end everytime, but you should be able to sample the text in an accurate manner and spot errors and serious mistakes quickly.
I usually start by the end: I look at the numbers of [sp] and [xx] posted in the bottom notes. If the numbers are quite high, I look for a note from the transcribers explaining the reason for this. If there is no note, I will sample the audio at various point to see if the quality of the source was good or not. I have no qualms at flunking a bad transcript: If the audio is good, there is no reason to have a high number of [xx]. The editor is not there to redo a transcript - he should NOT, in fact, listen to the audio at all. The editor should edit the text transcribed, period. Compound that with serious structural problems like bad or no punctuation, serious deficiency in grammar, anything like that - and I will flunk you for certain. My position is that, with the number of excellent transcribers working for CW, those producing substandard work should not get paid: The hard, good workers should be getting that job. If you just did a hard transcript and it has many [xx], add a note. I have yet to disagree with such a note, and in those cases I will send it to CW for final verdict. Grading should be hard. This is not a place for compassion. Passing a bad transcript thinking "this poor soul just worked so hard, I'll give him or her a break" means that the editors will have to do triple the work for a quarter the pay, and that's utterly unfair. Either that or the end result will be of poor quality, CW will lose clients -- and then, all Turkers working for CW will be penalized by fewer HITs being listed. If you must feel compassion, please direct it at those dedicated transcribers who produce amazingly good jobs from definitely rough sources. Those, I applaud, because at times the results are nothing short of a miracle. I know my betters when I meet them.
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