Subject: Correction Notes
Posted by: agony
Date: Jun 29 23
We encourage players to send correction notes if they see an error in a quiz. That could be a very meaningful error of fact, but it could also be a missing punctuation mark or space.
Fixing errors, even small ones like a missing space, is one of the things that keeps this site to the standard it is.
Nobody likes to see that red message, but please understand that it's important, and players who send those notes are doing what we have asked them to do. It's not pleasant to be reminded we have made a mistake (and yes, I get these too, all the editors do) but that's not the fault of the person who noticed the mistake.
If the quiz is archived, just note that in the box and mark the CN "corrected" - the editors will take care of it. If you don't agree that it's a problem, that's also something that can go in the box. Please do not come back at the player who sent the note - they are not doing anything wrong. If there is a reason to chastise a player - if they were rude, for example - let an editor do it.
Posted by: agony
Date: Jun 29 23
We encourage players to send correction notes if they see an error in a quiz. That could be a very meaningful error of fact, but it could also be a missing punctuation mark or space.
Fixing errors, even small ones like a missing space, is one of the things that keeps this site to the standard it is.
Nobody likes to see that red message, but please understand that it's important, and players who send those notes are doing what we have asked them to do. It's not pleasant to be reminded we have made a mistake (and yes, I get these too, all the editors do) but that's not the fault of the person who noticed the mistake.
If the quiz is archived, just note that in the box and mark the CN "corrected" - the editors will take care of it. If you don't agree that it's a problem, that's also something that can go in the box. Please do not come back at the player who sent the note - they are not doing anything wrong. If there is a reason to chastise a player - if they were rude, for example - let an editor do it.
27 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2
agony
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I'm bringing this up again, because I would like to expand on it. First, I'll repeat - we rely on correction notes to keep the standards of the site as high as they are. They are an essential part of the site, and are welcome - even if seeing that red notification gives a little sting. If you are an author, it might ease the sting a bit to realize that corrections, especially those small corrections in grammar and English usage, are more of a reflection on the editors than on you. Your editor should have caught that missing or extra space, and that incorrect capital letter, before the quiz went online. As editors, we welcome the chance to correct those mistakes. Think of it as analogous to someone letting you know you have spinach in your teeth. Would you really rather not know? I understand how jarring it can be to see three or four corrections on one quiz, and that it would be less irritating to have all the issues dealt with in one note. However, the way our system is set up, it's easier for the player, and *much* easier for the editors, to send a CN attached to the question it pertains to. So, this is not a player targeting you - it's just the way the system works. If you get CNs on several of your quizzes from one player, that is also not likely to be the player targeting you. It's much more likely that they are playing all of the quizzes in a category, and it's a category that you have written a lot for. Personally, it's something I see a lot, since many of my quizzes are in the same category. It could also be a sign that the player likes your quizzes a lot, and is happily playing them all, and rating them highly - as well as pointing out that spinach in the teeth. Just as we tell authors not to take rejection notes from editors personally, don't take CN personally, unless they are rude and nasty. (Well, don't take those personally either, but do report them). When someone lets you know that you did not close that quotation, they aren't doing it *at* you. They're just passing on information that they think you would want to know. Reply #1. Aug 13 24, 2:08 PM |
FatherSteve 
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Agony writes "Your editor should have caught that missing or extra space, and that incorrect capital letter, before the quiz went online." On the subject of capital letters: If Fijians are people from Fiji, and Wiccans are people who worship the Great Goddess and the Great Horned God, and Quislings are people who betray others, and the Wise Men were people from the East who sought Jesus, and the Maple Leafs are people who play hockey in Toronto, then why isn't conquistador capitalised as a proper noun properly ought to be? Reply #2. Aug 13 24, 2:25 PM |
looney_tunes
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Father Steve, English conventions are messy and inconsistent. One explanation is that conquistador (or conquistadore, according to some sources) is a group noun that does not originate from a proper noun, they are people from a certain place and time who conquered - the origin is in a verb. Another perspective is that it was once considered a proper noun, but has come to be considered a common noun. Quisling, one of your examples, is not always capitalised - one of the processes of linguistic change involves the move from a proper noun to a common noun, as the application of the term becomes more general. If you want to capitalise Conquistador, go ahead - it can be argued either way. Reply #3. Aug 13 24, 2:57 PM |
kyleisalive
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These days when I get a Correction Notice I tend to think "Damn-- I did that?" And the answer is, yeah, I did. I write too many quizzes not to expect some to slip through, and having worked on the editor side, I know they do slip through, often against our best judgement. Most players who send CNs are doing so from a place of wanting to improve the quizzes. I think that if there was ever an instance where our staff felt that someone were being targeted, we'd put a fast stop to it. Beside that, if the corrections are valid, I'm not sure what's to be expected. Leaving errors in the quizzes on the principle that someone sent a few corrections? That's a bit bananas to me. lol As a reminder, our editors can see all the corrections that come in, and that includes any responses sent to them. These days, I'd say the majority of corrections that come in on my categories-- I'm thinking 90+%-- are ones that need to be fixed. And most of the time, they're beyond simple to fix. Typos that've been sitting for 15+ years. I don't know why we wouldn't want to fix those. It's not a knock on the author for having made the mistake OR the editors who put them online...OR the thousands of eyes that have gone through the quiz since. Frankly, I want my quizzes to be good examples, and sometimes that means teasing out errors that managed to make it through the gauntlet. I want to make sure my quizzes meet a standard that no one else can find on the internet. Reply #4. Aug 13 24, 5:57 PM |
| FatherSteve
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LT~ I was reading as many movie reviews of "Giant from the Unknown" (1957) as I could find and it occurred to me that some of them capitalized "conquistador," as it described the 500-year-old Spanish giant reanimated by lightning, and others did not. So I went prowling through the Internet and found the same (although the tilt was toward the lower case). This is not a big deal in anyone's estimation. “This is a rabbit hole. Do you want to know the secret to surviving once you've gone down the rabbit hole?" Zachary nods and Mirabel leans forward. Her eyes are ringed with gold. "Be a rabbit," she whispers.” ~Erin Morgenstern, "The Starless Sea." Reply #5. Aug 14 24, 12:42 AM |
pollucci19
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I will be the first to admit that my grammar is not the best and i take steps to cover for that. I will type it out in Word first, do an edit and then a second edit when it's in the template. That said, there will still be errors. They're not deliberate, they simply happen. As authors we tend to get too close at times to our words and when we edit we are likely to fall in the trap of editing with our mind's eye (which sees what it wants to see) rather than seeing what is actually on the page. We also get excited, particularly if we feel that the quiz is something special... and that leads to oversight. Once again, not deliberate... it happens. End of the day, we're all looking for a quality product... and I see CNs as quality control. Reply #6. Aug 14 24, 4:08 AM |
LadyNym
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I am perfectly OK with CNs about typos (even if they can be a bit of a pain if the quiz is archived), and agree with what Kyle said in a previous post. However, not all CNs are useful or relevant. I'll never forget the time I got a CN pointing out that Glasgow was not in Britain :D. I also remember that one of the very first CNs I received was very rude, stating that what I had written was "nonsense". At the time, being inexperienced, I did not report it, though I should have. I believe you can correct a person (or even dispute what they wrote) without being rude. Reply #7. Aug 14 24, 5:32 AM |
rossian
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LadyN - editors see all correction notes, even the ones the author has corrected. The sender of your rude note would have received a reminder about the site rules, which include being polite to fellow players. Repeat offenders tend not to be long term. And, yes, words like 'rubbish', 'poor' and 'nonsense' do warrant a warning. This does not apply to private notes, though, so please do report any direct message of this type. For archived quizzes, just say something like 'please amend' - it's a matter of seconds. As an editor, these are an easy fix, much better than those disputing an obscure fact which might take an hour's research. As an editor who writes a lot of quizzes too, I'm not fond of seeing the red exclamation mark but we're all fallible. I'd repeated a word in the info on a recent quiz and hadn't spotted it when proofreading. My eyesight isn't as sharp as it was and, in the new editor in particular, I don't always distinguish between commas and full stops. For anyone wondering, editors' quizzes are treated the same as any other author's and go through the same editing process. Getting a correction about a typo is much better than having a quiz rejected, but it happens, especially on topics I'm not 100% comfortable with. Reply #8. Aug 14 24, 6:35 AM |
| looney_tunes
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I always feel a bit as if I had let the side down when a quiz I put online still has a typo. I remember, in my very early days, wondering how an editor ever let THAT through. Now I know how many typos and errors of grammar and punctuation I fix in the process of editing a quiz (even from excellent authors, because we all make typos!), and how easy it is to still miss something. Still, a bit of a guilty twinge, and I want to get it fixed ASAP. I sometimes take one of my own quizzes (on the Bus Ride, for example), and discover a typo that has slipped past my own triple-proofread process, the editor who put it online, and hundreds of players. Since it is my quiz, I can just quietly fix it. If it were someone else's quiz, I would send a CN, no matter how many people before me had missed (or simply dismissed) it. Reply #9. Aug 14 24, 2:37 PM |
| kyleisalive
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Same, and honestly, sometimes I just go in and fix it myself, depending. Reply #10. Aug 14 24, 3:33 PM |
Creedy
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Would it it be a sensible idea to allow long time quiz writers the ability to fix up any CNs themselves after a quiz has been archived? Reply #11. Aug 16 24, 12:43 AM |
| kyleisalive
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One of the key reasons archival was instituted (a long time ago) was because we had at least one very trusted author wipe out their entire catalogue of quizzes-- there were somewhere between 80-100 of them. What we discovered was that, evidently, someone in their life with access to their PC purposely wiped all of the templates clean for some retaliatory reason. While it wasn't the author's fault in that case, it's a rare instance that is perfectly viable without these types of protections. We do understand the frustration with CNs on archived quizzes but, when the error is something that needs a bit more comprehensive attention than 'Fix spelling' or 'Grammar bad', we generally won't hesitate to send it over to the author to get fixed and placed back online. For any archived quizzes that get spelling CNs, all you need to do is note 'yup, this is an error, quiz archived' and we can fix it within the day. It's actually mega-easy for us. One of the neat things about the CN system is that if CNs are sent on individual questions (instead of one big, long list), our editors can click directly to that single question and make the change without going into a full quiz edit, so it's actually quite beneficial to receive a small handful of CNs, even if those just need to be marked as 'archived, please fix'. Keep in mind that no one besides the quiz author and their editors will see those notes. In the ideal circumstance, most authors won't even know there were errors to begin. :) (These types of CNs are actually the most relieving. I'd much rather log in to find "oh, just a couple typos? EZPZ" instead of "Oh, this answer simply isn't correct anymore, and it'd take watching an episode of 'The Andy Griffith Show' to figure out the truth.") Reply #12. Aug 16 24, 6:40 AM |
| agony
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Authors don’t even see many of the CNs that are for obvious typos. Editors will just fix them, a lot of the time, before you even notice, especially on old quizzes. Not much point in letting it sit until you see it, and have to send a note saying “Yes, please change “teh” to ”the””. We just fix it, and if the time zones have you sleeping while I’m up checking CNs, you’ll never know anything about it. Reply #13. Aug 16 24, 9:44 AM |
| LadyNym
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On a related note, I remember getting the advice of sending a CN to ourselves in order to fix an error in an archived quiz. I've used it a few times in the past few months (including the last two instances of CN on archived quizzes), but it's never been clear to me how this worked. Maybe we need to use this method if our CN doesn't have a box (as it is occasionally the case)? Reply #14. Aug 16 24, 10:13 AM |
| kyleisalive
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The only CNs that don't have those boxes are ones from editors, which is an unfortunate side effect of the system. If an editor sends a CN on a quiz they played, it still comes up like that. I'd like to see a way to fix this to still get the box. Maybe there's something better we can get Terry to add in to indicate when a quiz is archived and what be provided to allow that feedback to be clearer. Ultimately we don't want the correction process-- editors or players-- to be problematic. Corrections are going to happen, sometimes erroneously (let me tell you about the players who think it's to correct their own answers to get the points!). It's an imperfect system that gets the job done, but it'd be nice to smooth those edges a bit for a better author experience. Some quizzes will get more corrections than others over time, and generally we find that the vast, vast majority corrections are, by and large, valid. Our players generally want to see quizzes be in their best form, and that's really rewarding to see. :) Reply #15. Aug 16 24, 11:53 AM |
| agony
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The way it mostly works, if the CN is sent from the link in the question, is that editors open up our list of CNs for our category, and we see the author's name, and whether they are still around or not. We see the question, the CN, and any response to the CN that the author has made. We have one button that we can hit that allows us to edit the question, one that lets us clear the CN, and one that takes us to the quiz the question comes from if we think we need to see the question in context of the entire quiz. Everything we need is right there, so if it's an easy fix, say a missing apostrophe, we can fix the question and clear the CN in seconds. CNs not sent from that link require several more steps. This is why we suggest sending a CN if you want to make a change to your own quiz - everything the editor needs to make the change is right there in one place. Reply #16. Aug 16 24, 9:18 PM |
| LadyNym
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Thank you so much for the explanation! Now everything makes perfect sense :-). Reply #17. Aug 17 24, 5:12 AM |
JanIQ
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Typos happen everywhere - not only in FT but also in real life. I'm a banker, and last week I typed the birth date of a client as 989 instead of 1989. Luckily I saw it before it was mailed, for she would not be thrilled to have suddenly aged a thousand years. Reply #18. Aug 18 24, 4:22 AM |
Upstart3
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As a single question writer, I just received a correction note that included a link that supposedly refuted my question. The link did nothing of the sort - I can only assume the user who sent it and the editor didn't read it! It would be good to have a "send message to user" type functionality for single questions like what we have for quizzes, to make the review/respond process easier and clearer. Reply #19. Aug 18 24, 5:45 AM |
| looney_tunes
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Upstart3, you would not want single questions to get corrections sent to the authors. Since only editors see them, authors have no idea of the sheer volume that come in! Usually the editors can handle them, very occasionally they need to send the question back to the author because it is not a black and white issue. The editor who sent it to you with the message from a player must have felt that there was some reason for you to consider something. If you disagree, then you can resubmit with a message explaining why. Reply #20. Aug 18 24, 1:57 PM |
27 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2
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