War Diaries Talk

1 CAVALRY DIVISION: 3 CAVALRY FIELD AMBULANCE (1 AUG 1914 - 30 SEP 1919) Diary Question

  • stoat11 by stoat11

    Hi,
    I am tagging the above diary and it's gone from page 27 to page 29 missing page 28. Just wondering if this is an error or if page 28 has had the required number of people tagging it. If it has, it seems a bit odd don't you think - just one page 😃

    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted

  • marie.eklidvirginmedia.com by marie.eklidvirginmedia.com

    I am working on the diary of the 1 Cavalry Division: 3 Cavalry Field Ambulance. and I did tag page 28 of this diary. According to my notes it was for the 4-5th September 1914.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Thanks Marie 😃 Page 28 is indeed there and it has 5 people marked as tagging it. Mike - I think you are right on the edge of where people have stopped this diary and so pages have 4 or 5 taggers - maybe someone skipped over 27? In any case 29 now has 5 taggers too so you are the one "finishing" some of these pages now. Hope that explains it.

    Posted

  • 141Dial34 by 141Dial34 in response to HeatherC's comment.

    or had the dreaded blue screen & one had to finish without seeing it...

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator in response to 141Dial34's comment.

    Haha yes that did occur to me too!

    Posted

  • stoat11 by stoat11

    Hi.
    Thanks for the update. This is a real drag isn't it - and it happens a lot - all of a sudden you jump forward a period of time or the diary just suddenly is complete. I recently worked through another FA diary and all of a sudden it skipped past everything from 1st July 1916 till December 1916. I don't understand how it can happen and I'm afraid that if it keeps on then I'll probably be packing this in.

    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator in response to stoat11's comment.

    As you probably already know it happens when a page is tagged by 5 people and is removed as "complete". I agree it's very frustrating when it happens in the middle of a diary but there's nothing we can do to change it I'm afraid. It may well be because someone else has skipped over some pages without completing them - usually not on purpose - or because there was something wrong when a person did some tagging and the pages were never marked as completed for some reason. There are also actually cases where part of a diary is missing in the scanned copy but this is unusual.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Yes, we're stuck with it, I'm afraid. The same thing happened to me yesterday, while working through a sequence of orders in one of the 1st Cameron Highlanders diaries. The problem, of course, is that if the pages aren't closed for processing at a certain cut-off point, they may never get closed. While it's very frustrating for those people who want to work sequentially through an entire diary, there are also a lot of people who will start a diary and then never come back to it, so if we left it open so they could finish it we'd end up with a lot of diaries sitting in limbo in the queue.

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I have had this same experience of page jumping. In particular I've seen it in diaries where the unit is coming up to an important battle, such as Neuve Chapelle or Loos, and when it gets to the actual date of start of the battle, it jumps that page!

    However, I have also had a page jump when I am deep in the middle of a long diary of 400 pages or more with a very low percentage of pages tagged by five people, such as 3 to 5 percent. I do watch the page numbers every time I finish a page (or nearly every time; I suppose there are some that I space out on) just to keep track. In these cases, there are also no comments whatsoever for well over 50 pages, no aeroplanes or horses or medals hashtagged, and the unit is in resting or training mode. And out of nowhere the diary jumps a page, say from page 234 to 236, then continues on with no more jumps. Is it possible there is a bit of a glitch that causes this? Or is it possible that I might somehow mis-click the Finished button to make it skip one page and move on to the next?

    I've also wondered about pages where there is nothing to tag, such as the 2nd or 3rd page of reports with no title, dates or names. What happens in those cases?

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I suspect Heather is right when she says people may have skipped pages. I've definitely seen a volunteer who seemed to only tag every 20th page or so. In that case, the system might well leave the untagged pages in the queue in order to get more tags, but then skip the one that was tagged.

    The level of agreement is also important - so where tags have been placed but none of them agree, more taggers might be sought to try and get some clarity. But for the type of report page you mention, where five people will probably have finished it without dropping any tags, that is probably consensus enough on its own and the page will be closed.

    That said, I didn't design any of the processing algorithms, so one of the Zooniverse team might be able to give a more coherent explanation than me!

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    Thanks, Rob!

    Posted

  • stoat11 by stoat11

    Hi,
    Many thanks for all your replies. This is obviously something we have to live with and I guess I'm also paying the penalty for only being able to contribute every now and again. I suppose the problem is that unlike other Zooniverse projects I've been on where you're just presented with random images of bits of Mars or fragments of Greek there is a narrative with these diaries and you get interested in the people and what the unit is doing - it gets personal. A fascinating thing to be involved with - hence the frustration when the narrative gets disrupted. Thanks again for your comments.
    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I absolutely agree with you, Mike. This is quite different subject matter to many other Zooniverse projects and that brings frustrations at times. The thing we definitely have in common with all Zooniverse projects, though, is that we appreciate your contribution and hope you'll stay with us 😃

    Posted

  • stoat11 by stoat11

    Hi
    Sorry to bother you again but I just don't want to find I'm wasting my (and your) time 😃
    This diary was running along as a typed transcript up to p36 then jumped to handwritten originals at p65 which are dated 9/9/14 onwards. Now I have already tagged from 9/9/14 till midway through 12/9/14 in the transcript and I see that Marie has hashtagged the pages I'm seeing from p65 onwards as #duplicate. I've now reached the point in time that I got to in the typed transcript pages (p36) so the stuff I'm seeing now is new to me. I'm currently on p72 and I'll tag it and carry on but I'm not sure there's any point. Can you help?
    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Hi Mike - no problem, always best to check 😃

    It looks like the duplicate section you're currently in runs until the end of September, which is pg. 96. Just marking the pages as a diary page, but clicking finish without dropping any tags should be fine - you'll dispense with them without too much wasted effort and Marie has already tagged them as duplicate.

    Hope that helps,

    Rob

    Posted

  • stoat11 by stoat11 in response to ral104's comment.

    Hi Rob,
    Many thanks for your reply. I'll just wander through them without tagging till I get through the duplicates.
    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted