War Diaries Talk

[FEATURE REQUEST] ability to go back and change tags

  • richardlight by richardlight

    It's really unhelpful that you can't return to a page that you have "Finished". For example, I had a reference to catching a train at Newbridge, and accepted a "Newbridge Station" in Wales. On the next page, I found that they were sailing from Ireland to Holyhead! In general, you are bound to learn as you go on. This approach may be good for your page completion stats, but will lead to poorer data.

    Posted

  • hodgsonp by hodgsonp

    I agree - its incredibly frustrating - I was unable to complete some place names but further clues on later pages have identified them. Seems I can't tag them now? You are probably losing a lot of tags - I have just started today and learnt a lot through experience. Please allow us to go back and update pages we've tagged.

    Posted

  • CoxJul by CoxJul

    I spent several pages trying to interpret the Author's signature before enough clues allowed me to research and identify him as a very specific person. I now need to go back and correct the person tags on the previous pages.

    Posted

  • ftm42 by ftm42

    On my profile it says "6 DIVISION: 8 Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment 1/346 pages", but I can't then go back to it to do any further work?

    Posted

  • donkew by donkew

    I agree completely. I left a page to look for help on a particular detail and now I can't get back to it even though it's not finished!

    Posted

  • adrm2005 by adrm2005

    I cannot help agree with comments above especially hodgsonp and Coxjul. Am going through a long report on the aftermath of a battle/skirmish, for a Field Ambulance Unit. Had to read three pages to orientate myself, find dates and generally make sense of the situation. Unless there is an action thats lets users actually read reports etc through, to get the picture, of who is there, where they are , what they are doing and how they are doing it, before tagging, then I think the whole exercise will be disjointed and the data barely scratched. I am not hopeful, that anything will make complete sense without a re-edit or "return to" function. So until that happens I suggest that people disist in their initial enthusiam, and DEMAND a solution from Zooniverse.

    Posted

  • DannySpud by DannySpud

    I left a page to go to the talk page because it was a very interesting page (the King was visiting!) and now I can't go back.

    Posted

  • Andrew_Stevenson by Andrew_Stevenson

    I realise that this is probably a restriction placed on Zooniverse by TNA so that people can't read entire diaries for free, but if either party are at all interested in data quality, this needs urgent review so that we can move between pages for the reasons others have already outlined. Maybe there could be a minimum number of tags on a page before you could navigate from that page or something?

    Posted

  • sonniejim by sonniejim

    I consider myself reasonably intelligent and in my time I have designed computer based training. I cannot make head nor tail of the tutorial so I m clearly unable to make any contribution whatsoever. Was the tutorial tested as part of its design?

    Posted

  • CoxJul by CoxJul

    It should be fairly straightforward to allow us to return to pages we've specifically edited/tagged. I notice there's the ability to mark a page with the star 'favorite' icon next to the talk icon - what's that for? Ideal to use to mark as wanting to return to.

    Posted

  • itsmestephanie by itsmestephanie

    Yes agree should be able to go back!

    Posted

  • philtn by philtn

    I SECOND most of the opinions. Either you make a mistake, realize a wrongly named person or place.

    It is very important to be able to either go back to re-edit a page, or at least leave a very specific mark or comment so that
    IWM historians can change information later on.

    PLEASE consider this...

    Posted

  • cpe by cpe

    I agree with the comments here. Unless I have misunderstood the instructions (they are not well designed) I appear to be able to access a page only once and I cannot seem to access pages that have been tagged by others. This does not accommodate at least one obvious method: classify a few pages; go back and add dates (as this gets much easier after seeing pages in context); go back again and add some more detail.

    There is a risk of frustrating early volunteers!

    Posted

  • hodgsonp by hodgsonp

    I am getting pretty frustrated now folks. I took a break, came back to tagging and the diary has skipped on half a dozen pages (I guess someone else has tagged those pages?). So now, since I can't go back, I can't see those missing pages and have completely lost track of what the unit is doing - and all the context I had built up of what was happening and where the unit was has gone and its like starting again. You need to sort this out guys. Please enable us to re-tag pages we have previously tagged. You will lose so many volunteers I am sure otherwise.

    Posted

  • oakdalewar1 by oakdalewar1

    How do I go back to previous page(s)? Is ther a way of selecting a specific date or month without turning all pages from the start?

    Posted

  • rogerlwhite by rogerlwhite

    Yes, I'm sorry to shout but the rapid build-up in problems people are encountering (one person said they'd experienced similar problems on another Zooniverse project) means there's a clear frustration with what's going on here. I won't repeat the problems being raised, they should be self-evident to anyone scanning these discussion boards. I really think someone from the project needs to look at all the problems and suggestions together and give an early general response. In the meantime, some units seem to be moving towards 100% completion rapidly. How can this be possible when so many queries are being raised?

    (Don't know if subject lines revert to lower case automatically. This one was certainly typed in caps by me!)

    Posted

  • Abbo by Abbo

    I lost the one transcription I managed to complete as the nothing happened when I clicked the "finished" button. I then spent a fruitless period of time looking for help to no avail.

    I came back tonight to find I can't get past the tutorial now!

    It's all just too frustrating and as I have limited leisure time I am off to do something more fruitful.

    Posted

  • glindsay by glindsay

    I was very keen to be part of this extremely worthwhile project, but have become cheesed off by the poor standard of software we are having to work with. Did someone with more than two brain cells actually give this system a decent test run before release? In the meantime, I am withdrawing my labour (not labor, right!) until you get the software running smoothly.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Despite having really enjoyed following a battalion through a significant chunk of 1916 I am finding so many issues where I think the tagging is not specific enough and you are only getting about 50% of the potential information out of the documents that I'm also not sure I want to continue. The almost total lack of response from Moderators or anyone running the project on these boards today doesn't fill me with confidence either. I may stop for a bit until we see more response and know someone is actually following up some of the user suggestions.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    As I said on another thread, I logged back in this morning to find that "my" diary on which I had done 9 months worth had apparently been finished by someone else. This is more than just tagging galaxy types, it's a story that you get better at interpreting as you go along. Why take away the continuity like that by re-allocating the story to someone else? Many of us doing this ARE genuinely interested in the story and actually have a decent knowledge of WW1 and the units involved. I suspect people won't stay if this is how it works.

    I won't be spending any more time tagging unless things change.

    Posted

  • hodgsonp by hodgsonp

    I'm giving up "tagging" for now too. I agree with Heather C. I feel that although I'm an amateur, I have spent so long studying and researching WW1 that I have a lot of knowledge that is wasted in this system. The fact that there is no guarantee of being able to follow a diary through and that pages are treated as isolated packets of data with no thought to the flow makes it very frustrating. I actually sympathize with the moderators (I've spent 25 years as Director of Technology for a large US company and I know that "users" are an unforgiving bunch) but it seems to me that the system being used, that may well work well for stars and galaxies and other data, has been shoe-horned into this project which is very different and consists of a narrative and for that you need the context and to be able tp go back to previous pages and check and re-do. The argument I have seen from moderators that "we won't know when a page is complete" is pretty weak in my view (you can have a time limit or some such rule). I had taken the decision to buy (and download) the diaries I started working on (cost me about £10) - and had started transcribing them in full as I did the tagging, so I'm just going to continue with that (I'll make the transcriptions available if I'm allowed to!).

    Posted

  • Mandark by Mandark

    Yes, I too am leaving the project. Started yesterday, logged all my problems and suggestions on the boards but having looked today and seen all the similar posts I have to conclude that this project is just too badly organised to bother with. I already transcribe for Freereg. In comparison this is a shambles. I'm alos very concerned about the quality of transcription. If transcribers cannot go back and correct (learning as you go along, surely?) then who ensures that the information is checked before being released? As a family historian I know how frustrating and ultimately useless erroneous transcriptions can be.

    Posted

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator

    Hi Everyone,

    Sorry to hear you are having difficulties. Some points:
    You can see recent pages you've classified in your Operation War Diary profile, at:
    http://www.operationwardiary.org/#/profile

    This is a classification and tagging project -- not a full transcription project. Find out more about why we are doing it this way and why it is important (and how you have already classified 60,000 pages!) at:
    http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000003/discussions/DWD00000pi

    As we say there, this is a world first and there are sure to be things we could improve. This may include the way you can review pages you've already tagged -- and the tags you've submitted.

    However, there is no need to worry about individual transcription / classification errors as each page is tagged by several people.

    Thanks,

    Luke.

    Posted

  • Ruth_Moore by Ruth_Moore

    I have just spotted the tag for other Units/Regiments mentioned on a page and would have liked to have gone back over the pages I had just tagged to put these in, but from reading the comments it seems that this isn't possible. I think it should be possible for people to do this during their current session as they have only just read and deciphered the writing and know what they are looking for.

    Posted

  • rogerlwhite by rogerlwhite in response to lukesmith's comment.

    'However, there is no need to worry about individual transcription / classification errors as each page is tagged by several people' - unfortunately that's no guarantee of correctness if everyone gets it wrong!

    Posted

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator in response to ftm42's comment.

    Merging this with the 'back button' discussion.

    Posted

  • The_Bluffer by The_Bluffer

    It could be worse folks, you could be doing this tagging whilst under fire, in freezing conditions with lice crawling all over your 'mice'.

    I'm sure the whole project will be over by Christmas (and if you're lucky you'll be able to tell your grandchildren what you did in Operation War Diary).

    Carry On.

    Posted

  • Swanage_Belle by Swanage_Belle in response to The Bluffer's comment.

    that's the spirit Bluffer 😃

    Posted

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator in response to The Bluffer's comment.

    We'd be delighted if it was over by Christmas! 😉

    Posted

  • Swanage_Belle by Swanage_Belle in response to lukesmith's comment.

    now where have I heard that before 😃

    Posted

  • Phil_Evans by Phil_Evans

    I think the most valid comment here is that about continuity and knowledge gained. I am tagging the Leicester Tigers Pioneer Regt and most days they go out digging/repairing trenches. Some entries state 'A Coy working on BLACK WATCH ALLEY' but a lot say 'A Coy as previous' so someone coming in fresh will not know what that means. It's also annoying that you can spend some time tagging repetitive entries of them digging trenches and then the next day you've skipped on a bit and someone else has tagged the 'exciting' page where the unit moved!! Lots of people will have a reason - local perhaps or family connection - for wishing to work on a particular unit, can it not be possible to 'subscribe' to a specific unit so you can see it through?

    Posted

  • clevelandtim by clevelandtim

    For figuring out date(s) it would be helpful to be able to page forward or backward to find month reference or year reference if none exist on page you are starting on.

    Posted

  • SitsThere by SitsThere in response to lukesmith's comment.

    Luke, thanks for the explanation. I too was infuriated at first at the inability to go back and correct my errors but after discussing it with others have realized that you can't possibly be relying on individual accuracy since the number of tags involved (1.5 million * n where n is the number of tags per page, never less than 1.5 million and usually at least 3) is far too big. Can you confirm that the project will work on the basis of a tagging consensus, i.e. that each page is tagged by several people and you will only use those where the same tag is applied by more than one person? It is more helpful to understand the exercise in this way, and also brings in some humility to the process - an individual tagging a diary page is in much the same position as the person who made the diary entry, sharing the diary with many other authors and never able to see the whole picture. For me, at least, that's a helpful way to look at it.

    Posted

  • SitsThere by SitsThere in response to The Bluffer's comment.

    exactly.

    Posted

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator in response to clevelandtim's comment.

    We are considering our options for this. In the meantime, see long discussion at:
    http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000008/discussions/DWD00000k3

    Merging into that topic now. thank you.

    Posted

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator in response to richardlight's comment.

    Hi Richard,

    Yes, we see there is a problem here. The reasons are explained in long conversation, where I'm going to merge this. However, we know we need to do something on this and are looking at options.

    thanks All (belatedly)

    Posted

  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator

    Great question. Long answer 😦 see long discussion at:

    http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/52d846d194cd3c0b9d001287/discussions/DWD000003l

    Merging this topic now..

    Posted

  • lynette54uk by lynette54uk in response to donkew's comment.

    I've now got the same problem! Did you find your way back and if so, how?
    Regards,
    Lynette

    Posted

  • jamesmac by jamesmac

    Following what many say about going back and amend tags: there are things the diarists don't include on each page, like the month or the year and one only guesses either only after a while

    Posted

  • Memento_Mori by Memento_Mori

    Oh God. I spent 30 pages misspelling someone's name. When that particular person became the diary's author and wrote in his own hand, is when I realized my mistake. I really REALLY wish I could go back and correct it. I feel horrible.

    Also, an auto-fill feature would be super helpful and save tons of time. Once you've typed something once, it then becomes an option when you start to fill in a field.

    Posted

  • jude_lambe by jude_lambe

    I wanted to amend a page but can't find out how to but what looks like a simple couple of weeks exercise actually means active service. ( there is a book I own)I wanted to add the list of wounded and deceased but can't find out how...............help, I feel bad that their names and lives are not going to be acknowledged because I didn't look soon enough and now I can't change it...

    Posted

  • paratsoukli by paratsoukli

    Really agree the need to recover pages for correction. For instance, I have just discovered through research that a name I have been tagging as H McPatrick is really Lord Holmpatrick. I need to correct several diary pages but cannot. Frustrating when one puts in so much effort.

    Posted

  • MarthaJ by MarthaJ

    I agree with the comments and frustrations expressed above. This was my first attempt at tagging these diaries. I did not find the tutorial particularly helpful and had a lot of unanswered questions when I started on the first page. I think it would be very useful to have available a comprehensive online reference manual. In common with other participants I would also like to have been able to go back and edit pages already completed - it is a learning process and this will undoubtedly affect the quality of the data.

    Posted

  • MGMcT by MGMcT

    Garbage in, garbage out. Having just started this project, I find myself in the same predicament. I need to go back to previous pages to correct mistakes and can't. Frustrating if you want to do a good job on this. In the absence of any ability to go back and correct, I will just continue on and hope that I get it right on future pages. My apologies to 4 DIVISION: 11 INFANTRY BRIGADE: 1 BATTALION RIFLE BRIGADE. You deserve better.

    Posted

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

    I thought the same when I started 3 months ago. Having seen the quality of some of the data that the Project is providing because of the Zooniverse "multiple tagging" system where at least 5 people must tag a page before it is counted as finished and then a set of master tags is produced from comparing what all 5 have said, I can tell you I was wrong. It certainly isn't garbage out.

    Posted

  • charcinders by charcinders

    Since we have the ability to go back and add comments to a page perhaps a fix for this would be to introduce a #correction hashtag. However, to make this viable we'd have to be able to see further back in our timeline of recently tagged pages.

    Posted

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

    I see what you are saying but to be honest the correction hashtag wouldn't really solve the issue as someone has to then find them all and manually correct everything which would be a significant task I think. @eatyourgreens is the data expert so maybe he can comment further on how viable this is, but the data I have seen that is coming out of this is good and the odd mistake or missed tag isn't really affecting it much. Two people might miss the detail for one reason but then 3 others get it tagged the same and we have a master tag.

    For example the maps that were put up last week here http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000003/discussions/DWD00009o2 show that only 5% of place tags were errors. Pretty good I reckon.

    Posted

  • cotula by cotula

    It is fine for the project that the data is coming out well, but we 'taggers' have to wait some time to see the results of our work. The frustrations are here and now, the fewer irritations the more we will stick at it - and it seems to me, the more of these one does, the better the results.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    You're absolutely right, @cotula, and I'm sorry that you're experiencing these issues with the system. I do think a facility whereby taggers could go back at least a few pages through the diary would be very valuable. However, the best I can do for now is to raise it through the zooniverse support system. Unfortunately, because of the way the project has been funded, we no longer have a dedicated developer on the team. I'm sorry not to be able to give a more satisfactory response, but I'll keep you updated on any progress I make with this.

    Posted

  • gallorosso by gallorosso in response to MarthaJ's comment.

    Yes, Martha and Moderator, my experience exactly. For starters, the tutorial did not work properly for me on either Chrome or Safari. Tagging is not going as I'd have hoped, either, same browsers. I was working on my first page but couldn't tag anything but the date. I wondered whether that was because the content was the same as on the previous page, that I couldn't see, but there is no way of telling. Before I knew what was happening, the page was submitted and I was being thanked for finishing the page and with it the diary - but that's not right and I can do nothing about it. It would indeed be helpful to be able to return to earlier pages. Now I'm reluctant to try another page in case the same thing happens. I've been unable to find any directly relevant comments on this forum or other ones. Not had this sort of challenge when indexing for sites like Ancestry and Family Search. Katie in NL

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Sorry to hear you've been having those problems, Katie. Do you know which browser versions you were using? If you could let me know that, I can raise the issue with the support desk.

    Posted

  • gallorosso by gallorosso

    Thank you, I'm beginning to think it wasn't so much the browser that was wrong, but my expectations. As others have said, it becomes clearer as you go along. I should have taken the word 'tagging' more literally. I'm familiar with forms to fill in rather than 'tagging' ON the page. I was expecting a form or dropdown menu to appear as soon as I clicked on person, place, etc in the lefthand menu. NOW I realise I needed to click on the page and TAG the spot with the name or place etc. We were unable to complete the tutorial here using Google Chrome on two computers and Safari on one. Maybe if I'd been able to see the whole tutorial I'd have realised earlier. I'll see if I can quote the version numbers. Thank you.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Okay, glad to hear that at least some of the issue has been resolved!

    Posted