War Diaries Talk

Changes to the number of people needed to tag a page

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Hello everybody,

    For a while now, we've required each page of the diaries to be tagged by seven people before they're closed for processing.

    This has allowed us to establish a really high level of accuracy in the data we're generating. However, having looked through the data more closely, it seems that we could achieve this same level if we reduced the number of taggers needed per page to five.

    We hope this will be good for everybody - diaries will be processed more quickly and we won't be wasting any of your valuable time asking you to tag something that doesn't really need tagging.

    It will mean, however, that some of the diaries currently open in the tagging queue will be closed as soon as we make the change as they've already been tagged by five people. Obviously we don't want this to happen without giving a warning to those people currently working on them who might wish to complete them before moving onto another diary, so we'll delay making this change until Wednesday the 10th of September.

    Thanks for your understanding. Do let me know if you have any queries.

    Rob

    Posted

  • brownfox by brownfox

    Is there somewhere we can see how many people have tagged each page? I think it would be good for us poor Other Ranks to see how much progress has been made.

    I'd also like to know how many diaries have been completed and how many are yet to be done.

    Cheers
    Steve

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I'm not sure whether we can easily show the number of other people who've tagged a page, unfortunately, although the comments box can often give a reasonable approximation. This might be something we address once we get some funding for further developments.

    I've got a note to post something about how many diaries we have in the current queue, along with how many are completed. It'll take me a while to get this together, but keep a look out and it will appear...

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    Thanks for the warning. I've been working on the very last page of the 9th Norfolks for a couple of days now. It's a list of wounded, three very dense columns of ORs with service numbers, so it's taking me a while! I'll be sure to finish it up this week. My other work--that stuff that pays the bills--has started to pick up again after a summer lull, too, so I'll have a few busy days coming up.

    Posted

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

    Steve

    Some very quick numbers - there are 269 completed diaries, 115 currently being actively tagged and 110 sat in the queue waiting (Rob can probably put more detail on some of that than I can!). However there are literally hundreds more to tag and the National Archives has just started digitising the next lot. This was never meant to be a short project!

    I don't think it's possible at the moment to give visibility of the number of taggers on each page I'm afraid.

    Heather

    Posted

  • brownfox by brownfox

    Thanks Heather

    I think it would be good to have these figures displayed automatically on the front page of the site, to act as an incentive for people. [Subject to the issue of lack of programmers, of course]. Then we could celebrate every 100 diaries done or whatever.

    Steve

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    It's a very good idea Steve, but as you say we aren't able to make significant changes like that to the interface at the moment. Another one for us to add to the list of "things we'd like if /when we have more developer time." In the meantime we are aware that it's nice to know how things are going and Rob usually does a "stats for the month" post both here and on FaceBook.

    As to the ability for us to reduce the number of taggers on a page from 7 to 5 before completion, this is entirely down to the improving accuracy of tagging by users as the project goes on, so thanks to all of you for that. We realise what a slog it is to do a nominal roll (having done a few myself!) but it may be the one and only mention of some ORs in their Unit diary so it certainly is worth it and thank you again to those who persevere with such a page.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist in response to cgastwein@aol.com's comment.

    Thanks for doing that - I've just seen the page in question. It's great to get so many names and we really appreciate the amount of effort required to tag them all.

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I was wrong about that being the last page. There's one more. It's a similar page of the missing from that battle, with maybe more names. I'll be working through it this week. I also feel that acknowledging these men is important, not only for their sacrifice but also so that their descendants can trace them.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator in response to cgastwein@aol.com's comment.

    I've just seen it! Kudos to you for doing both. I can see it has not however been tagged by 4 others already so I don't think the diary will close at the deadline Rob has given.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I've got some more info on the average number of people who've tagged each open diary now, so I might be able to take a better guess at which ones will be affected.

    Thanks again for tagging those pages, @cgastwein@aol.com - as you say, the lists of those who were lost are just as important as those who survived. This is what OWD is all about!

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Jim's very kindly provided some info on the average number of people per diary page. Based on that, I think the diaries most likely to be affected by this change (either closing completely or jumping you on to a later portion) will be:

    • 1 CAVALRY DIVISION: 1 Machine Gun Squadron
    • 2 CAVALRY DIVISION: `J' Battery Royal Horse Artillery
    • 3 CAVALRY DIVISION: 7 Machine Gun Squadron
    • 1 DIVISION: 141 Field Ambulance
    • 1 DIVISION: 1 Battalion Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
    • 1 DIVISION: 8 Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment
    • 1 DIVISION: 3 Infantry Brigade: 2 Battalion Welsh Regiment.
    • 2 DIVISION: Divisional Troops: 4 Field Ambulance
    • 2 DIVISION: 1 Battalion Irish Guards
    • 2 DIVISION: 5 Infantry Brigade: 24 Battalion Royal Fusiliers
    • 2 DIVISION: 1 Battalion Berkshire Regiment
    • 2 DIVISION: 23 Battalion Royal Fusiliers
    • 3 DIVISION: 20 Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps (Pioneers)
    • 3 DIVISION: 9 Infantry Brigade: 4 Battalion Royal Fusiliers.
    • 4 DIVISION: 1 Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers
    • 4 DIVISION: 10 Infantry Brigade: 2 Battalion Seaforth Highlanders
    • 4 DIVISION: 1 Battalion East Lancashire Regiment
    • 5 DIVISION: Divisional Troops: 27 Brigade Royal Field Artillery
    • 5 DIVISION: 6 Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Pioneers)
    • 5 DIVISION: 13 Infantry Brigade: 1 Battalion Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)
    • 5 DIVISION: 1 Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment
    • 6 DIVISION: 16 Infantry Brigade: 1 Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry
    • 7 DIVISION: 91 Infantry Brigade: 21 Battalion Manchester Regiment

    Again, we won't change the tagging threshold until next Wednesday, so I hope that gives you time to finish up whatever you're working on! I think only a handful of diaries will actually close. Thanks all.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    This change has now been made - I hope the impact was minimal!

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Some people will see a jump forward in the diary - e.g. here http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD00013ou The pages the user refers to aren't missing but they had already been tagged by 5 or 6 people and so the diary has jumped forward to the page where there were only 4 taggers. We might see a few like this where users think pages are missing over the next few days?

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Thanks, Heather. I'm sure there will be more of that, but at least we know why!

    Posted

  • linda2 by linda2

    Infilading by M.G.

    http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0002zfo

    Image AWD0002zfo

    7 Indian divisions (meerut) 58 rifles

    I mentioned musterd gas... but I think this is wrong, don't think they used it already in dec. 1914.

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Hi Linda
    Not sure why you posted in this thread... But anyway MG = machine gun not mustard gas.

    Posted

  • wildcatjenny by wildcatjenny moderator in response to linda2's comment.

    Hi linda2!

    Yes, you are correct. Mustard gas was not used until 1917. I think that the author is using "M. G." as an abbreviation for machine gun. So... they were killed by iniflading machine gun fire.

    If you want to correct the comment. Follow the link you gave us to open the page. Below it you will see your comment. On the bottom line of your comment you will see "by linda2..." move your cursor to the right on this line to find the option to edit your comment.

    All the best,

    wildcatjenny

    Posted

  • sunnyjim101 by sunnyjim101

    Does the percentage finished mean the pages that have had five tagers?

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator in response to sunnyjim101's comment.

    Yes it does.

    Posted