From: tony@proctor_NoMore_SPAM.net   
      
   On 31/07/2018 20:28, Richard Smith wrote:   
   > I was browsing the registers on the FreeReg site earlier this evening   
   > when an idea occurred to me.  There are some registers that I'm   
   > eagerly hoping will eventually be transcribed, whether on FreeReg or   
   > elsewhere, because the originals are too inconveniently located for me   
   > to consult easily.  For me, one example is St Peter Port, Guernsey.    
   > I'm sure most people have their own parishes like this.   
   >   
   > On sites like FreeReg or the various Online Parish Clerk projects,   
   > transcripts are done entirely by volunteers.  The choice of what to   
   > transcribe is made by some combination of the volunteers and project   
   > coordinators, depending how each project is run.  Having spoken over   
   > the years to some of the volunteers who transcribe these registers, I   
   > know some are happy to transcribe anything and others are only   
   > interested in transcribing records from their own areas of interest.    
   > I was quite surprised to hear from people involved with FreeReg quite   
   > how many people were happy to transcribe anything.  Clearly the people   
   > doing that are not doing it for any personal reward (other than the   
   > satisfaction of doing something useful).   
   >   
   > Is there any mileage to having a system where people can pledge money   
   > to reward those transcribing the registers of interest to the person   
   > pledging the money?  If the transcribers don't want the reward, it   
   > could be donated to a charity instead.  The reward a single person   
   > might offer is unlikely to be sufficient to influence the choice of   
   > what to transcribe, but if several people pledged towards the same   
   > records, it could make a significant difference.   
   >   
   > This could help both the transcription project by getting more   
   > volunteers, and also the people who pledged the reward by speeding up   
   > the transcription of the records they wanted.   
   >   
   > I'm not aware of any such schemes.  Is this because no-one has come up   
   > with it before, or because there's some flaw in the idea that I've not   
   > considered?   
   >   
   > Richard   
      
   If I've understood this correctly Richard then there may be a practical   
   problem. It sounds like the idea amounts to a bounty being placed on   
   selected parishes. This sounds good on the face of it but some parishes   
   constitute substantially more records than others, and some may be   
   barely readable in comparison to others. Hence, no one would really know   
   whether the existing bounty is worth the effort or not without actually   
   looking at the scope and state of the records.   
      
   Tony Proctor   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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