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#1 Posted : Saturday, January 22, 2011 6:10:41 AM(UTC)

While I am not a perfect speller by any means, sometimes I do find spelling mistakes in recipe titles and/or ingredient lists that can affect the search engine.  For example I was looking for Rachel Ray's recipe for "Spicy Shrimp and Bok Choy Noodle Bowl". I found it, but the recipe title is "Spice Chrimp and Bok Choy Noodle Bowl". 


So, the question is, what is the best way to advise of these small errors?  I would fix it myself, when I found it, if possible.  Sometimes ingredients are mis-labled or mis-spelled.  What are your thoughts?


While I am on this, also, some books are clearly not catagorized correctly.  I have found several, for example that are strictly fish cookbooks and are catagorized as "General" or some other thing, no mention of fish.  Again, I would amend, if it was possible and not bug anyone else, but I understand that you can't have everyone with their fingers in the database.


Is there an easy way to submit needed database corrections as they are found?


 

#2 Posted : Saturday, January 22, 2011 6:27:53 AM(UTC)

At the bottom of the page is "Report an Error".

#3 Posted : Saturday, January 22, 2011 8:49:48 AM(UTC)

Cheri - we genuinely welcome members telling us about spelling typos or mis-classification errors, which is why we have the Report an Error link at the bottom of every page as lindab mentioned.  We have 80,000 books and 36,500 authors for which the data had been supplied by Nielsen.  Unfortunately there are errors in their data and it is impossible for us to proofread all those entries, though we are doing our utmost to correct everything as we see it.  So members being our error-spotters really helps - there are some members who regularly send me long lists they build up over time of typos they have spotted.


On top of the book and author errors there are of course also indexer errors in recipes.  Obviously they are human and mistakes can happen though we now insist that indexers proofread all their work before the book is completed.  We do intend in the future to have designated EYB member-editors who will have access to the data to correct mistakes they see.  I see these kind of people as those who really care about the quality of the data and have a proofreader's eye (I'm one of those people myself).


One final thought.  Not that I want you to assume that there are a lot of the types of error you mentioned (now corrected) but you will usually get a more accurate result on searches by using the Only Show filters rather than just entering the terms in the word search box.  The terms in the box results in a wide sweep, looking for your key words in book title, author, recipe title, ingredients.  The Only Show filters however are a precise match to the ingredient, recipe type, ethnicity, etc.  So if you knew you were looking for a Rachael Ray recipe for a noodle soup containing shrimp then you would enter "Rachael Ray" in the search terms box (making sure it's Rachael as Rachel won't work), then in Only Show filters select Soups in Recipe Types, Misc; noodles in Ingredients, Grains & pasta; and shrimp in Ingredients, Fish & seafood.

#4 Posted : Saturday, January 22, 2011 8:54:51 AM(UTC)
Thanks, Jane. Honestly, I have noted very few errors, and had not noticed the report error link before, but if I find something, I will send it in. Overall, can't say how much I appreciate this wonderful site!
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