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I'm wondering if there is a way my recipes entered into such apps as MacGourmet Deluxe could be indexed? I realize my recipes would only show up in my personal search.

We plan to add a feature where members can enter their own personal recipes such as clippings or family recipes.  This is on our to-do list though I cannot give you a date as we have quite a few other developments going on right now.  Initially that won't include a data import from other recipe indexing systems though it would be useful for members to tell us which systems  they use and we maybe should be investigating.

Thanks for your enthusiasm loroloff - I have asked our data manager, Deborah to contact you.  We do have a few trial members indexing now but given how much help and support is needed, especially at the start, we feel we cannot open up member indexing to all members until we take on another staff member to handle it.  As our trial indexers have found, it isn't just a question of opening up a cookbook and starting typing.  In order for the data to be consistent with all the books and magazines we have indexed with our professional indexers, there are a lot of guidelines and rules to follow.  This can be offputting to a volunteer.

A few suggestions have been made so I would welcome members views:

• That we hold members to a lower standard, not expecting them to apply the same rules as paid indexers.  I feel this would create a 2-tier data structure, where member indexed books had more mistakes.  I don't think that would be in the interest of all members.


• That we ask member indexers to only enter the recipe name and ingredients, leaving all categories (which seem to be most problematic for new indexers) to be done by a paid indexer.  I don't like this idea for a couple of reasons - firstly, it takes paid indexers away from "popular" books, to re-index books that could be owned by just a few members. Secondly, it will be hard to track down many of the books that members chose to index.  And the paid indexer will need the book to complete the categories (recipe name is not always enough to identify ethnicity, recipe type, course, season, etc).


• That we get members just to index individual recipes rather than entire books.  I feel this takes away from the principle of adding a book to your Bookshelf and being able to search through all recipes at once. Many books would remain only partly indexed which doesn't allow members to find many recipes.  Of course the same is true if a book isn't indexed at all, but at least at the moment you know what is and isn't indexed on your Bookshelf.

I look forward to hearing what you think.

Thanks for asking Jane,

Here are my thoughts.

If all info from member indexed books is going to be made available for viewing by all EYB members then I believe member indexing should be held to the standards and level of excellence that EYB upholds. I do think allowing members to index books is a good idea, provided they are comfortable adhering to these standards. 

Not sure how readily available paid indexers are or, what it costs to index a book but if you were able to retain additional services, might EYB consider offering members the option to pay for a book to be indexed?  I may not have time to index a cherished book that would not otherwise hit the priority list for EYB indexing but, I may be willing to pay a fee to have it indexed by EYB so I can make better use of it. I'd love to receive a "book indexing voucher" as a gift as well.  Not sure if this would be a viable option but it would be interesting to see if others are interested and, whether it's possible.  I'm imagining pricing would have to be on a scale based on size of book or # of recipes.  What I wouldn't want, for obvious reasons, would be for this service to take away from EYB's indexers time and efforts. 

Thanks for asking us about our views on this.

I agree with breadcrumbs.

Like many of the "older" members I have been waiting for member indexing to go live, but at the same time I don’t think EYB should compromise on quality.

I for one would be willing to follow the guidelines set by EYB, and would be willing to invest the time to learn how to do it. It’s like leaning to index your recipes in a recipe management software like Living Cookbook or Master Cook, it s takes time to learn, but it’s well worth the effort.

I don’t know the instructions you give to your indexers. But I am sure that you are aware that a professional indexer thinks in a different way than a normal user. The trial indexer you have by now should give you an idea on the questions member indexing raise, and give you a better idea on writing a guide for members.

Maybe opening up for member indexing for a few members at a time, taken into account how long they have been members would be the way to go, this way your current staff would be able to handle the support and help at the start of the process.

Taking time from a professional indexer to re-index a book for a members is not an option I would choose, as this in many cases would benefit only a few.

I look forward to see the views of the other members on this matter

It would be heartbreaking for EYB to lower its indexing standards.  Even with professional indexers under the careful supervision of the data manager, mistakes creep in.  If we amateurs were to have at it, EYB would become less and less useful as every month went by.

I'd like to suggest a twist on the buddy system: Each member-indexed book is indexed by two members.  During the first stage, the blindfold stage, they work independently, without consulting each other.  Then when they've both finished working alone, they enter the second stage, the eyes-open or "norming" stage, during which they compare and contrast their results (using computer tools, not reading their indexes aloud to each other).  When they can't agree on a solution, they get help from the data manager or one of the experienced professional indexers.

So for instance Member A classifies Jack Bishop's Sautéed spinach and chick-peas with lemon and thyme as Pasta, doughs & sauces; Vegetarian and Member B classifies it as Main course; Vegetarian. I think they should probably agree to classify it as all three, Pasta, doughs & sauces; Main course; Vegetarian.  If they can't agree between themselves, they can get help.

Norming dates back to Bruce Tuckman's work in the mid-60s.  I've seen it used in two settings, designing computer help systems and grading essay exams; it's not magical, but it did appreciably improve the reliability of the results.  I don't know how well it would work with such a small group, only two people, with a third optional, but I think it would be worth a try.

If my indices will be available to all.. then I agree, standards make sense.

But...  adding my older cookbook to the EYB list would make it possible for other people who own that book to add it easily.

And then... don't know how this would work ... but keep my amateur indexing private?  So I have an old cookbook.  I add it to my shelf, and that's public info, others can add the cookbook to their shelves, etc.   Now I look through that old book, and find a favorite recipes.  I index those for my own use... so now when I search for  "sour cream mashed potatoes" I will find recipes from the public index... ie indexed recipes from the vast EYB collection that intersect with my own bookshelf... and I will also see one recipe from my private index.

This might be related to your plans to allow us to index personal recipes, magazine clippings, etc.  Those will also need a "this is my recipe, and HERE is where to find it."  In this case, "HERE" would be my older cookbook, indexed only by me.

Also like comment #10 above, about using a wiki format.  Could work.

Thanks for asking...

Dorothy

Hi everyone, I appreciate this discussion, I actually changed my original views when reading many of the posts (I am desperate to get a couple of my own cookbooks in here, and wanted to get indexing asap!).  But now I'm happy to wait until EYB figures it out. I would absolutely hate hate hate any book index that wasn't 100% up to the EYB pro standards. Already there are a couple of typos and misspellings in ingredients (don't have an example here but have noticed a few), plus stray and/or missing characters in book titles (eg "Pierre Franeys Kitchen #" instead of ("Pierre Franey's Kitchen"), and any error, no matter how tiny, IMHO completely defeats the idea of searching my library accurately.  If I wanted to search thru user input garbage, I'd google the stuff! :-)

The accuracy and comprehensiveness are why I paid for EYB in the first place - and so I really don't like the idea of relying on member indexes.  But the Wiki suggestion is a decent one, as well as having a Member's Own area where a couple of books could be added by members. Probably best to be added to the user's private area, but perhaps those could be included in the all book search but with HUGE flags that say "draft only!!!" or some such - and they could be "officialized" when the EYB pros get around to it. Such user input could potentially save EYB some time in terms of the raw input of a number of books, but they would still have to be checked word by word and category tag by category tag.

But at least those 8-10 of us who own X book and are DYING to get it indexed, would get some functionality sooner than later...

- Holley

Here's my two cents:

There are many books and magazines in my collection that will, most likely, never be indexed by a "pro-indexer." However, I use the resources on a regular basis and would greatly appreciate to have them as part of my EYB bookshelf searches.

If you let individuals index books, is there a way you could tag the book as "friendly index" and then make the text editable? For instance, if someone indexed a book that only three users have on their shelves, and I notice they left out an ingredient, I would then have the ability to revise the text to add "green peppers," add a category, or whatever.

I get that people are serious about their cooking; however, EYB is clearly at its best when your entire library appears on the site. If that means allowing users to create friendly indexes to meet that need, I would be in favor of it and would simply take their possible errors into consideration.

More than likely, 25% of the cookbooks and magazines on our shelves have some errors in them. And, most online recipe reviews are laden with corrections, substitutions, and creative comments. We should be used to it by now.

If you need a non-pro beta tester for the indexing, I'd be happy to help and provide you with feedback. 

And, for the record, EYB continues to exceed my expectations. I am very grateful for the service.

Lucy Zoe

Thank you to everyone for the feedback.  Our developers are currently working on the member indexing interface and we hope it should be finished by the end of August.  Our plan is that we will proofread books owned by more than 5 members.  If they are owned by less than 5 it is really not economic for us to pay a professional proofreader.  We do plan to add an editing function so members can correct errors as they see them, though this is a little further off.  All books indexed by Members will have Member indexed as the index status.

If you do ever see any typos or errors, please do email us.  We have on our to-do list to improve the email system so the title of the book or recipe you are on is automatically loaded.  For now you can just copy and paste the title.  The books data from our data suppliers contains an amazing amount of errors on book titles and author names.  With 86,000 books we have not been able to proofread them all so we rely on you letting us know.  The recipes have all been indexed by human beings so some errors have definitely occured, particularly in books indexed in the early days when we used students.  Any time you let us know about an error we will generally fix it immediately (Pierre Franey's Kitchen is now correct). 

We view the quality of the data as very important, and I'm glad to see you mainly agree.  A combination of proofreading and a wiki should keep the quality high.

I could quibble with some of the recipe categories, but I totally agree about spelling accuracy as it affects search results.  The EYB search engines aren't forgiving about spelling, so if you mistype an author's name or don't have the book or recipe title exactly right it won't show up in your search!  There definitely needs to be good proofreading, at least for that!  

I totally agree that I do not want to sacrifice EYB standards in order to get more indexed books.  Any index volunteers need to meet the same standards in my humble opinion.  Also, shouldn't which books are indexed be chosen by EYB?  They know better than anyone else which books best meet the needs of members.

I must admit that I do have concerns with adapting a wiki-style with letting users edit the site.  A typo is one thing, but where do you stop?  I fear it would lead to a slippery slope, with differences of opinion getting in the way of EYB being able to focus on their goals/objectives and customer service.  Volunteers can be a wonderful help to an organization, but there would probably need to be at least one or two dedicated EYB staff with oversight just to handle volunteer work if it were to become very extensive.

Personally, I would like to see EYB staff time spent on continuing to add content and improving the site (better search engine? :).

I'm very pleased with the continuing effects EYB is having on how I use and organize cookbooks, and I recommend it frequently on threads at Chowhound. New indexed books, the addition of blogs and online recipes, the good start to magazine indexing: all great and confidence-inspiring.

But what will make me really celebrate is the actual indexing (now finally 'Index Soon'!) of Anna Thomas' Vegetarian Epicure Book Two. It's the only remaining unindexed book on my short shelf of frequently used cookbooks. As it's also on more than seventy EYB bookshelves, I know I won't be the only one celebrating when it finally happens. 

It will be up soon ellabee - it has been indexed and it just waiting a check-over by our Data Manager, Deborah.  Thank you so much for all the plugs on Chowhound.  I'm not allowed to post anything relating to EYB on there so we are so grateful for all the mentions by EYB members.