The GooseGrade competition: and the winner is….

Written on 16th December 2008                                                                                                              5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

At the beginning of November, we launched a crowd-sourced copy-editing experiment called the GooseGrade competition. Here’s why:

Since most of our editors aren’t native English speakers, we’ve been obsessed with spelling and grammar. Every time we hit the publish button, we secretly hope no errors have slipped in. Next to being really careful, this fear also translated in some posts about 2.0 spelling tools. [..] Last week, long time Next Web reader Bob Boynton sent me a tool that has a new and effective approach to this spelling problem. GooseGrade crowdsources copyediting to readers. That’s right, everybody can easily correct grammar, spelling, factual, or style errors. Isn’t that a great idea?

The person making the most corrections before December 1st would win a Flip Video.

Well, after one month of facing a daily load of correction emails – we’re glad to announce a winner. In 194 posts, he managed to find 125 style, grammar errors, and typos. Not bad, Mr. Bob Boynton. You’ve left the competition far behind.

The man who came up with the idea – also won the prize. Sounds like a set-up. Enjoy the Flip Bob!

Bob Boynton, Copy editing, Editing, English language, Flip Video, GooseGrade, Grammar

5 Comments »

Win a Flip by corecting our speling and gramar with GooseGrade

Written on 31st October 2008                                                                                                              32 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

If you’re a long-time reader of The Next Web, you know we started from scratch in November, less than 12 months ago. A couple of Dutch dudes in an Amsterdam office with just one goal: becoming Europe’s largest tech blog. Well, we know we’re on our way (see Feedburner), but at the same time realize there’s still a long way to go.

Our English still needs some improvement, as it’s our second language. We’ve followed classes, are lucky enough to have native speakers David Petherick and Zee Kane on board, and we’re now ready for the next step: crowd-sourcing copy-editing.

A month ago, one of those long-time readers, Bob Boynton, tipped me about GooseGrade – a service that makes it possible for blog readers to copy-edit pieces articles. Excellent! Like it was made for us. So as soon as I got the chance, I installed the GooseGrade button on The Next Web. You can find it on the article pages, right next to the Digg button.

Let’s organize a competition!

If you want to use GooseGrade, you’ll have to register first. That creates a little barrier. So to motivate you, we’re organizing a competition. The person who makes the most corrections before December 1st will receive a Flip Video.

Here’s how to win this nifty little device:

• Sign-up to GooseGrade
• Noticed an error or typo? Click on the GooseGrade button and fix it!

We will keep track of who does the most work and will reward them in December. Alright part time copy-editors, good luck!

Bob Boynton, Copy editing, david petherick, digg, English language, Flip Video, GooseGrade, Zee Kane

32 Comments »

GooseGrade promotes YOU to copy editor

Written on 28th September 2008                                                                                                              9 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Since most of our editors aren’t native English speakers, we’ve been obsessed with spelling and grammar. Every time we hit the publish button, we secretly hope no errors have slipped in. Next to being really careful, this fear also translated in some posts about 2.0 spelling tools. Like Spellr.us, an Australia-based service that remotely monitors your blog or website and send you updates when it finds errors and typos. They launched at TechCrunch 50.

Last week, long time Next Web reader Bob Boynton sent me a tool that has a new and effective approach to this spelling problem. GooseGrade crowdsources copyediting to readers. That’s right, everybody can easily correct grammar, spelling, factual, or style errors. Isn’t that a great idea?

Every time a reader corrects something, the GooseGrade of a post drops a bit and the GooseGrade of the part-time copy editor increases. Founder John Brooks Pounders told Cnet how it works:

“GooseGrade does rate the ‘crowd.’ Each user has an accuracy rating for how often their corrections are accepted. We find this by dividing corrections accepted by total corrections posted. This should help keep spamming at bay and also provide an easy way for the author to know whether or not to listen to the grader. ex. ‘joewxboy is correct 95% of the time.’”

Here’s a video about GooseGrade:

The service will launch next week in private beta. I’ll definitely install it on The Next Web Blog, which seems to be a matter of just inserting a few lines of code. Then I’ll invite you, dear reader, to act like a copy editor every once in a while.

CNET Networks, Copy editing, crowdsourcing, English language, GooseGrade

9 Comments »