GooseGrade, a startup that uses crowdsourcing to let anyone copy edit web sites, has tweaked its service to allow readers to copy edit any web site online. Previously, “citizen editors” could only edit sites which already have the gooseGrade plugin installed.
With the launch of the new service, readers only need to install gooseGrade’s new browser bookmarklet, which can be found on gooseGrade’s website. When a reader finds an error (spelling, grammar, factual, or otherwise) while browsing a site, they can click the “Copy Edit” button in their browsers’ toolbar, highlight the text that they are editing, and submit their edit. Citizen editors will also see any pending edits on the page submitted by other users.
In order to see any edits that gooseGrade users have submitted to their web sites, site owners can install a free plug-in for Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, or any other web site or blog which allows them to accept or decline readers’ edits at their own discretion. gooseGrade will show site owners a side-by-side comparison of original and edited text, with an accuracy rating for each gooseGrade user based on how often their edits are accepted by other authors, and if using gooseGrade’s Wordpress plugin, accepted edits are automatically changed in the article body after being accepted by the author or site admin. Once an author accepts or declines an edit, it is no longer displayed to others when the bookmarklet is clicked.
This seems like a great idea, and an improvement from the site’s original model, which seemed restricting. Launched in 2008, gooseGrade is monetizing its service by offering enterprise versions of its service that can be used in-house by large media companies like CNN or Fox News.
Wasn’t there something like this awhile back where some gov. / public agency used turk/crowdsourcing techniques to get folks to clean up the writing in documents.
Sounds horrible. What’s great about so many websites is that they’re written more casually/informally… so you get split infinitives and dangling prepositions. And that’s a good thing. Poor[ish] grammar is more… approachable. Not so snobby.
Then there’s the fact that most of us write websites to be at the reading level of a grade six student – not a Cambridge-educated English MA student. (And who but those folks would go around correcting grammar online?)
Oh, and then there’s the tricky business of the Web being worldwide
… so the English a Brit would edit online might turn out somewhat different from what a Canadian would write… and from what an Australian would write… not to mention Americans. 
Mixed up style guides. Mixed up consistency. Suckiness (no, it’s not a word) for Web writers around the world.
something tells me that you are a English major lol
@jobowiebe; Judging by your comments, I can only assume you were smoking crack cocaine when you wrote your reply to this article
Split infinitives and dangling prepositions? But there’s nothing wrong with either of those. Look them up.
And here’s the real problem with this idea — too many people who know just enough to be dangerous when editing. We’ll get people correcting “between you and me” and capitalizing the names of the seasons. No thanks.
I think this is actually great, spelling, grammar is not exactly my best area, so I write about what I know and I get some small corrections of something I wrote wrong is good, and btw, I learn while doing this and improve my self.
Also, english is not my native language and getting some corrections have make my writing better, is actually helpfull.
I use gooseGrade since a while in my blog and I’m really happy about it.
I think is a good concept.
Regards,
Nestor
I did this over a year ago, with http://wikify.antimatter15.com while mine is WYSIWYG, and also a Bookmarklet and has the concept of “channels” to have different patch versions of the site where you can update text, create a parody or fix grammatical errors and such.
Totally. If you have the resources, you should release something better. WikiWavefy ftw?
Hm, call me crazy, but I go to major news sites for accurate information, not to do their editing for them. Not to mention that some enterprising publisher will decide they can layoff their copy editors in favor of crowdsourcing.
Uh, that’s “lay off,” not “layoff.” If it’s a verb, a rule of thumb is to see whether one can use two words or one by seeing if you can put a word in between. You lay someone off, or set a computer up, or log a user out of a computer account, &c., so they’re all two words. Nouns, these days anyway, are usually one word, without the hyphen. In American English anyway.
Just used the gooseGrade bookmarklet to see if anyone had yet to submit copy edits on this article (no one has) but while doing so noticed a nicely implemented and important function/safeguard. When I attempted to “edit” someone’s comment above, it was able to discern that the text I was editing was a comment and not part of the article body, and wouldn’t allow me to submit the edit. Nice work.
Hm… crowdtrolling anybody? What if some anonymous loser gets a bunch of their buddies together and they all modify the pages to something totally wrong? For example, what if they all change the text on an employer’s site from “we are an equal opportunity employer” to “we fucking hate Asians”? Now everybody needs to go install some third party software to prevent digital graffiti?
This app does not let anyone change anything. It only lets people make suggestions, which the site’s editors can accept or reject.
There is no change when someone suggest a correction, it only sends an email and add it to your account where you can easly accept it or deny it, but you actually have to go to make the change.
Or, if you are using the wordpress plugin you can accept it from your site administration and it will make the correction in your content for you if you accept it.
It works pretty well for me
This thing is a joke. Their bookmarklet doesn’t work at all, I can’t even log in through it. And the red “coming soon” next to twitter and facebook connect? How unprofessional
Jase,
Can you email me at jbpounders@gooseGrade.com and we can try to troubleshoot your bookmarklet difficulties? We haven’t received reports of it not working for people so we would like to get more details from you. Thanks for the great feedback!
Thanks again,
John Brooks Pounders
gooseGrade.com Founder
This thing is a joke. Their bookmarklet doesn’t work at all, I can’t even log in through it. And the red “coming soon” next to twitter and facebook connect? How unprofessional.
Sorry for the dupe, but I feel like I should respond to both.
Jase,
Can you email me at jbpounders@gooseGrade.com and we can try to troubleshoot your bookmarklet difficulties? We haven’t received reports of it not working for people so we would like to get more details from you. Thanks for the great feedback!
Thanks again,
John Brooks Pounders
gooseGrade.com Founder