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Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

smithsonianmag.com

251–260 of 267 posts

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In print? In general its faster to write and a lot easier to read, also you save time by not having to learn two different systems.

It's definitely not faster to write. That's kind of the whole point. Also it's barely a "different" system. You just join the letters together. In the UK it's called "joined-up writing" and everyone learns it in primary school where there is plenty of time for learning. It is definitely easier to read print though - for a lot of people's handwriting anyway. It's much easier to be lazy and just do an illegible scrawl…

Studies have generally found little difference in writing speed between the two or a slight speed benefit of manuscript over cursive.

Mostly though, speed comes with practice. If you only write in cursive, you'll no doubt feel manuscript writing slow. I only use manuscript writing and find cursive painfully slow.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#252
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead and find something hard, and relate back the steps you took to find it.

> Go ahead and find something hard, and relate back the steps you took to find it. This is a strawman[0] argument. You proclaimed: A lot of what they want transcribed is totally straightforward to OCR And I replied: If it's that easy, then do it and be the hero they want. So do it or do not. Nowhere does my finding "something hard" have any relevance to your proclamation. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Please don't link to wikipedia definitions of elementary terms. It's condescending and obnoxious.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#253
post #85

It's a really interesting project. But boy do they make it hard to participate. * Article doesn't provide a direct link to the topic mission * Signup is pretty easy. Well organized and even gently requires you to have two forms of 2FA. * Sign up complete. Go back to the primary page and try to find the mission. A little buried but not too deep. * Notice I'm not signed in. Ok, let's do that. Now I'm back on the main p…

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Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you guessing, or are there results somewhere that demonstrate how LLMs improve OCR in practical applications?

Someone linked this above https://trustdecision.com/resources/blog/revolutionizing-ocr... > Our internal tests reveal a leap in accuracy from 98.97% to 99.56%, while customer test sets have shown an increase from 95.61% to 98.02%. In some cases where the document photos are unclear or poorly formatted, the accuracy could be improved by over 20% to 30%. While a small percentage increase, when applied to massive amount…

It's not a small percentage. The moment you OCR a book, you'll end up with hundreds to thousands of errors.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posted these above, but I'll give you your own copy because the bits are free. Does your OCR work on these? Mine sadly doesn't. But if yours does, then I'll switch to it. https://imgur.com/a/CDU6Lgs

The problem statement was text that random humans can read and OCR cannot. If you want to provide a good faith answer at least make it English. I assume this is French but it’s obviously much harder to evaluate on both ends when you’re mixing up the language.

I'm confused.

Which parts of "OCR" and "human" stand for "modern english"?

Are you suggesting that humans can't read or write in french? Because I can point to a lot of them who would disagree.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are conceivable reasons why they may be telling a half truth here. Just engaging the public is a worthy goal here. Asserting an ulterior motive without supporting proof is to engage in conspiracy theories. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.[0] 0 - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/12/just-a-cigar/

The alternative is me saying that appealing to their “expertise” is an appeal to authority fallacy that flies in the face of general evidence that modern OCR is far better than humans at character recognition. Especially random non specialized humans.

Fair point.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go ahead and find something hard, and relate back the steps you took to find it. This is a strawman[0] argument. You proclaimed: A lot of what they want transcribed is totally straightforward to OCR And I replied: If it's that easy, then do it and be the hero they want. So do it or do not. Nowhere does my finding "something hard" have any relevance to your proclamation. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Please don't link to wikipedia definitions of elementary terms. It's condescending and obnoxious.

> Please don't link to wikipedia definitions of elementary terms. It's condescending and obnoxious.

I respect what you have chosen to contribute to this conversation, but neither need nor seek your approval of mine.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think I believe that OCR can’t do it but random humans can Considering the people involved are experts in their field, are certainly aware of OCR capabilities, and have publicized a need thusly: ... the National Archives is looking for volunteers who can help transcribe and organize its many handwritten records ... Perhaps "random humans" can perform tasks which could reshape your belief: > OCR is VERY good

Also, you seem to have taken issue with the phrase “random humans” because you’re confused at what’s being done here. It is random humans. Non experts. Experts are asking for the help of non experts. > Anyone with an internet connection can volunteer to transcribe historical documents and help make the archives’ digital catalog more accessible

> Also, you seem to have taken issue with the phrase “random humans” because you’re confused at what’s being done here. It is random humans. Non experts.

I'm largely aligned with your interpretation of "random humans", with a clarification below. The experts I was referencing are the ones you identified:

> Experts are asking for the help of non experts.

The call to action by the archivists (experts), IMHO, has the intent to engage people with interest in the topic. So not really random from a mathematical definition, but perhaps better thought of as "unknown interested parties."

Granted, this is my unsubstantiated opinion.

Re: Can you read this cursive handwriting? The National Archives wants your help

#260
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I did in fact do it, and what I got was much, much easier than the samples in the article, which 4o did fine with. Awesome. Can you guarantee its results are completely accurate every time, with every document, and need no human review? > I'm sorry, but I declare the burden of proof here to be switched. If you are referencing my stating: If it's that easy, then do it and be the hero they want. Then I don't really k…

Can I ask, did you sign up and look at what they're actually looking for? Show of good faith: can you give 3 of the headers for the top-level "missions" they have for transcriptions?

I have failed to express myself clearly and for that I apologize.

What I was trying to convey is that no matter what tooling is employed for this specific problem, a human will have to review the result to ensure accuracy. Since the problem is defined as reading cursive handwriting, people who can do so intrinsically obviate the need for tooling.

Whether or not automation can produce reasonable results is moot when the requirement is to have as accurate as possible a one-time transcription of cursive handwriting documents.

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