Points-O-Matic is one of the many ways you can play on aadl.org, and you can do it during the Summer Game or all year long! While we try to keep Points-O-Matic as straightforward as possible, here are some of the things you might be curious about.
General
What is the point of Points-O-Matic?
Aside from the massive collections of stuff that your library has, it also has lots of data describing that stuff; we call this metadata. But there are SO MANY THINGS that need this metadata we can sometimes use your help to create it. Points-O-Matic is a way to let you help your library improve the information in our catalog and within our digital collections.
Why do I get Points-O-Matic points AND Summer Game points?
They do different things! Points-O-Matic points let you compare how you are doing against all of the other Points-O-Matic players via the Leaderboard. Summer Game points count towards your total number of points for each year's Summer Game and can be spent in the Summer Game Shop!
Review Reviewer
What is Review Reviewer mode and how do I play?
In Review Reviewer mode, you are given a random review that someone else has written about an item in the library catalog. It's up to you to help us figure out whether the review is truly Amazing, or if we should Keep It, or Trash It. Read the review, then give it the rating you feel it deserves by clicking on one of the three options. If you can't decide, you can click Skip, or if you think the review should be passed along to AADL staff, you can click Flag for Staff Review. Read on to learn more about the different types of reviews before you begin!
What makes a review Amazing?
As a general rule, Amazing reviews don't come up very often. These reviews are exceptionally helpful. Amazing reviews give you details about the title, or show carefully considered opinions that couldn't be applied to another title. They pique your interest... or make it abundantly clear that the book (or movie or album) isn't your cup of tea! Amazing reviews are almost always more than a sentence, tell you something you didn't know, and are unique to the reviewer and the review. Remember that Amazingness exists everywhere! A short, sweet, and honest review that was written by a younger reviewer about a children's book can be just as Amazing as any other review. Does a review show that the reviewer put time and effort into adding value to the AADL catalog? Does it provide information that wouldn't otherwise have been found on that title's page? Does it just make you feel enlightened or entertained? Then it's probably an Amazing review. Use your best judgement, and have fun!
What reviews should be Kept?
We want to keep the reviews that aren't obviously great, but could still be helpful to someone checking out an item in the catalog, and represent an opinion that is relevant to that title. Most reviews are totally OK and should be kept! If there is anything thoughtful about the review but you're not positive it's Amazing, then it's safe to say Keep This!
What reviews should be Trashed?
A Trashable review is all nonsense or filler. Less than 4 words, a sentence fragment, or anything that wouldn't be helpful to anyone or could be said about anything else. If a review seems like it was written as spam or to get some quick and easy summer game points, then it's probably Trash. These are reviews that aren't helpful to other readers and shouldn't show up in the catalog at all!
What happens to an Amazing review?
If enough players mark a review as Amazing, then it will be determined to be an officially Amazing review! The reviewer will get a 500 point Summer Game bonus for writing an Amazing review, and eventually, the Amazing reviews will be highlighted on the item page and other places!
What happens to a Trashed review?
If enough players mark a review as Trash, it will be removed from the catalog page, and the reviewer who submitted it will lose the 100 points they got for writing it!
News Sprinter
What is New Sprinter mode and how do I play?
In News Sprinter mode, you are shown an image of the top part of a newspaper page that was scanned from microfilm. All you need to do is look for some information and enter it. News Sprinter gives you places to enter the Month, Day, and Page number of each image, you just have to put in what you see in the image!
What if any of these pieces of info aren't there?
Some of these pages just don't have the information you will be looking for, but that's okay! Month and Day are both dropdowns and each have a NOT FOUND option. In the page number field, you can just enter a 0 and we will know the info was missing.
I made a mistake and didn't realize until I had hit Submit! How do I let you know?
You don't have to! We don't do anything with this data until we have multiple agreeing answers for each of the pieces of information matching an image. Until we get those agreements, the image stays in rotation. So an occassional wrong month or page number will just mean we need one extra person to take a look at it to get that agreement. No worries!
But what about the year?
Don't worry about the year; the rolls of microfilm are organized by year, so we already know what year every image comes from.
Super Serializer
What is Super Serializer and how do I play?
In Super Serializer mode, you can help us figure out if there is correct data in our catalog about books in a series. Take a look at each title and tell us if the series looks right, wrong, or if you're not sure. The kind of series we're looking to highlight with this data is books that build chronologically on each other or feature the same characters/settings.
What's a Right Series?
Data such as "A Stone Barrington novel," or "Community (television program)" or "Anne of Green Gables 3" is all good and useful!
Sometimes the series data will just have the series name. Sometimes the series will have the series name AND the number where the item falls in the series order. As long as the facts are correct, then that data is right as well! Sometimes all the information you'll need to check these facts will be right there on the cover image. Sometimes you'll need to click the title to get to the catalog record. Sometimes you might seek an outside source, like Kent District Library's fantastic series resource What's Next or FantasticFiction to double-check the series name or book order.
What's a Wrong Series?
Sometimes information appears in the series field that isn't *technically* a series (or at least, isn't what we're considering a series) like publisher details such as "Thorndike Large Print" or "Shonen Jump Manga" or "Warner Brothers Backlot Series." You can choose "wrong series" in those cases, because that information typically appears elsewhere in the record and doesn't belong in the series field.
What's Not Sure?
Well, believe it or not, it's when you can't tell if the data is right or wrong!! Maybe the data falls into some gray area or it's just inconsistent, either way, those items will get an extra level of review.
I made a mistake and didn't realize until I had hit Submit! How do I let you know?
Don't worry about it! Each item is reviewed multiple times by different players, so you didn't mess anything up if you clicked the wrong button.
