Will someone please tell the Editbot...

1. 93

   PegCole17posted 6 years ago

   This seems to be a recurring issue with editorial corrections. The Editbot wants to replace the word "and" with the word "to." This doesn't work in every case. Here's an example.
   
   Someone commented on my hub about emus, "You gave it a try and learned a lesson." The bot decided to change "and" to the word "to". Now it reads, "You gave it a try to learned a lesson."
   
   This is obviously incorrect. I went into the hub to take a look at the edits. The change is in the comments section where I can't reject or fix it. Please ask a human to take a look.
   
   

   replyreport
   1. 82

      Genna Eastposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I've experienced the same problem, Peg.  It's annoying.

      replyreport
   2. 79

      Venkatachari Mposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Very silly corrections are being done by the editbot on many occasions. Sometimes, I change the entire sentence to give it a sense. But, you can't change the comments that way. The HP staff should look into this defect of their system.

      replyreport
   3. 94

      Christy Kirwanposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Peg,
      
      The notifications that are showing up now are actually for the same corrections that you originally got notified about. The notifications now just indicate that the changes are permanent for the corrections you did not reject during Editbot's original pass. Any corrections that were rejected by you over the last year will not persist.

      replyreport
      1. 89

         Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         It would have been nice to have a warning.

         replyreport
      2. 93

         PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Christy,
         Thanks for letting me know.

         replyreport
      3. 79

         Venkatachari Mposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         But, the problem is not solved with your reply, Christy. The correction made in the above sentence is totally wrong. It shows the inefficiency of the editbot. That defect should be looked into and got rectified by the technical people of HP. It could have corrected the word "anyhoo" instead.

         replyreport
         1. 93

            PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

            You're right, Venkatachari. I understand the use of anyhoo as a slang term for anyhow (from the comics). But it truly should have addressed that and the misspelled word, ostrich (not ostriche). Instead, it made a good sentence grammatically incorrect.
            
            That is the real issue, not whether it is too late to fix these editbot changes. We never had the power to edit comments, only to delete them or accept/reject editbot observations.

            replyreport
            1. 92

               Jodahposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               If we can't change anything now why bother to put all those little red exclamation marks all over our hubs so we have to look at them to delete them. It seems a very time consuming activity ( I have at least 100) for no real purpose.

               replyreport
               1. 79

                  Venkatachari Mposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  True, John. It is really a time-consuming job, to go through all those hub pro edited hubs. But, they want you to look at those corrections and be careful, whether you are a commenter or an author.

                  replyreport
               2. 80

                  psycheskinnerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  You can change it, you just have to do it manually by going to edit mode.

                  replyreport
                  1. 92

                     Jodahposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     We can't change it. Read Christy's previous post. These are showing permanent alterations that were done by editbot previously and we accepted. Most are in comments anyway.

                     replyreport
                     1. 94

                        Christy Kirwanposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                        psycheskinner is correct, you can still manually edit articles to revert any changes you don't like. It's only the changes in the comments that can no longer be reverted, and the % of errors corrected by Editbot vs. the % it reduced was a very strong net win for HubPages and most individual authors, so it was a risk we accepted.

                        replyreport
                        1. 92

                           Jodahposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                           OK thanks, Christy. Almost all the changes on my hubs were in comments. I guess most people just didn't have time to read all the corrections when editbot went through so they are surprised now when brought to their attention.

                           replyreport
                        2. 94

                           Sherry Hewinsposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                           Personally, I am relieved to hear this. I checked all of my editbot corrections when they first happened, so those few errors that it made have already been rejected by me.
                           
                           It would have been nice to have that clarified when the red exclamation marks first started appearing though, or even sooner for those who didn't bother to check the first time.

                           replyreport
            2. 79

               Venkatachari Mposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               Peg Cole, I meant the editbot shouldn't make corrections like that in the comments which could not be rectified if the editbot itself is not doing it correctly.
               Even we don't have the option to reject the corrections in such cases.

               replyreport
               1. 80

                  psycheskinnerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  While I understand the SEO reason for it I don't think we should change comments at all.  Accept or reject, fine.  But editing another person's words is taking a liberty.  We can't know for sure if the change is a simple correction or is distorting and misrepresenting what they intended to say.

                  replyreport
               2. 93

                  PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  I understand. I agreed with your earlier observation.

                  replyreport
   4. 91

      Natalie Frankposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I have the same problem along with a problem with the use of the word "or".  The edit bot keeps changing titles and sentences when I am comparing one category with either of two others.  The one I can't seem to prevent from being changed is "Orthorexia: Distinct Disorder or Sub-type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Anorexia" which keeps being changed to "Orthorexia: Distinct Disorder, Sub-type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Anorexia which though perhaps subtle, are still different.

      replyreport
   5. 91

      Natalie Frankposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Ditto

      replyreport
   6. 67

      faith-hope-loveposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      May be the Humans in charge of Edit Bot should be given some Lessons. As you have pointed out replacing words does in a lot of cases change the intent or it makes in some cases nonsense in reading. Makes no sense. Replacing and with to or to with and should be obvious.

      replyreport
2. 92

   Jodahposted 6 years ago

   Same thing has happened with a few of mine, Peg. It needs reprogramming.

   replyreport
   1. 93

      PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      This is creating more work (for us) and not helping improve the grammar.

      replyreport
      1. 94

         viryaboposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         My thoughts exactly!

         replyreport
3. 87

   Stacie Lposted 6 years ago

   Wow, I've got to re-check what the robots changed!

   replyreport
4. 86

   DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years ago

   Agreed; I've suffered several of the same 'corrections.'  It's both annoying and frustrating.

   replyreport
   1. 93

      PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I hope someone reprograms the definition of a conjunction in the bot. And joins two independent thoughts.

      replyreport
5. 86

   DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years ago

   Furthermore, Christy's reply fails to address the problem of 'edits we did not reject.' 
   When the edits are in comments, over which we, as authors, have no control, how are we supposed to reject those???
   Once we've viewed the hub, and seen the correction, or should I say, "so-called correction," when we exit, the changes are made permanent.
   If the bot was changing something in our hub, we could change it back, or fix it in a different way, and that's fine.  But not if it was in a comment, which is where about 90% of these "corrections" seem to be.
   
   I also noticed that they are failing to leave a space between their corrected word and the word following, thereby creating a new error!
   The bot programmers surely need to look into this issue!

   replyreport
6. 67

   faith-hope-loveposted 6 years ago

   No one should make corrections to another persons comments. Not even the editors, They may reject a comment that could potentially be a problem, Editors must, as we all do, ask for, and receive clear, clarification on a comment. Unless we know, we know what the other is trying to say we cannot make adjustments to increase understanding;  The faults of "EditBot" are the faults of the programmer and of the assumptions they make. So how about a human who has a command of Language committed to a continuous editing of "EditBot".  Also the person making the comment should have the ability to correct the obvious mistakes of "EditBot."

   replyreport
   1. 93

      PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that we should not correct our readers' comments no matter what Google dislikes about them. I've noticed that some of the corrections have to do with the dictionary, for example, the word ashtray or tablecloth or downtown. When I used them in my hub, the dictionary underlined the words in red, so I made them into two words. Now, the editbot marked it for correction.
      
      Both systems should be in line with one another for best results. Other words like decor or fiance are marked for correction because the accent mark is missing. I'm not even sure how to put an accent mark on these words.

      replyreport
      1. 86

         DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Peg;
         Go to your desktop and look for the character map under the 'accessories' menu.  (If you're on a Mac, I can't help you, though--that is how you find those marks on a PC machine.)

         replyreport
         1. 93

            PegCole17posted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, Dzy.

            replyreport
7. 67

   faith-hope-loveposted 6 years ago

   In modern usage Both forms "Ashtray and Ash Tray" and Both forms of "Tablecloth and Table Cloth" are correct and neither should be edited out.  This happens because we have two opposing views that are not in communication with each other.  There are a few two word phrases in English that have in modern usage become one word.  May be we must send "Editbot" and "Google" back to school..

   replyreport