Correcting Transcriptions of Srila Prabhupada’s Lectures and Conversations
BY: VISNU MURTI DASA
Jul 24, 2016 — RADHADESH, BELGIUM (SUN) —
In his article of the 20th of July, “Cheating Right Under Our Noses“, Bhakta Torben requested Vanimedia to explain what is going on. This is what I can say.
The audio file you mention, along with all of the other 1976 audio files, was reviewed by the Bhaktivedanta Archives and their team of volunteers before they made the release of the 1976 audio files in November of 2013. The transcription errors should have been caught during the proofreading process.
I do not know the system the Archives have established to verify the transcriptions against the audio files, but I do know that they said it was done.
Vanipedia received these new releases as did everyone else who requested them. We placed the files and the new transcriptions into our Vanisource as we have also done with the 1977 and the 1975 through to 1972. The recent release of 1971 is now also being placed into Vanisource.
Over time we became aware that the transcriptions were not always accurate, and in order to help get Srila Prabhupada’s transcriptions as close as humanly possible to his actual audio files, in April 2014, we launched a new collaborative project within Vanipedia.
We wrote an article in the Sampradaya Sun when we launched the project, titled Srila Prabhupada’s Audio to Text Fidelity Project, and we sent a progress report three months later, entitled Three Months of Attentive Hearing.
This project was going well for a little over 6 months. We engaged 35 proof-readers from around the globe who went through 781 audio files. We added 3,845 words that were missing and we deleted 200 words that were extra. In total we made 4,993 edits. Each file was proofread by a volunteer and then checked by a devotee who was coordinating the project. When the suggested corrections were accepted we adjusted the file within Vanisource.
Unfortunately the devotee who was coordinating the project could not continue and thus in December of 2014 it was put on hold.
The file that you have presented had not yet been proofread within the time frame I mentioned above. Therefore, today, in order to properly answer your question, Sahadeva prabhu spent 2 hours of attentive hearing and corrected the transcription to be the same as the audio file 760615 – Conversation D – Detroit.
He found many more omissions and additions which you can see here in the differences between the revisions page.
It is possible there are still more corrections to be found. Actually these files can be attentively listened to, with the intent to proofread them, many times. It is a great experience for any devotee to have – attentive listening to His Divine Grace and at the same time doing a service to help all future listeners to receive transcriptions that are true to the audio files, thus helping them immensely in hearing correctly.
I do not blame anyone for these imperfect transcriptions that appear in Vedabase and I have given up trying to find out why these are happening.
Having said that, I do know however that WE ALL have the opportunity to bring the audio transcriptions to pristine condition and I would love to collaborate with anyone who is willing to reignite this dynamic project of “Audio to Text Fidelity” within Vanipedia.
There are many devotees who are concerned about the book changes, but most of these devotees have very little influence to have their concerns met. However every devotee has the opportunity to collaborate together to bring the transcriptions of Srila Prabhupada’s lectures and conversations to be 100% in line with the actual words he spoke and the actual words that others spoke to him.
Vanipedia offers a true collaborative platform for this to happen.
All it takes is a couple of devotees with some good networking skills and some ability to organize the work of the volunteers. When that is in place we can again invite volunteers to come forward to attentively hear Srila Prabhupada.
This is a very simple but very important vaniseva to do. The Archives are gradually releasing all of the files, so it is timely to once and for all co-ordinate an updated proofreading to get the transcriptions into pristine condition.
I invite anyone (including yourself) who is able to coordinate this project to join with us and get it completed.
Srila Prabhupada is 108% present within his audio files, so let’s get the transcriptions of these audio files ONE WITH the files.
If anyone is interested to coordinate this project or participate in other ongoing collaborative projects within Vanipedia I can be contacted at visnu.murti.vani@gmail.com.
Jaya Srila Prabhupada.
your servant
Visnu Murti dasa
#SunEdit
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