IMSLP Forums

Sometimes, when I look at the ratings of some scores I wonder, if we should explain a little bit, how one can see the quality of a scan (say not look at the screen resolution quality of a color scan - what is 1000 color pixels worth if you want to print it out - but perhaps zoom into the score or print it). One could give example pictures of zoomed scores to show the differences.
Sometimes I even get realy angry about the ratings. For example: every scan of "Goldberg988" is a 10, but I can find much lower ratings. Of cause I also don't agree with those ratings for my own scan. I always try to get best possible quality - you can print every scan I do and the result will look the same as the Original. The ratings my scans get range from 1(!!!) to 10 - but I know I scan every score absolutely identically.
I am afraid that there are users who won't download a score rated low, because they think it makes no sense. Also it is not possible to search for good scanned scores using the ratings.

I wouldn't take the ratings folks give your scans too seriously, pp. It's entirely possible that someone thought they were giving you the top rating by putting in "1" (which is actually the lowest). The relatively few ratings that exist are all over the place. We have a number of superb scanners posting things here now and there have been some fairly exciting developments with software capable of fixing some of the inherent issues in scanned music - like warped and skewed images. You have every reason to be proud of your scanning work - which has been done at a consistently excellent level.

I completely agree with Carolus, your scans are absolutely wonderful - but there will always be people that may have been confused or plain crazies that may want to hide a very good scan from fellow students

Actually, given the very small number of ratings it could be helpful if somewhere on the homepage (or under contributing to imslp) downloaders would be urged to rate scans (with more ratings, the odd-ones should be less harmful), and some examples of how to rate scans could be added to the Filerater page.

As to what people choose to download, I now believe that the majority of casual imslp users will not even start to scroll down to see what is available... Back in January I wondered why M. rara parts for the Dvorak windserenade were downloaded at a rate that exceeded my own much better scans by about 5:1, even if the former had a warning about badly marked-up scans. So I swapped them around, and the ratio was more than inverted (1:10). Now with the Simrock first edition added before the others, I believe most people just will start downloading these. Similar with the Spohr Nonet: The scans of the first edition are a more popular download than the Peters-edition scans further down the workpage.

Nevertheless I am sure there are many people that appreciate the really superb scans!

Thank you very much both of you!!!
I believe you are right with all your ideas. But it's deeply regrettable that thus the ratings have no meaning at all. It would be nice to have a chance to find or identify good/perfect printable scores easily.
And, as for myself, it would be nice to have my work appreciated from time to time - as you did with your answers, so again thank you!!!