Warbird Information Exchange

Hi. Andy from CriticalPast here. I wanted to let you all know that we value your edits on CriticalPast greatly, and take very seriously the job of updating our clip information over time and improving the descriptions. Many of the clips in the collection came to us from US Gov't sources with very thin and sometimes incorrect descriptions. Because the collection is large, the edit and improvement process is an ongoing (indeed never-ending) task. Our editors review and correct scores of clips every week. The most valuable contributions come from users like yourselves in communities like the Warbird Information Exchange who have deep subject matter expertise.

Users submit description corrections and improvements directly by clicking the "Edit Now" link to the left of the video player for any clip, and then directly editing the text in the window that comes up. After you submit a correction on CriticalPast, your edits do not show up immediately. (There is a confirmation message that mentions this after you submit). Corrections enter a queue for manual review. Sometimes, that review process can take as much as 7-10 days. Our editors review and seek to verify every suggested edit, and sometimes expand on it even further, before posting it.

There is a known problem only with Mac users (only) running the Firefox browser (only) being unable to submit corrections at this time. That should be resolved soon. But all other major OS/browser combinations function well and we are aware of no other bugs in the edit submission process.

Yes, we are a commercial business, but we also care about this content and see historical preservation, accuracy, and education as important work (which is partly why we make the entire collection viewable by anyone, worldwide). When I saw this posting, above, that corrections were "reverting back" I felt the need to reply because we take this very seriously. It is my guess that anyone experiencing this might have been expecting an immediate update in the description text, and did not wait a week or two before checking back to see the correction.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions or comments about this issue, or if you believe you have found any bug in the correction submission process. There is a link to contact us in the footer of the CriticalPast website. We thank you for your description corrections and improvements!
-- Andy Erickson
Co-founder, CriticalPast.com