GooseGrade lets readers copyedit your blog

We all make mistakes. To err is what makes us humans. But at the same time, it can be pretty embarrassing when it's something that's seen by many--like a blog post. A new service called gooseGrade is trying to change that by crowd-sourcing blog copyediting to readers. The hope is that they'll help fix your mistakes instead of filling up the blog's comments or your e-mail in-box with correction recommendations.

To get the system working on their blogs, blog owners must insert a few lines of code into their template. This adds a small gooseGrade rating stamp that users can click when they want to correct you. While in this correction mode they can simply highlight things that need fixing, make a recommendation, then send it your way. The moment they do that, the post's gooseGrade, which starts at 100, begins to drop incrementally. Each user recommendation takes it down a few points, and it will not go back up until you've addressed it, either by accepting the change or simply declining.

As the blog owner you get a notification for each edit, and you can then go in and see what the suggested change is and have it fixed with one click.

Making a correction on someone else's blog is as simple as highlighting it. You then get to choose what you want fixed in one of four categories.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

What makes the service particularly attractive to publishers is that it tracks these errors and corrections in a central location. If you're part of a group blog, this system helps you figure out who on your team needs the most development or hand-holding before hitting the publish button.

Another attractive reason to have it on your blog is that the service will highlight networked posts in one central location that organizes popular or otherwise notable stories. Like SezWho, which has done something similar with comments in networked sites, there's some real potential for this, that is as long as enough blogs are participating.

The service was created by John Brooks Pounders, who founded ButterBeeHappy.com, and is launching next week in private beta. Until then, you can see what the editing tool looks like in the video embedded below.

Update: Pounders dropped me a line to make note of how the crowd rating system works. For those who were concerned about spamming this is your answer:

"GooseGrade does rate the 'crowd.' Each user has an accuracy rating for how often their corrections are accepted. We find this by dividing corrections accepted by total corrections posted. This should help keep spamming at bay and also provide an easy way for the author to know whether or not to listen to the grader. ex. 'joewxboy is correct 95% of the time.'"

[fuzbears]

Oh I hope CNET decides to use this.. Since it has been pushing stories out, putting speed above quality, some stories end up being a labor to even read..

[Josh.Lowensohn]

You only need one period to end a sentence. There's also a comma splice.

[joewxboy]

I hope it's spam-proof.

It would also be pretty easy to get a group of people to flood a post with negative comments in order to drive the post's ratings into the toilet, thus distracting the potential credibility of the point(s) being made in the post through thuggish behaviour.

[TV James]

Sounds great. Can't wait to see it. I hope C|NET News.com and MSNBC.com will add it.

@joewxboy - Agreed. I'd like to see something where the "crowd" is also ranked - so the more copy editing you do that isn't rejected by the editor, the more credibility you gain as an editor. Could play into how the proofing is displayed to the editor when they go to accept/reject future edits.