The following questions are answered below:

• What if I spot an interesting advert or article that doesn't fit into these tasks?
• Is there any guidance to help me understand the content and therefore help me complete the tasks?
• What if I see a term I don't understand?
• I'm having trouble drawing the rectangles, how can I get help?
• Can I flag images that I'd like to look at again?
• Where do these records come from?
• These newspapers seem to emphasise the voice of enslavers, are there records available that emphasise the voice of enslaved people?
• Will the datasets created from this project be in the public domain?
• Is it possible to view higher resolution versions of these images?
• Why can I only see one random page, and not a whole newspaper?
• What if a relevant advert or notice is only partially visible?
• Is this task suitable for mobile phones?

If you have any questions not answered here, feel free to ask a question on the Talk page or send me a direct message.

Questions and answers

What if I spot an interesting advert or article that doesn't fit into these tasks?

You can add additional comments and notes in the Talk section. Just click 'Talk and Done' when you are finished classifying an image in order to initiate a discussion or add a comment about that image.

To indicate that you have spotted something extra, please tag the comment with:

• #Other

It would be helpful if you could indicate where the #other article is located (e.g. "column 1, top"; "column 3, 3rd article").

It would also be helpful if you add additional tags to highlight the topic. Example tags might include:

• #Abolition
• #AntiSlavery
• #Court
• #Crime
• #DoNotEmploy
• #Execution
• #Legislation
• #LostProperty
• #Manumission
• #Murder
• #Parliament
• #Police
• #Rented
• #ToBeHired
• #Trial

Feel free to create your own tags as appropriate. I will try to keep adding to this list. Feel free to send me a direct message to suggest that I add additional hashtags to this list.

Is there any guidance to help me understand the content and therefore help me complete the tasks?

Yes, absolutely. The Field Guide includes examples of each type of advert/notice. This should help you to identify relevant articles.

The Field Guide also includes a Language Guide, which flags some keywords to look out for and tries to contextualise these terms (some of which are now considered discriminatory, harmful or offensive).

You can access the Field Guide by clicking on the "Field Guide" tab on the right hand side of this page.

What if I see a term I don't understand?

Take a look at the "Language Guide" in the Field Guide. If you can't find the word or phrase there, please get in touch and I will do my best to help.

I'm having trouble drawing the rectangles, how can I get help?

On the task (classify) page, click on "Need some help with this task?" This will hopefully help you resolve whatever problem you are experiencing. If you still need help, feel free to ask a question on the FAQ and Help talk board or send me a direct message.

What if I'm not unsure which category an advert/notice belongs to?

The "Field Guide" contains examples of each type of advert/notice.

If you are still unsure, draw the rectangle and select the category that seems most appropriate. It would be helpful if you could add a comment on the talk board using the tag #unsure.

Can I flag images that I'd like to look at again?

Yes, absolutely! You can 'favourite' or 'collect' an image. This will not allow you to go back and alter your classification of that image. It just allows you to view it again.

Where do these records come from?

The physical copies of these newspapers are located at the Barbados Archives Department in Barbados. The Barbados Archives digitised these records after successfully applying to the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) for funding. The digital versions of these newspapers are now available via the EAP website.

• The Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette
• The Barbadian

These newspapers seem to emphasise the voice of enslavers, are there records available that emphasise the voice of enslaved people?

While these newspapers provided a platform for enslavers to speak, in so doing the hidden voices of the enslaved can be found. For example, the 'runaway' adverts represent the interests of enslavers looking to recapture people that have attempted to escape enslavement. But these adverts also represent acts of resistance and reveal crucial details that help to identify individual people who were enslaved, as well as their family and non-family networks. In so doing, the voices of enslaved people can be read between the lines of these newspapers.

Beyond this project, records that provide the direct perspective of enslaved people do exist. A recent EAP digitisation project in Sierra Leone digitised 19th century police and court records. These include depositions and witness statements by people liberated across West Africa. That collection therefore offers a rare insight into the lives of formerly enslaved people during the 19th century as they adjusted to freedom.

Within the context of Barbados, the UNESCO Memory of the World Register includes 'the only known manuscript of an African work song that was chanted in the sugar fields of Barbados'. A document that is located at Gloucestershire Archives in the UK. The register also includes a corpus of documents relating to the heritage of enslaved people in Barbados, which is preserved by the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.

Will the datasets created from this project be in the public domain?

Yes! We believe that as you helped create it, it is important that you have access to it. Any datasets created from this project will be made freely available via the British Library's Research Repository.

Is it possible to view higher resolution versions of these images?

Yes. We compressed the images before uploading them to Zooniverse. We tried to find the right balance between maintaining clarity of the image to enable them to be clearly read, while making the file sizes small enough to ensure a smooth experience on the Zooniverse platform.

You can view higher resolution versions of each image on the EAP website.

If you click in the "i" symbol at the bottom right of the Zooniverse image viewer, this will display the image metadata.

The metadata window includes a url link to the newspaper edition on the EAP website. It also tells you which image number this particular image corresponds to in that newspaper edition.

Why can I only see one random page, and not a whole newspaper?

Typically, each edition of these newspapers contains 4 pages. The main reason we chose not to present users with sets of 4 pages is that the digital file size would be very big. This would be likely to cause the task to be very slow, which many users might find frustrating.

The types of advert and notice that we are asking you to identify are very unlikely to span across two pages. Looking at one page should not therefore affect your ability to perform the task. If the first article on your page is continuing from the previous page, it is very unlikely to fit one of the specified cagories.

What if a relevant advert or notice is only partially visible?

In the unlikely situation that you are only able to draw a rectangle around part of an advert/notice, please just draw round the portion you can see and use the talk section to add a comment. Please tag the comment with #PartialRectangle

Is this task suitable for mobile phones?

The current task, which asks contributors to draw rectangles around particular types of advertisement/notices is best completed on a laptop or computer.

However, future tasks will be much more suitable for use with mobile phones. In these tasks, you will be presented with just a single article rather than a full newspaper page. In these tasks you will be asked a simple question rather than asked to draw something on the screen.