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R.O.A.D. Barbados Historic Handwriting Challenge

Helping Barbados
$25 000 USD
~2 months left
Optical Character Recognition
Natural Language Processing
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Starti
03 Jul 26
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04 Oct 26
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04 Oct 26
Clarification on multi-line image labeling convention (train vs. test)
22 Jul 2026, 14:25 ยท 3

Hi all,

While going through the training images, I noticed that most multi-line images are labeled with only the text of the centered/main line, but a portion of the training set has labels that include the full multi-line text instead.

Before I invest time building special handling for multi-line cases, I'd like to clarify: for the test set, are multi-line images expected to follow the same mixed convention (i.e., some evaluated as center-line-only, some as full multi-line), or is there a single consistent rule that applies to test specifically?

Concretely:

  • Are all multi-line test images scored against just the center line's text?
  • Or could some test images require the full multi-line transcription, matching how a subset of the training labels are structured?
  • If it's a mix, is there any way to anticipate which case applies to a given image (e.g., based on how the image was cropped), or should we treat it as ambiguous and design for both?

Any clarification would help before I decide how much engineering effort to put into detecting/handling multi-line cases specifically. Thanks!

Discussion 3 answers

@FNF

I'd treat it as full transcription unless the organizers say otherwise. I haven't found a reliable way to tell when only the center line should be used, so I'd avoid adding special-case logic.

28 Jul 2026, 06:53
Upvotes 0

yeah I noticed the same thing, and it is unclear what to do actually

28 Jul 2026, 19:16
Upvotes 0
User avatar
meganomaly
Zindi

Hi @youssefilo Thanks for letting us know. Could you share a few example IDs where you've found this please. We'll then investigate and come back with a more solid response re handling. Thanks very much!

5 Aug 2026, 15:19
Upvotes 0