Where is the transcription effort for various census and other large record sets documented?

Question

I am looking for a description of the process that was used to transcribe data in the various censuses (US, UK, etc.). I would like to know some basic statistics about the process:

1. When was it done for the various censuses?
2. How many people were involved?
3. What sort of error checking was performed?
4. How many records were processed in total? On average per transcriber?
5. Were transcribers paid or were they volunteers? Were some paid for QA?

In particular, I am interested in the description of the earliest examples of this kind of work.

CLARIFICATION:

I am interested in understanding the effort that was required to coordinate a large group of volunteers to convert a set of handwritten documents into an electronic format that subsequently can be indexed. No two collections (or transcription efforts) are the same, so I don't think there is a single answer to each of my sub-questions. Rather, expect that the various censuses were all done differently, but an overall average effort may emerge as the single answer. I would be very happy with some references that document the transcription and QA processes. Does this help clarify some of the issues raised in the comments?

Answer 1

The one transcription effort I've been involved in (on USGenWeb) has people doing both initial transcription and proofreading. It's coordinated online and is volunteer only (no pay). Error checking consists of proofreaders going over the transcription and comparing it to what they see in the original.

No idea on quantity per transcriber. I do a page when I have some time.

On Ancestry, I consistently submit corrections or alternate information to help the searches of other people and have seen quite a few errors. This is the reason for my own genealogy research, I get copies of the original documents and consider transcription or indexes to be hints and not definitive information.

A few tidbits, anyway.