September 2004 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

re: Re: [gutvol-d] interesting stat from the news letter
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 Sep '04

17 Sep '04

aaron said: > I didn't realize that there was such a backlog. Good luck > with that, especially with regards to automating the process. um, my post in support of the automatic text-to-html converters didn't mean to suggest there is a special push on to perfect them... i know of no such focused effort. indeed, one can get one's head bitten off in the d.p. forums for suggesting improvement is needed, or even that a minimal standard of usefulness should be created. the modus operandi seems to be that every person is free to wander off and create their own idiosyncratic .html version, "as long as it validates." in my humble opinion, that's a recipe for a nonstandardized library -- the same one that has given us 14,000 inconsistent ascii texts -- and a nonstandardized library is shorthand for a less-useful library. that reminds me, david moynihan recently offered his extensive collection of thousands of .html versions to project gutenberg. the only substantial reaction i saw was "your files don't validate". what was the response to that kind offer? was it turned down? -bowerbird

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Top 100
by Marcello Perathoner 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

New experimental top 100 books and authors at: http://www.gutenberg.net/catalog/world/top Did you know our most read authors are Various and Anonymous? Did you know our most downloaded eBooks are: 1. Audio: "The House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe 2. Audio: "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens 3. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 4. Ulysses by James Joyce with 1. being downloaded 5 times as often as 2., and 9 times as often as 3. ? Yes, there is a solution to the mystery. Anybody wants to apply his/her reasoning power? The solution is a few lines down. It turns out I had to disqualify those as well as a few others that have mp3 files and use the word "House" in the title. (Moreover, research has shown that "Usher" is a rap artist. :-) -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.net

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] interesting stat from the news letter
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

frank said: > I think one reason that DP produces > a little less texts compared to > approximately one year ago is the fact that > more and more projects get HTML markup i believe that the .html converter programs (and the preparation of the plain-text files) should be improved to the point where they generate the .html version _automatically_. not only would this help cure the backlog, it would ensure that the .html versions are _uniform_ and _consistent_ across the library, which would make them _far_ more valuable... thank you for your time and consideration. -bowerbird

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interesting stat from the news letter
by Aaron Cannon 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

I usually skim the news letter to see if there is anything new, and I noticed this little stat: 352 Average Per Month in 2004 355 Average Per Month in 2003. Anyone have any theories as to why we are doing fewer books per month on average this year? Not complaining, just a little curious. Sorry if this is old news. Sincerely Aaron Cannon -- E-mail: cannona(a)fireantproductions.com Skype: cannona MSN Messenger: cannona(a)hotmail.com (Do not send E-mail to the hotmail address.)

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] Linking to PG policy
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

marcello said: > Nobody is breaking them on purpose. > They break because the files get moved. but the files are being moved on purpose, aren't they? so can't something be done? what about redirects? or nice little notes that tell the person where the file has been moved to? a coupon for $1 from see's candies? anything seems better than a 404. but perhaps there's something about the problem i don't understand. if that's the case, feel free to ignore me... :+) > Our policy directs users to set links to URLs that will not break. that's a good policy. people making new links should follow it. i'm just thinking about the links (who knows how many?) that are already out there that nobody is maintaining, or which couldn't be changed even if someone wanted to... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] Linking to PG policy
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

there are a lot of deep links already out there, aren't there? it would be an unnecessary shame to break them, wouldn't it? -bowerbird

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Fwd: Re: [gutvol-d] Linking to PG policy
by Greg Newby 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

Forwarding. ----- Forwarded message from Michael Hart <hart(a)pglaf.org> ----- From: Michael Hart <hart(a)pglaf.org> To: Greg Newby <gbnewby(a)pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Linking to PG policy Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 07:49:16 -0700 (PDT) Personally, I think that disallowing direct linking to our files will encourage traffice to other sites that do allow for click-throughs to our eBooks. . .such as Google, just to mention one sort of thing. You can forward to the list if you like. Michael ----- End forwarded message -----

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Re: [gutvol-d] Top 100
by Joshua Hutchinson 13 Sep '04

13 Sep '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Hart <hart(a)pglaf.org> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 09:50:07 -0700 (PDT) To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Top 100 > > It turns out I had to disqualify those as well as a few others that have mp3 > > files and use the word "House" in the title. (Moreover, research has shown > > that "Usher" is a rap artist. :-) > > OK, perhaps I was just expecting something more serious here, but. . . . > > I would include all files, not sure why to disqualtify MP3 files, or "house" > remixes. . .hee hee! > > I think we should measure everything, though I think sub-lists would > be acceptable. . .such as the "Whole Top 100," then fiction, non-fiction, > .txt files, .htm files, .mp3 files, etc., etc., etc., > The numbers are inflated because people probably hit Google, typed mp3 and usher, and downloaded our file. The *thought* they were getting a music file by a popular artist, not a computer read version of the House of Usher. So, they most likely moved the file to the recycle bin immediately. That, and the RIAA probably hit our file half a billion times to check if it WAS an usher song. I'm surprised we haven't received any automated cease and desist letters from the brain trust lawyers at the RIAA. After all, by their normal logic, if it has USHER in the title, it must be their song. Josh

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Linking to PG policy
by Marcello Perathoner 13 Sep '04

13 Sep '04

Wrote a page about linking policy. http://www.gutenberg.net/howto-link That leaves us with the question of how to deal with the many "Project Gutenberg Multiplexer" sites that offer independent search facilities for PG books. Most of those do deep linking to the files. Requiring them to link to the bibrec page would be pretty much counterintuitive because their reason of existence is to provide a search interface of their own. Should we require them to prominently display a live link to our main page along with any search results? -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.net

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[Fwd: Demande de liens pour pages d'auteurs]
by Marcello Perathoner 12 Sep '04

12 Sep '04

Anybody fluent enough in French to answer this? I think he wants to set links to our pages. No problem. He should use the canonical link form: www.gutenberg.net/etext/12345 -------- Original Message -------- Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 09:46:59 +0200 To: webmaster(a)gutenberg.net From: zemirline_mohamed <zemirline_mohamed(a)yahoo.fr> Subject: Demande de liens pour pages d'auteurs Monsieur, J'ai l'Honneur de vous demander de bien vouloir m'autoriser d'avoir des liens directs à quelques livres électroniques de votre site. En effet, je prépare un petit site pour les livres gratuits et votre aide me serait d'une très grande utilité. Pour l'instant j'ai un petit site pour les photos : "Tibhirine ou La Nature": http://membres.lycos.fr/tibhirine Veuillez croire Monsieur, en mon entière reconnaissance. zemirline_mohamed(a)yahoo.fr M.Zemirline -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.net

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