December 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

re: [gutvol-d] the secret garden, revisited
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Dec '05

27 Dec '05

greg said: > At that point, the files are accessible > if you know how to navigate to them. > For example, #17392 could be accessed as > http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/9/17392 oh right, crap, i should have remembered that... so i looked at the version of "the secret garden" that was just created by distributed proofreaders, comparing it to the distillation copy i had prepared. (which itself had resulted from the original e-text of this book that is already in p.g., as e-text #113, being compared with the smoothreading version, so now i was comparing a comparison to a comparison. just so you don't get confused...) ;+) and d.p. did a _very_ good job on it. congratulations... however, i still show 5 outright errors in your version, the details of which i have appended to this message... (the top line in each pair is your line, with the error being followed by the large gap before the next word.) plus there are also 5 special cases outlined below them, where i chose to make edits. your mileage might vary... (but you _did_ make highly similar edits, for consistency.) as a point of reference for bystanders, there were approximately 250-300 points of difference between the d.p.-processed text and the original p.g. e-text, so 5-10 errors in boiling them down isn't _that_ many. 5-10 errors on a book would be _excellent_ on a first-pass. it's respectable even on a comparison project like this one. although perfection _is_ within the realm of obtainability, you've attained a very high accuracy-mark here, especially since your comparison tools probably aren't up to snuff yet. but the one thing that _does_ give me pause on some of the things is that they _should_ have been caught by your tools. any missing end-paragraph terminating-punctuation (page 31) should be caught. ditto a continuation-quote (page 108, but perhaps you were "matching the scan" and passed on that). and a good tool will detect inconsistent and/or irregular usage, of the type that is represented in the additional edits i made... so a comparison tool should eventually find all of your errors here (mine did), but even your _regular_ tools should've caught _some_! so i congratulate you for a job well-done, but recommend you bring your tools up to speed, and then you'll realize perfection, at least on these re-do projects, and maybe first-passes too... anyway, perhaps for 2006, one of your resolutions should be not to alienate any future tool-makers... and in sum, this double-digitization shows nicely how this approach can drive an e-text to perfection, probably better than any other... just in passing, i will note that the postprocessor on this book (miller) must have applied a lot of elbow-grease doing the comparison, because the version that went out for smooth-reading had a _lot_ more errors. there has been a lot of upheaval over at d.p. as a result of the june move to four rounds, but still only two of those rounds are for actual proofing. (the other two are for formatting.) so the primary difference is that the second proofing round is done by a proofer tested to be "more-qualified". i don't know if this text went through the new system or not, but if it did, it does _not_ speak well for it. i highly recommend that d.p. use a _third_ round of proofing. (or even better, adopt the recommendation that i made a while back for a "roundless" system that uses _consensus_ as the factor that promotes a page from the proofing rounds into the formatting rounds.) also, it would be nice if -- when d.p. does a "re-do" project like this one -- d.p. would package up the various iterations of the process and make 'em available to researchers like myself so that we could examine the output at the different stages and do work on improving the overall results... so how 'bout it, d.p. people, will you furnish that material on this book? (indeed, if you could package up the results of each round into a .zip file, for _every_ book you do, that would be a great resource for researchers.) -bowerbird ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ these are your errors, by the scans and/or common sense: p. 31 also. "That there?" she said "Yes." "That's also. "That there?" she said. "Yes." "That's p. 129 blades. "There's lots o' 'dead wood as blades. "There's lots o' dead wood as p. 187 told her anything," said Colin, "She heard told her anything," said Colin. "She heard p. 222 out between two sobs: "Sh--show her! She--she'll see then!" out between two sobs: "Sh-show her! She-she'll see then!" p. 287 "It is my garden now, I am "It is my garden now. I am ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ and here are 5 edits, contra-scans, that i made for consistency: p. 91 an' I was in practice." Mary got an' I was in practise." Mary got p. 108 to her: "_My Dear Dickon:_ This comes hoping to her: _"My Dear Dickon:_ "This comes hoping p. 109 bit o' mother's hot oat cake, an' butter, bit o' mother's hot oat-cake, an' butter, p. 254 said Mary quite seriously. "An tha' munnot said Mary quite seriously. "An' tha' munnot p. 326 got into my throat." "But" she said got into my throat." "But," she said ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ there was also this edit, from the earlier p.g. version, that i liked, so i kept it in my version as a tribute to the original type-in e-text. p. 108 him?" asked Martha suddenly, she had looked him?" asked Martha suddenly, for Mary had looked ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------

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re: [gutvol-d] the secret garden, revisited
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Dec '05

27 Dec '05

i said: > i will check this final posted p.g./d.p. version > against my distillation and see what pops up... well, i will when it shows up, anyway... :+) (i guess the "posted" digest is a bit premature; takes a little time for the e-text page to go live.) -bowerbird

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the secret garden, revisited
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

i see "the secret garden" was posted as #17396. this is a re-digitization of a very early e-text -- #113. as i've said before, different digitizations can serve as a check on each other, and therefore boost accuracy _considerably_. i did a check of a preliminary d.p. version against the project gutenberg #113, and have posted my z.m.l. distillation here: > http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/bowerbird/2005cleanup/tsg4.zml (in-progress versions tsg1 through tsg3 are also there.) i will check this final posted p.g./d.p. version against my distillation and see what pops up... -bowerbird

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merry christmas 2005 -- the good, the bad, and the surprising
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 Dec '05

25 Dec '05

merry christmas 2005! the bad news is that distributed proofreaders got no present in their stocking this year... :+( the good news is that they didn't get a lump of coal like they did last year... :+) the surprising news is that michael hart -- for the first year in anyone's memory -- got no present. some people speculate that google stole michael's present, but perhaps he just wasn't as good this year as he has been in previous years? maybe saint nicholas just skipped over the p.g./d.p. houses this year... but i'm sure he'll be back next year! happy 2006! -bowerbird

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www.gutenberg.org
by Marcello Perathoner 25 Dec '05

25 Dec '05

As of my request ibiblio has changed our apache virtual host ServerName from gutenberg.net to www.gutenberg.org. What? Nothing changes in web site operation except one little particular (if you hit a non-existing url you get redirected to www.gutenberg.org instead of gutenberg.net) Why? The .org top-level domain is meant for non-profit organizations while the .net domain is meant for network infrastructure such as providers, backbones etc. We own both gutenberg.net and gutenberg.org, but using the latter one is just more standard-compliant. Although both urls www.gutenberg.net and www.gutenberg.org give exactly the same results, you should start using www.gutenberg.org in all publications, papers etc. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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differentiating between indentation and no indentation after poetry
by Wally Thompson 23 Dec '05

23 Dec '05

I'm working on a book that has poetry within the text. Sometimes a poem ends the paragraph and sometimes it does not. So I'm wondering how to handle this in the text file without leaving it ambiguous. Wally

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re: [gutvol-d] differentiating between indentation and no indentation after p...
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

jon said: > I guess you have rejected it. nah. your "praise" had no effect on me. what would it mean to be an "expert" on a 4th-grade topic anyway? :+) i just wanted you to realize that i was immune to the dale carnegie approach, so you wouldn't get frustrated it didn't work. > You know, if you instead worked *with* people > (rather than viewing everyone else as enemies > that you must outwit), and started a SourceForge project, > assembled like-minded people, you'd be much further along, > and would probably have won a lot more hearts and minds. i have no desire to "win" hearts or minds. or to "win" friends or "influence" people... i am merely a messenger. for those who will listen... > First, ZML is not sufficient for mastering texts for > multiple digital publication purposes. For example, > you've not bothered to address how in ZML you will > enable standardized intra- and inter-publication > deep linking, a powerful ebook function and there you go again. and this is why i say you don't know jack about z.m.l. when you see how finely-grained i can "deep-link", and realize what you would have to do to get that functionality with your heavy markup, you'll get a knot in your gut. and i'll be able to give people a program that will do it _right_now_, today, even on trailing-edge machinery, while your methodology will necessitate telling them they must use browser x, after buying a new machine. deep-linking is ridiculously easy with permanent url's. and, coincidentally, absolutely impossible without them. > it will be ignored by the world. and you still don't see that i don't care. i really don't. i'm doing the world a favor, showing it a better way of doing something. if it is too stupid, or resentful, or stubborn, or whatever, to realize that, it will be no skin off my nose. i'll still be as fat and sassy as ever. > open-source as i've said before, any people who want to work on a z.m.l.-like open-source project should join with john gruber's "markdown". he's over at http://www.daringfireball.net. > moderation ockerbloom moderates every poster, while you make a special exception of moderating michael. > How many times have you replied to me > when you said you'd no longer reply to me? > I've rather enjoyed the (mostly) quiet times. i've enjoyed the (mostly) quiet times too, jon. one of my few resolutions for 2005 was to get off the noring merry-go-round. i did well, i think, wasting far less of my time there this year than i have in previous years. as you point out, i wasn't perfect, mostly since you seemed to want to provoke me by routinely misrepresenting z.m.l., but on the whole, i still did well. and i expect to waste even less time in your circles in the next year. (by the way, my big resolution for 2006 is to get off the michael hart anti-google merry-go-round, which wasted far too much of my time in 2005. i've already started practicing that one, and it is going well too.) and jon, i do believe that even you will get off of your own merry-go-round in 2006, because you will finally have some rubber-meets-road reality when thoutreader releases an openreader viewer. i've long said that your format-centric approach would become much stronger if it was tempered with input from a programmer on its weaknesses. (such input teaches format's relative irrelevance; what really matters is how you manipulate content, not so much the container wherein it is packaged.) and with the improvement in your confidence that an actual app will give you, you probably will not need to use the shrill argumentation of your past. because the proof really is in the pudding... at least we can hope you'll leave the preaching behind. and i too will be dealing more in pudding next year. it's been fun, and all, seeing just how long y'all would continue to insist that z.m.l. "cannot do the job", but it's time for me to stop toying with you, and give proof. at least, once you throw just a _little_ bit more money in the poker pot, in the form of your time and energy... :+) so here it is, another post on the noring merry-go-round, to commemorate 2005 quickly becoming a year of the past... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] differentiating between indentation and no indentation after p...
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

everyone who has followed my posts at _any_ time during the last 7 years would know that i would _never_ create an o.e.b. viewer-program. nor would i ever call such a program "an end-user presentation agent", or whatever technoidese that i wrote. little did i realize how long i would be laughing about that little in-joke. years later, it's still working its magic. but hey, you know what, maybe i _will_ start a sourceforge page for that thing. like so many other o.e.b. open-source efforts, it would just die on the vine, but when that's the _object_ of the exercise, it wouldn't seem like a miserable failure, now, would it? i bet it's easier to put up a sourceforge page than a wikipedia bio, with none of those pesky "fact-checkers" snooping around to ruin all of the fun... -bowerbird p.s. spellchecker, on encountering "o.e.b.", suggests "m.b.a." as replacement. how fitting!

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re: [gutvol-d] differentiating between indentation and no indentation after p...
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

jon said: > Hope this helps you get your Wikipedia auto-bio! thanks jon! i hope it does too! not that i care about having my "bio" included; but given all the hullabaloo lately on the topic, i thought the wiki world could use a little levity. i'm hoping that somebody will edit the page to say i was involved in the kennedy assassinations. (hint: now you know what i want for christmas!) ;+) -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] differentiating between indentation and no indentation after p...
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

ah, marcello, where ya been, buddy? i've missed your constant commentary! the o.e.b. announcement was a joke, designed to show the noring/rothman spin machine would even promote _me_ if i only said those magic three letters... sure enough, they did. i laughed out loud. but hey, i've explained all that before, so i'll step off the marcello merry-go-round. have a happy holiday season! -bowerbird p.s. hey marcello, can you give me the u.r.l. to that "fansite" you put up "honoring" me? i'm trying to convince wikipedia to let me put up my bio of me, which states that i am "an asshole with far too many opinions"... but they consider it to be "not n.p.o.v." -- "neutral point of view" for newbies -- (which is nonsense of course, because why would i call myself an "asshole" if it wasn't true, seems to me this would be a classic case _illustrating_ neutral p.o.v.) -- so your webpage will go a long way to help make my case with them. thanks!

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