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

re: 500th French book: Rimbaud? (Re: [gutvol-d] 500th French book--Sodome et Gomorrhe)
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Mar '05

04 Mar '05

miranda said: > PG is currently holding back Proust awaiting book #499, > so it looks like we now have #501 as well. i'd use "une saison" as #499. it'd be a shame for someone to come along later and say, "what?, you did 500 books _before_ that one?" ;+) -bowerbird

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march forth
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Mar '05

04 Mar '05

well, that was a lot easier than i thought it would be... :+) i did o.c.r. on half of jon noring's page-scans for "my antonia", using abbyy finereader v7.x. the results were quite excellent. after doing a small number of global corrections to the o.c.r., i checked it against noring's "trustworthy" version of the text. except for exceptions i'll discuss right after this paragraph, most results are given below; each pair of lines represents a difference found between abbyy and noring, with the last word in each line being the point of difference. the number listed at the start of each line is the word-number in the file, and the string of words are the ones preceding the point-of-difference in the file, so that you can easily pinpoint the correct location. most of the o.c.r. errors were on _punctuation_, not _letters_. in particular, there were many instances where a _period_ was misrecognized as a comma. i did not bother to list these cases, mostly to avoid clutter. i do not know what caused these errors. i don't know if it's a _typical_ misrecognition that abbyy makes, if jon's manipulation of the images somehow caused confusion, if i set one of the options incorrectly, or what. help, anyone? i have also not listed differences found in hyphenation, since i don't have the time to write a decent routine to check them. (i just accepted the dehyphenation abbyy did automatically.) another set of differences not listed here is the _n't_ words. words like "couldn't" and "shouldn't" were set with the _n't_ part distinct from the first part. jon's version retained this. abbyy did not. personally, i find it an unnecessary distraction; the first thing i'd do with such the file is to change it globally. jon probably considers that "tampering with trustworthiness". i think it's common sense recognition of a changed convention. if you prefer jon's way, use his text. if not, you can use mine. (the change is global throughout the book, so it is easy to do.) i note that jon _did_ close up some "there's" where the "'s" was set off distinctively, so he was a bit inconsistent in this arena. (i didn't check to see if there were other apostrophe-s words that were set apart, because i would've closed 'em up myself.) i also changed high-bit characters to low, to ease comparison, so those differences are not listed. yes, the book _did_ print "antonia" with a squiggle over the "a". to me, it's unnecessary. (but i'm quite sure _that_ little detail gave jon wet dreams.) ;+) whichever way you like it, it is just one more global change. that's one beauty of plain-text -- it's so easy to manipulate it. so, now back to the quality of the recognition... almost all of the words were correctly identified. the ones that were not would be flagged by a simple spell-check, with merely 2 stealth scanno exceptions: "cur" for "our" and "oven" for "over". i imagine that these pairs are on the lists of know scannos, and the variants appear just 5 times, total, so it's an easy test to do. most of the errors were of two types -- periods and quote-marks. both these error-types are easy to program routines to check them, even if they aren't flagged in spellcheck -- many of them would be. it's relatively easy to detect sentences, so as to check for periods. and quote-marks are usually nested in pairs, and thus easy to check. but my routines for checking these two items are still back in my prototyping test-app, awaiting migration to the current version; that's why i didn't bother doing o.c.r. on the second half of the scans; once i've incorporated the routines, i'll refine 'em on the first half, and then do a solid test of them using the text from the second half. it's not surprising to me that my tools would find all the errors here. this is a relatively straightforward text, with very few complications. total time to do the o.c.r. on this book, once i know what i'm doing? i'd estimate it at about an hour. and for all post-o.c.r. processing? i'd estimate that about the same. total time for the book -- 2 hours. that's much less time than it took to scan and manipulate the images. i'm guessing that those 2 hours of o.c.r. and post-o.c.r. work would make the accuracy level about 1 error for every 50-100 pages or so. and those errors would be in the less-serious arena of punctuation. i won't be able to say for sure until i've done the second-half test, of course, but given the highly accurate recognition of the words that i found on this half, i feel rather safe making that prediction. in this half, of 200+ pages, the only errors that i might have missed -- but found because i had noring's version to compare it to -- were "layout/lay out" and "fairy tale/fairytale". i _might_ have caught "fairytale", because it's not contained in my spellcheck dictionary in its joined variant, and the split variant _is_ in the book (twice). i probably would not have caught "layout", since it's in my dictionary. (but i should take it out of the dictionary for checking older books. old-time typographers _did_ layout, but they didn't _call_ it that.) either way, i'm sure you'll agree that those two errors are trivial. if all the errors in our books were that meaningless, it'd be great. wait, i might have even caught _those_ errors, as they are _right_ in the _project_gutenberg_ e-text, which has been out for years! well, that wraps up my report. for those who might be curious, i'll be releasing my post-o.c.r. tool in the late spring. look for it! anyway... i believe this makes it very clear that i am correct when i say that if you do the scanning carefully, manipulate those scans correctly, use abbyy finereader v7.x to do the o.c.r., and subject its results to a good post-o.c.r. program, it is relatively quick and easy to process an o.c.r. text to the state where it can become a high-powered e-book. the notion that these procedures are difficult or time-consuming is just plain wrong. wrong, wrong, wrong. in one word -- _untrue_. -bowerbird p.s. although jon's highly accurate version of the text gave us little opportunity to find errors in his work, we _did_ find two. (one is an error in the text, i'd say, but jon did not preserve it.) if michael would like to have another "my antonia" in the library, i'll submit the _entirely_ correct version to project gutenberg, and maybe jon can use it to find the error that eluded his team. :+) p.p.s. i _did_ just drop a hint. one i can use later to show that i did indeed find the one error that is non-equivocal. as for the other error, which might or might not be an air, i'll sack that one. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 524 a group of people stood huddied 524 a group of people stood huddled 2442 of Jacob whom He loved. SelahP 2442 of Jacob whom He loved. Selah." 4562 grandmother's hand. The oldest son, Ambro2, 4562 grandmother's hand. The oldest son, Ambroz@, 5564 up like a hare. "Tatinek, Tatinekl" 5564 up like a hare. "Tatinek, Tatinek!" 6344 grumbled, but realized it was Important 6344 grumbled, but realized it was important 10749 was fixed for me by chance; 10749 was fixed for me by chance, 12887 the familiar road. "They still come? "he 12887 the familiar road. "They still come?" he 13132 they were always unfortunate. When PavePs 13132 they were always unfortunate. When Pavel's 16303 "You not mind my poor mamenka> 16303 "You not mind my poor mamenka, 17531 probably, in some deep Bohemian forest..... 17531 probably, in some deep Bohemian forest... 17718 would be lost ten times oven 17718 would be lost ten times over. 18300 the talking tree of the fairytale; 18300 the talking tree of the fairy tale; 21478 Ambrosch found him." "Krajiek could V 21478 Ambrosch found him." "Krajiek could 'a' 23282 that, too, Jelinek. But we beiieve 23282 that, too, Jelinek. But we believe 25309 and I went into the Shimerdas9 25309 and I went into the Shimerdas' 25594 of his long, shapely hands layout 25594 of his long, shapely hands lay out 26036 which is also Thy mercy seat," 26036 which is also Thy mercy seat." 26157 While the tempest still is high." 26157 While the tempest still is high."... 27674 milk like what your grandpa s&y. 27674 milk like what your grandpa say. 29075 in a spiteful, crowing -- "Jake-y, 29075 in a spiteful, crowing voice: -- "Jake-y 29418 kept for hot applications when cur 29418 kept for hot applications when our 30016 Shimerda dropped the rope, ran aftet 30016 Shimerda dropped the rope, ran after 36061 misfortune, his wife, "Crazy Mary," iried 36061 misfortune, his wife, "Crazy Mary," tried 36513 fine, making eyes at the men!?.." 36513 fine, making eyes at the men!..." 37226 given him one of Tiny SoderbalPs 37226 given him one of Tiny Soderball's 38713 pump water for the cattle. '"Oh, 38713 pump water for the cattle. "'Oh,

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David Wyllie Email address
by Alex Wilson 04 Mar '05

04 Mar '05

About a month ago Greg Newby offered to get me in touch with David Wyllie--who provided the English translation of Kafka's Metamorphosis for PG--and I haven't heard from him since. I'm thinking Greg's emails or mine are ending up in a junk mail folder, so I'm wondering if anyone here knows how I can get in touch with Mr. Wyllie. Thanks. Alex. http://www.telltaleweekly.org - Funding a Free Audiobook Library

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bob bob bobbing along
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Mar '05

04 Mar '05

i said: > bennett kobb, for instance, has > high-res scans of _nearly_one_hundred_books_, "bennett kobb" is actually "bob kobres". :+) -bowerbird

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new thread for noring
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

well, jon, i'd have thought you could have used "the last word" in that thread a bit more wisely. because i believe that you ain't gonna have a leg to stand on once my results come in... but that won't be until next week, so please enjoy your brief reprieve... :+) before i get too deep into the o.c.r./correction process for "my antonia", though, i'd like to know how much time you spent, jon, on (a) scanning and (b) image-manipulation. because my general working rule-of-thumb will be that people should spend _less_ time on the post-o.c.r. steps than they did on the scanning and image-manipulation steps. now, until i get all my procedures hitting on all cylinders, that might be a pipe-dream, but that's my rule-of-thumb... i'd estimate that you spent at least 4 hours on the project, jon. (probably more, since you were still learning the curve, but if you had to repeat the whole thing, you could do it in 4.) that's for the scanning _as_well_as_ the image-manipulation. if i'm badly wrong, in either direction, do please let me know. otherwise, i will give myself a time-limit of 4 hours on this, and we'll see what i can come up with... and jon, please allow me to say a few nice things to you... ;+) first of all, you did a bang-up job on the "my antonia" scans. even though the world doesn't really have a place yet for high-resolution scans like these, it's very good to do them. you can always downsample to lower-resolution, if need be. i understand why many places aren't yet doing high-resolution -- like internet archive, distributed proofreaders, and google -- and i absolutely do _not_ fault them for the practical decision. at the same time, though, i applaud people doing high-resolution. it's not as if what you've done is unprecedented. bennett kobb, for instance, has high-res scans of _nearly_one_hundred_books_, (http://fax.libs.uga.edu) making your single one pale in comparison. (his kick-ass scanner: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/abovevu/abovevu.html) but nonetheless, your quality output is rare enough to merit applause. second, the image-manipulation you did on the scans is first-rate, as far as i can tell from cursory examination. the scans look great! they are straight! and their positioning is standardized very well! (these last two factors are _very_ important in getting good o.c.r.) there is no question in my mind that we'll get good o.c.r. out of 'em. third, you used a reasonable naming-scheme for your image-files! the scan for page 3, for instance, is named 003.png! fantastic! and when you had a blank page, your image-file says "blank page"! please pardon me for making a big deal out of something so trivial -- and i'm sure some lurkers wrongly think i'm being sarcastic -- but most people have no idea how uncommon this common sense is! when you're working with hundreds of files, it _really_ helps you if you _know_ that 183.png is the image of page 183. immensely. even the people over at distributed proofreaders, in spite of their immense experience, haven't learned this first-grade lesson yet. (well, a few of 'em have, and won't go back to that stupidity, but an amazing number of others will even _argue_ with you about it!) what this means, for those of you reading along at home, is that when you scan, start scanning at page 1. (and if the text starts on page 3, like "my antonia" did, then start 2 pages before that.) scan the blank pages. if there are picture "plates" in the book or other unnumbered pages, _skip_'em_, so numbers stay in sync; then do them later, at the _end_ of the regular numbered pages. that's also when you'll do the cover, and all of the front-matter. (this includes a forward, preface, anything with roman numerals.) fourth, jon, you scanned the headers and footers! again, bravo! some people don't, when they scan, and that is a big mistake. let the post-o.c.r. processing software eliminate them later. for now, they are worthwhile to keep in your master images; also later, if you view the images as a book, they're a nice touch. they aren't really necessary, in most cases, but why delete 'em? fifth, your dedication in driving the text to perfection is exemplary. you put together a team of a half-dozen people dedicated to the task, and it shows. while i don't think this approach can scale very well -- your team might well burn itself out after doing a couple books, while page-a-day people at distributed proofreaders go on and on, and an even better approach is to turn readers into proofreaders -- i do think that, as a special effort, what you've done is admirable. drawing attention to the importance of error-free e-texts is great. and setting a positive example, as you've done with your own file, is far superior to the vacuous criticism you make against p.g. files. you've put your time and energy where your mouth is, and i approve. sixth, i understand that you are motivated by good intentions, and i respect your courage in standing up for them while some people (including myself) are kicking you in the teeth, because we disagree. (and _their_ intentions and motivations are just as good as yours.) in case you haven't noticed, i have the exact same type of fortitude, and whenever i see it in other people, i hold it in very high esteem. seventh, i can't think of anything else, but i like to have 7 points, rather than 6, and i'm sure i'll think of the other when i hit "send". anyway, i hope i haven't embarrassed you, saying nice things and all... *** oh yeah, one more thing, just so nobody else wastes any time: jon suggested that people with a range of o.c.r. packages could run it on his scans. i do not think that's necessary, not at all. there's a ton of o.c.r. expertise here, all pointing the same: abbyy finereader v7.x is superior to any other o.c.r. program. combined with proper post-o.c.r. processing, its recognition gives a level of accuracy that is as good as can be expected. until other o.c.r. programs can deliver to us near-perfection, or results equivalent to abbyy's for free, they waste our time. *** anyway, off i go. i'll let you know when i have some results... :+) -bowerbird

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re: DP Anniversary
by George Davis 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

Michael Dyck wrote: > Subject: > [gutvol-d] DP anniversary? > From: > Michael Dyck <jmdyck(a)ibiblio.org> > Date: > Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:43:26 -0800 > To: > gutvol-d <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> > > To: > gutvol-d <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> > > > In today's PG Weekly newsletter, and in a posting to the Book People > mailing list, Michael Hart says: > "This is the 4th Anniversary of The Distributed Proofreaders!!!" > > However, if you go to the DP site <http://www.pgdp.net/c/>, you'll see > that it says that DP was founded in 2000. Moreover, Charles Franks > posted to the gutvol-d list on April 20, 2000, saying (in part) "I have > completed the working beta of a distributed proofreaders website." and > giving a link. I'm not sure if that was the first public announcement > of DP, but in any case, DP is about 5 years old. > > Michael Hart appears to be referring to the 4th anniversary of > March 13th, 2001, which is when the PG Weekly newsletter says DP > completed its first book (PG #3320). However, that book ("Mohammed > Ali and His House" by Louise Muhlbach) was actually posted April 2nd, > 2001, so it's unclear where the March 13 date comes from. > > Moreover, a month or so *before* then, the PG newsletter for February > 2001[a] says "The Online Distributed Proofreading Team has completed 8 > books since mid October 2000!". This suggests that DP completed its first > book in mid-Oct 2000, which then might have appeared in the list at the > bottom of the mid-October "PG needs you" email[b], but I don't see any DP > books there. Checking the "Completed Gold E-texts" page, in ascending order by submission date (http://www.pgdp.net/c/list_etexts.php?x=g&sort=4) it shows: 1) "Mohammed Ali and His House", L. Muhlbach () Uploaded: Tuesday, March 13th, 2001 The link for that etext is to #3320. The above was relied upon in arriving at the March 13th date. Which has run in the newsletter since June 16, 2004, with no notice of correction. > Instead, I believe the first DP book to be posted by PG was #3059 (Homer's > "The Iliad", trans. Andrew Lang) which was posted by December 6, 2000[c]. Are in you for a surprise: DP didn't do that one. From the etext: "This etext was prepared by Sandra Stewart <unfettered(a)aol.com> and Jim Tinsley <jtinsley(a)pobox.com>" #3320 has a credit to C.F. and D.P. > [a] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_2001_02_07.txt > [b] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/Other_2000_10_18_Project_Gutenb… > [c] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_2000_12_06.txt > > -Michael Dyck Hopefully, someone from D.P. will step up and provide more meaningful activity updates for inclusion in the newsletter. People outside of DP would be interested in seeing what's going on over there, and why not include such in the weekly PG newsletter? And, boy, I'd like to be a fly on the wall in Jim's office when he reads this! <vbg> [<G>eorge] -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.5 - Release Date: 3/1/2005

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Re: Enlightened Self Interest
by Juhana Sadeharju 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

>From: Jon Noring <jon(a)noring.name> > >Btw, if anyone here has made, and plans to make, 600 dpi (optical) >greyscale or color scans of any public domain books including the book >covers (and this includes books printed between 1923 and 1963 which >may be public domain), I'll gladly accept donations of them on CD-ROM >and DVD-ROM. I have scanned about 3400 pages of math text. 300 dpi only as it looked ok enough. The images are in CDs and my CDROM device has been broken for three months already. Four of the books are journal books (600 pages per book) of Mathematische Annalen. Random pages of them are also scanned with 600 dpi because I wanted to extract all the fonts. Unfortunately, I decided to wait until a digital camera would appear, because it would be needed for the good quality fonts (600 and 1200 dpi on scanner looks blurry compared to camera). Yes, unfortunately, because our library sold two of the four books as a standard book cleaning procedure. In the four books, there were rare letters which appeared only in one page of one book. If my CDs loose their data, I cannot rescan them. The images are in zip files which are very fragile itself. E.g., removing two bytes from the end or removing the TOC of zip makes the zips unusable. And libraries want more tax payer's money! For what? Why libraries which destroys books should be supported at all? Better give the money to institutions who preserve the history. Juhana -- http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-graphics-dev for developers of open source graphics software

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re: [gutvol-d] so jon
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

jon said: > I didn't know you issued a challenge. i sure did. :+) it came through at 4:53 pacific, on 2005/2/28. i have appended a copy for your convenience... basically, you said "i doubt it" in direct response to my claim that correct processing of the whole process -- from scanning through a few hours of post-o.c.r. work -- could result in an accuracy-rate of 1 error per 10 pages, so i challenged you to a test with your "my antonia" scans. since you don't seem to want to have the o.c.r. done, for understandable reasons, i will do it myself. by the way, i have done some extensive comparisons of the project gutenberg version of "my antonia" and yours. the more deeply i go into it, the more i become convinced most differences are due to intentional edits, and _not_ due to sloppiness in the original preparation of the work. so this appears to be exactly like the "frankenstein" case -- a simple use of a different edition as the source-text. in view of the insinuations you cast against the "accuracy" of the project gutenberg e-text, perhaps you should apologize? -bowerbird Subj: Re: [gutvol-d] Interesting message on TeBC from NetWorker (about fixing errors, Frankenstein, etc.) Date: 2/28/2005 7:53:21 PM Eastern Standard Time From: Bowerbird To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org, Bowerbird jon said: > But the bigger issue is not constrained to errors (differences) > with respect to the source text used, as you continue to focus on. i think it was you who made "errors" the issue, revolving around the concept of "trustworthiness". if, once that house of cards falls down, you want to turn the issue to one of "which source-text to use", well then i think that michael's "i'm open to all of 'em" stance covers _that_ quite nicely, thank you very much. if you don't like the version of my antonia that's in the library now, add your own! the same goes for all the versions of "frankenstein". casting aspersions on the edition that _is_ there isn't constructive. provide all the meta-data you want on the version that you furnish; heck, you can even put a pointer in to your project at librarycity.org; these days i see a lot of e-texts referencing an .rtf version in france. > the PG version of Frankenstein, > which now exposes PG to legal liability. i don't agree. but if the lawyers to whom "bantam classics" is paying good money decide to send a cease-and-desist, let 'em. going by results obtained by the "gone with the wind" lawyers, the project gutenberg people will probably fold very quickly; without any money, you can't play poker against deep pockets. but hey, i would like to hear the laughter that would resound when bantam's lawyers argued that the way they can _prove_ that this e-text copied their book is because of the _errors_ (map-makers can pull that trick. but book-publishers? ha!) who knows, jon, maybe the project gutenberg lawyers will call _you_ to the stand, to throw your arms in the air and rant about how those terrible mistakes are ruining the fragile public domain, and therefore bantam doesn't _deserve_ the protection of the law. wouldn't that be ironic? :+) > The lack of proper processes, procedures and guidelines well, i don't agree with that either, jon. you might not agree with the procedures, but that doesn't mean there is a "lack" of them. maybe you don't agree with their choice of source-text for frankenstein. but it _was_ good enough for bantam. > is leading to serious questions about the integrity > and trustworthiness of the whole PG library not in my mind. and not in the minds of most people, i don't think. not any more so than with any paper-book i might find in a store. like the "frankenstein" version that was being _sold_ by bantam. > 1) redoing most of the non-DP works using DP, let's find out how many d.p. people want me to go over _their_ work with a fine-tooth comb. go ahead, speak up, i'd _love_ the challenge. > Well, at least you seem to indicate from > your interest in very low error rate OCR > that every etext PG includes in its archive > should be a textually faithful reproduction > of some known source. not necessarily. if someone wants to play editor and combine editions, i don't have any problem with that. in some sense, that's what the public domain is about. i don't see it in black/white terms as something frozen. if you _are_ going to represent something as faithful, i think it should _be_ faithful. but even then, that is _to_the_best_of_your_ability_. as long as you do that, and give your end-users a means of "checking your work", including a solid mechanism for improving it to perfection, then i think you've done your job. so yes, i agree with you, that scans should absolutely be furnished to the end-users, for works that purport to replicate that edition, certainly... however, i understand why they haven't been, up to this point, and so do you -- disk-space just hasn't been affordable enough, even now, if it were not for the largess of ibiblio and brewster, we couldn't even be entertaining the thought of posting the scans. > I doubt this error rate (let's say for even half of the public domain > printings out there) is accomplishable without sentient-level AI. i'm trying to get back off this listserve. i don't like contributing to the discourse in a place where my voice has been muffled before. so let me set up a place where you and i can fight... i mean, discuss... but this doubt of yours is rather easy to dispel, and quickly. you did a pretty good job of scanning that copy of "my antonia". and it looks like you processed (e.g., straightened) the scans well. so now we need to put them through o.c.r., using abbyy finereader; please have that done as follows: save results out to an .rtf file, one for each page; retaining line-breaks and paragraph indentation. do this for 20-50 pages, and zip the output up and e-mail it to me. i will reply to you with feedback on if the o.c.r. was done correctly. then i'll run it through programs that will soon be made available, at no cost, and we'll see what kind of an error-rate we end up with. or, if you prefer, follow this same procedure with some other book. then, if you still want to discuss this matter, we'll do it elsewhere. > But if proofreading is to be done anyway by the public, > as is *now done* by DP, what difference is there between > an OCR error of one every 10 pages, and one every page? when i talk about "the public", i mean _end-users_ who are reading the book for the purpose of reading the book, and _not_ specifically to be "proofreading" it per se. for that type of reader, one error on every page is too many, but one error on every tenth page is not. especially since -- if we give them an easy means of checking for errors and reporting them, and then reward readers for finding them -- errors won't persist for very long, and the e-text will instead progress very quickly on its merry way to a state of perfection. in a practical sense, this means that before you turn an e-text loose for download in an all-in-one file, you make it available _page-by-page_ on the web. anyone who might want to read it has to do so in that form. right alongside the text for each page is the image, so the person can easily check any possible errors. you let 'em know you are asking for their help to find mistakes. if they find one, they fill out a form right on the page, and their input is recorded -- wiki-style -- immediately. later readers can either confirm the error, or question it, or make comments. first person to find each error gets a credit in the final e-text. you also give people a viewer-program that allows them to download the appropriate page-image if they suspect an error -- displaying it right there in the viewer-app next to the text -- and which simplifies the process of reporting it if they find one. (by, for instance, filling out an e-mail they can send with a click.) > The key is that for the aspect of building *trust* in > the final product, it is a very good idea to involve > the volunteer proofreaders to go over the texts, > even if *you don't have to*. what i just described does a good job of doing that. this is the system of "continuous proofreading" i outlined on this listserve a very long time ago. you recently mistakenly credited it to james linden. my offer to develop this system was largely snubbed. for _that_, the project gutenberg "people in charge" rightly deserve to be criticized. for the tiny stuff that you have been complaining about, they do not... > Having (and proving to anyone who asks) at least > two independent people who proofed every page, > adds to its trustworthiness. not nearly as well as putting text and image side-by-side, and allowing any number of "volunteer proofreaders" to examine 'em. you might be surprised by the number of errors that "slip by" the proofreaders through two rounds of eyeballing over at d.p. (indeed, many even slip by the "third round" of post-processing and whitewashing, and sit there big and ugly in the final e-text.) even if a dozen people look at a page, an error might _still_ be there. but with eternal transparency, there is always hope it will be fixed. anyway, jon, i hope you take up the friendly challenge i issued here. and if any d.p. people want to call me on the challenge i made to them, you just let me know. in the meantime, i'll let you get in the last word on this thread, jon, because i _really_ need to be going. use it wisely... ;+) -bowerbird

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DP anniversary?
by Michael Dyck 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

In today's PG Weekly newsletter, and in a posting to the Book People mailing list, Michael Hart says: "This is the 4th Anniversary of The Distributed Proofreaders!!!" However, if you go to the DP site <http://www.pgdp.net/c/>, you'll see that it says that DP was founded in 2000. Moreover, Charles Franks posted to the gutvol-d list on April 20, 2000, saying (in part) "I have completed the working beta of a distributed proofreaders website." and giving a link. I'm not sure if that was the first public announcement of DP, but in any case, DP is about 5 years old. Michael Hart appears to be referring to the 4th anniversary of March 13th, 2001, which is when the PG Weekly newsletter says DP completed its first book (PG #3320). However, that book ("Mohammed Ali and His House" by Louise Muhlbach) was actually posted April 2nd, 2001, so it's unclear where the March 13 date comes from. Moreover, a month or so *before* then, the PG newsletter for February 2001[a] says "The Online Distributed Proofreading Team has completed 8 books since mid October 2000!". This suggests that DP completed its first book in mid-Oct 2000, which then might have appeared in the list at the bottom of the mid-October "PG needs you" email[b], but I don't see any DP books there. Instead, I believe the first DP book to be posted by PG was #3059 (Homer's "The Iliad", trans. Andrew Lang) which was posted by December 6, 2000[c]. [a] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_2001_02_07.txt [b] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/Other_2000_10_18_Project_Gutenb… [c] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_2000_12_06.txt -Michael Dyck

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so jon
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 03 Mar '05

03 Mar '05

so jon, are you going to take up my challenge? if not, tell me, and i'll do that o.c.r. myself. we're gonna see what accuracy-level we can get on your nice hi-res scans of "my antonia"... -bowerbird

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