March 2006 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Sponsors
by Marcello Perathoner 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

From a different thread: >> they're looking for "sponsors", suggesting "an annual fee of $1000", >> or even all the way up to $350,000, which buys you a "thank you" from >> within the browser of the one million of their clients you've >> sponsored... I don't know about their millions of clients but the PG website is now ranked top 3000 at alexa.com and serving ~250K pages to ~50K hosts a day. We have a Google page-rank of 8. To get that spammers would feed their mothers to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. We could put an ad space at the top of every page. I'm thinking of text-only ads, no distracting images. We could cycle ads like this: Did you know that you can help producing ebooks investing just ten minutes a day? www.pgdp.net Sponsor PG and get your web site mentioned here. See: www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/sponsoring We thank the Curl Up and Dye hair parlor for their kind gift of $1000. www.curl-up-and-dye.com Do we want to do this? And what rules should we put in place? Is selling ads compatible with the non-for-profit status? Anybody out there with an internet marketing background to figure out what we could "charge" for this ad space? -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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re: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

holden said: > It seems like you're trying to pick a fight nope. just sharing information. got any? > The article you post is irrelevant to current XML-based plans for PG. well, i guess that's a matter of opinion. i think it is relevant, in the sense that it talks about a bunch of much-hyped "solutions" which have not materialized, and now might _never_ come to fruition, including some that are counted on here. > The whole point of the article is that direct delivery of XML to users > with stylesheets has not yet happened. that's one of those "solutions", yes, but just one... > However, from what I've heard about current PG uses of XML, > they tend towards using XML as a master format for storage well yes, and as simon points out, that is a "fallback" position from the one that was originally staked, which was the serving of x.m.l. files. but even this fallback rings hollow here, since the position that x.m.l. is needed for _conversion_to_multiple_formats_ was always a tenuous one, in the sense that many entities out there are already doing mass conversion of p.g. e-texts, even though they aren't in x.m.l. format. further, the x.s.l.t. methodology that has always been the crucial linchpin in the "strategy" of x.m.l. advocates here is one of the ones that simon relegates to the past-tense. i find that interesting. and surely the examples of it that we have seen so far have shown it is badly lacking. add to the equation now that i'm showing, with real example-books, that z.m.l. can convert to multiple formats quite easily, on the user's desktop, via button-clicks, and the question becomes hard to avoid: what's the reason to apply heavy markup? don't get me wrong, i'm sure the hypesters will be able to invent one, they are creative that way, it's just that i think history should warn us to take these with a grain of salt... > On a slight side note, I don't > see the point of your aggressive posts first, my posts are not "aggressive". but if you _choose_ to interpret them that way, then i don't see _your_ point. wouldn't it be better just to skip them? why even bother reading them, holden? (let alone replying to them?) i mean, seriously, i could just as easily interpret _your_ posts as ad hominem, since you've said straight out that i am "trying to pick a fight" with "aggressive posts". but going down that road wouldn't be too productive, so i consciously choose not to; instead i have responded to your post with rebuttals that are on-topic and on-point, without diverting to attack your character. if you want a mud-fight or a flame-war, well i've shown i can do those things too; but why not friendly conversation instead? and don't get me wrong, i don't mean to be disingenuous here, because i fully understand that it's not pleasant to be on the losing side of a "you were wrong" comment. but that's the risk you take when you take a stand and you're wrong. but when someone is wrong, and you say they are wrong, that doesn't mean it's an "aggressive" post. > Everybody here should be (is?) aiming > towards the furthering of PG's goals. well yes, i believe that we all agree on that. the next issue is, "how do we obtain that?" on _that_ question, there is disagreement, which has been longstanding, and ugly too. and as much as some people might like to sweep this disagreement under the carpet, and have people forget what they said since things aren't looking too swell for their side, the disagreement still runs deep, and wide... meanwhile, little progress is being made on "the goals of p.g." that we all agree on... how long does t.e.i./x.m.l./whatever remain on the table as "the official plan" before it's required to show some action and results? how are "the goals of p.g." being served? those are questions i think you all should be asking yourselves. as for me, i'll just keep on plugging away with my little experiments, and maybe someday you'll realize that z.m.l. is best. > If whatever format you choose > happens to preferred in the long run, > that's not a reason for gloating. well, i certainly will not be "gloating", because i don't see much point in that. however, it _is_ important to keep in mind whose predictions were wrong, and right, and whose credibility was badly shredded, for future reference... you know, fool me once, your fault, but fool me twice, my fault, right? so surely you can't mind if we evaluate those matters quite closely, can you? besides, in retrospect, my methodologies will be so _obvious_ that no one will even consider their "invention" to be _special_; that it was "controversial" will be laughable. luckily, i'll be able to point to lots and lots of messages that people posted to _this_ listserve as solid evidence that some people didn't get it. (which is why i spent so much time discussing it! y'all would have been a lot smarter to _fold_ your losing hand much earlier in this poker-game than you did, instead of constantly raising your bets...) > The other people on this list are merely > trying to help PG as much as we all hope you are. and i give them full credit on the variable of "trying". that doesn't mean i'm gonna start paying attention to what they say they see in their crystal ball though, because we've come to learn that it's badly cracked... -bowerbird

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Please help archive the Katrina disaster
by Jon Noring 03 Apr '06

03 Apr '06

[I'm forwarding this for Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive. If you have any Katrina-related links, please submit them as detailed below. As Brewster requests, please forward the following message to other relevant mailing lists and online forums. Jon Noring, TeBC Administrator] The Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, needs help in finding URL's of sites and blogs that contain documents of this major disaster. Please email links to sites and pages that should be saved for future research to katrina(a)archive.org. We have worked to archive events such as 9/11 and the tsunami with the generous help of volunteers finding and sending in links. We then save these digital works for the long term and create research tools (for example: http://www.loc.gov/minerva/collect/sept11/ index.html and http://web.archive.org ). As a library, we provide free access to those wanting to learn from these events-- we can only hope that we learn some lessons from disasters such as these. Again, please send email to katrina(a)archive.org with lists of URL's you suggest should be archived relevant to the Katrina Disaster. We are also looking for a couple of volunteers that can help orchestrate the crawl. If you are interested, please send a note to katrina(a)archive.org with "volunteer" in the subject line. Please forward this message to any appropriate lists or people. Thank you. -Brewster Kahle Digital Librarian Internet Archive ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get Bzzzy! (real tools to help you find a job). Welcome to the Sweet Life. http://us.click.yahoo.com/A77XvD/vlQLAA/TtwFAA/89EolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archivists-talk/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: archivists-talk-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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any graphic designers out there?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 Mar '06

31 Mar '06

please help a design-challenged e-book programmer... check this out: > http://www.greatamericannovel.com/meyer/shot.html at the upper-left is a design for the title-page/cover. at the upper-right is the same thing, with coordinates, so you can tell how you'd suggest anything be moved... the upper-left design is repeated at lower-left, with an alternate design at lower-right. do you prefer it? this isn't just for this one cover, or i wouldn't bother... it's concerning how i will write the all-purpose routine for formatting covers, so i'd like to do a good job of it, since it will be for thousands and thousands of books... i noticed josh uses left-justified headers in his .tei books; do people think that looks nice? or is the old-fashioned centering still the best way to go? (i think so, but i don't want to be too inflexible, so i'm willing to consider it all.) any other suggestions -- a splash of color or what-not? -- would be welcome as well to spruce up the look of this and move it into the digital world of the 21st-century e-book... while i'm at it, here's one of the backgrounds i've been using. > http://www.greatamericannovel.com/meyer/goodbook.jpg any feedback on that would be greatly appreciated, as would a reworking of your own design. (credit granted, naturally...) and here's a nice "page" background from brewster kahle: > http://www.greatamericannovel.com/meyer/leftblank.jpg combining my gutter with the page from brewster gives us: > http://www.greatamericannovel.com/meyer/blank.html (the colors don't match up, but you get the idea here; breaking the overall image up into pieces like these might be necessary.) anyway, if this is fun for anyone out there, have at it... -bowerbird

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rdfterms
by Chris Shepard 30 Mar '06

30 Mar '06

Hi, The catalog.rdf file shows the pgterms namespace as living at http://www.gutenberg.org/rdfterms, but it's not there. (i.e., 404) Could someone send me the proper URL? Many thanks. "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." -- E. W. Dijkstra __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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RE: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality
by Joshua Hutchinson 30 Mar '06

30 Mar '06

> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Brent Gueth" <creeva(a)gmail.com> > > Now I'm not going to get in the middle of this on going feud, but what > readers do we have for each format? The TEI formats are listed there but > what do you use to read them so you do not see all the markup encoding. > Firefox shows the markup when you open the file. Notepad shows the markup > (to be expected). MS Word just crashes upon opening because it says that > there are problems with the contents. > Good question, Brent. The answer is that TEI is not really meant to be read by humans (just as HTML source code is not really meant to be read by humans). The great thing about those TEI docs is that I only produced 1 file (the TEI document) and then a server automatically generated the ASCII, HTML and PDF formats. I didn't have to manually fiddle with multiple files. The TEI file is a text file, so technically you CAN read it in Notepad (or any text editor of your choice) but it won't be all that pretty. Hopefully, the resulting files *from* it will be pretty, though. The reason TEI is nice for this is that it provides a consistent markup method that is fairly easy for a computer to manipulate to "output" formats. if you have any further questions, fire away. I'll be happy to try to answer them. Josh

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re: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

joshua said: > PGDP *has* produced some XML based books. > Here is a short list of some of them > (there are at least a few more, but this > is a list I was able to put together quickly). well yes, and you are to be commended, josh, for your work in actually doing some markup. as should marcello for the groundwork he has done, and jim tinsley for setting a sensible adoption policy (which is very important and not as easy as it looks). without you three, the little progress that _has_ been made would not have been accomplished. and i wish you the best in your future efforts. > I'd also like to point out that this *partial* list > is still far more than bowerbird's zml efforts. well, you might want to enjoy that "lead" as much as possible while you still can... :+) *** as long-time subscribers know, we've already done the discussion thing on this topic for long enough, it's time for pudding now, so i'll limit my replies to: 1) jon, that was a lot of verbiage, but i don't think you said anything of substance, so no reply for you. 2) holden, i think you mischaracterized my aims, since i'm not merely "reworking" old e-texts but laying out a workflow to handle new ones as well, both digitized paper-books and "born-digital" ones. (my next few examples will be in the latter category.) 3) marcello, i don't know if it's your italian "nature" or your german "nurture", but you certainly seem to have a penchant for disinformation and "the big lie". i always feel slimed after i read one of your posts. ick! anyway, folks, no need to have this discussion again. anyone who wants to see it can go read the archives. it's pudding time now -- show proof, or go home... -bowerbird

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RE: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality
by Joshua Hutchinson 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

We do have tools and documentation on the website, but I'll admit there is not explanation link on the download page. Here is a link to the TEI tools and documentation. http://pgtei.pglaf.org/marcello/0.4/ Josh > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Brent Gueth" <creeva(a)gmail.com> > To: "'Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion'" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> > Subject: RE: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality > Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:45:38 -0500 > > > If it is supposed to be machine readable and the tools are not released with > a method of quickly editing them or a description on how they are usable to > the community, why are they posted on the web site. I would think this > would lead to confusion to people that are privy to this mailing list and > the inside discussion. > > This isn't an argument for or against any format, but to have something > customer facing (you don't sell anything but eyeballs are your customers and > proof of the work you are doing) you should have a customer facing reason or > explanation to have them there. Whether it be the TEI format or the ZML > format or an XYZ format; there should be clear instructions of what the > format is and how it is handled if it is launched on the site. > > > HTML, TXT, and PDF are considered ubiquitous in the internet age, but you > have the plucker format and an explanation of what it is. I would also > have assumed when the first plucker texts were launched there was an > explanation of what the format is and hopefully the little html link next to > the download explaining what it is was there at launch. To lessen doubt > that consumers are missing something to view these texts there should be a > link explaining what TEI is. > > -----Original Message----- > From: gutvol-d-bounces(a)lists.pglaf.org > [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces@lists.pglaf.org] On Behalf Of Joshua Hutchinson > Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 11:42 AM > To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion > Subject: RE: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Brent Gueth" <creeva(a)gmail.com> > > > > Now I'm not going to get in the middle of this on going feud, but what > > readers do we have for each format? The TEI formats are listed there but > > what do you use to read them so you do not see all the markup encoding. > > Firefox shows the markup when you open the file. Notepad shows the > markup > > (to be expected). MS Word just crashes upon opening because it says that > > there are problems with the contents. > > > > Good question, Brent. > > The answer is that TEI is not really meant to be read by humans (just as > HTML source code is not really meant to be read by humans). > > The great thing about those TEI docs is that I only produced 1 file (the TEI > document) and then a server automatically generated the ASCII, HTML and PDF > formats. I didn't have to manually fiddle with multiple files. > > The TEI file is a text file, so technically you CAN read it in Notepad (or > any text editor of your choice) but it won't be all that pretty. Hopefully, > the resulting files *from* it will be pretty, though. > > The reason TEI is nice for this is that it provides a consistent markup > method that is fairly easy for a computer to manipulate to "output" formats. > > if you have any further questions, fire away. I'll be happy to try to > answer them. > > Josh > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d >

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re: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality
by Joshua Hutchinson 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Holden McGroin" <holden.mcgroin(a)dsl.pipex.com> > > The flaw in your argument, I find, is your suggestion that since PG's > XML teams have so far failed to produce any output, XML must be a bad > strategy for PG. Your ZML-based strategy has brought forth results and > so is better. > PGDP *has* produced some XML based books. Here is a short list of some of them (there are at least a few more, but this is a list I was able to put together quickly). I'd also like to point out that this *partial* list is still far more than bowerbird's zml efforts. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16697 - Epistle to the Son of the Wolf by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16939 - Gems of Divine Mysteries by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16940 - Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16941 - The Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16983 - The Kitáb-i-Íqán by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16523 - The Kitáb-i-Aqdas by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16984 - Prayers and Meditations by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16985 - The Proclamation of Bahá'u'lláh by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16986 - The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17309 - The Summons of the Lord of Hosts by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17310 - Tablets of Baháulláh Revealed after the Kitab-i-Aqdas by Bahá'u'lláh http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15697 - True Stories of History and Biography by Nathaniel Hawthorne JHutch

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re: [gutvol-d] another dose of reality
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Mar '06

28 Mar '06

holden said: > So, please take this as my plea for calm. i'm _perfectly_ calm, holden... :+) sitting back and eating pudding, as a matter of fact. tastes good! ;+) but i don't even mind if people want to spend their volunteer time doing x.m.l. there will be a time and place for it too, and i wish them the best of luck with it. -bowerbird

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