September 2009 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

PG French eBook #1500
by Michael S. Hart 18 Sep '09

18 Sep '09

Right now we are looking at Voltaire, de Toqueville's "Democracy," and a few others. 20 more and we are at 1500. Please take a look for various copies of "Democracy" and anything else you think we might be able to use, and let me know. Thanks!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 Sep '09

18 Sep '09

jim said: > As Bowerbird is only too happy to point out: > “Please feel free to go somewhere else!” jim, jim, jim. i'm just about the only person here who has any sympathy with what you are saying, and who is interacting with you in good faith, so why you be stabbin' me in da back like that? don't put words in my mouth. i never said anything like that. indeed, i have often advocated that p.g. e-texts should retain the linebreaks from the original, just like you've advocated, for the same reason. likewise, long before anyone else cared about it, i argued that lines which should not be rewrapped should be prefaced with one or more spaces, so they could easily be treated correctly during rewrap. i've also asked, repeatedly, for the plain-text files to include the names of the graphics, so that my viewer-apps could display them at the right place, which i assume is a practice you would also support. moreover, i am the only person here who has set up a website that people can use to unwrap the e-texts: > http://z-m-l.com/unwrap.pl so don't be raggin' on me, ok? -bowerbird

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good news on the doorstep
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 Sep '09

18 Sep '09

good news on the doorstep. there's now a new listserve for "civil" p.g. volunteers. that's right, no need to put up with the rudeness of this list. > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PG_vol_lounge/message/1 here's the introduction, from founder joyce wilson: > Welcome to the Project Gutenberg volunteer lounge! > This list is intended to provide a friendly, supportive, > and civil forum for PG volunteers. I hope it will provide > a sense of community connection for those of us > whose PG volunteer jobs can seem kind of isolated. > Problem-solve, discuss, ask questions, share good news, > brag on yourself and others, liberally apply congratulations > and back-pats, chit-chat about stuff. But don't be a jerk, > or you'll be removed from the list. so, now if you're feeling a need for some liberally-applied congratulations and back-pats, or some shared good news, without jerks pestering you, you'll know exactly where to go. thanks for provided this much-needed service, joyce! -bowerbird

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

jim said: > So the “solution” is that all readers should > buy an iphone and run “eucalyptus” no. the "solution" is to understand that a viewer-program like eucalyptus can be programmed on _any_ platform, designed to take the project gutenberg plain-text files and display them in a beautiful (and powerful) manner. the "solution" is not to debunk that plain-text format -- which is what you seem to be wanting to do here -- and _certainly_ not invent a new cockamamie format, but rather to patch the small inconsistency problems that haunt the library so that the plain-text files are dependable and reliable in terms of delivering beauty. > I can’t disagree with that – it IS relatively trivial > to render attractive text if one knows one is > rendering to only one particular machine. have you ever done any programming, jim? and, in particular, have you ever done e-book coding? even though eucalyptus is "rendering to only one particular machine", it allows the end-user to pick the font-size, which requires rewrapping the text. in addition, many apps let you switch to landscape, which means you must code for two screen-sizes... it's not as easy as you make it sound to make an app, even if it's just "for one particular machine". however, once you've made such an app, it's not that difficult to port it to another machine, or to another language, or to hack it for some specific purpose you only need today, or to modify it to fit your own personal preferences, or... but the important thing to remember as far as this thread is that the "vanilla" .txt format used by project gutenberg is extremely close to being totally sufficient as a file-format. it just needs to have a few ambiguous situations cleaned up, and then the whole library needs to undergo quality control because there are some rather glaring inconsistencies there. but we don't need a new format... never have... never will... -bowerbird

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Re: z.m.l. can do what you want
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

jim, i'm losing patience with you, quickly, i warn you. *** jim said: > I invite the other readers to compare > the z.m.l. results for “Scrooge” at: > http://www.z-m-l.com/go/vlconvert.html first, the file at that address is volatile, depending on which .html conversion was last made via on button-click on the page which is located over at: > http://www.z-m-l.com/go/vl3.pl so, to ensure you've got "scrooge" at the address listed above, click on that button. (that'll be the "a christmas carol" button.) > I invite the other readers to compare > the z.m.l results for “Scrooge” at: > http://www.z-m-l.com/go/vlconvert.html > to the PG TEI results for “My Antonia” at: > http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19810/19810-pdf.pdf ok, do you understand that is comparing a converted .html file to a converted .pdf? if you want to compare, compare .html to .html, and .pdf to .pdf, because that makes some sense. oh, and by the way, picking "my antonia" was not a wise move, because i've done extensive research work on that particular digitization. so if you want me to onslaught it at you, let me know. > However, I will point out that neither markup has > the proper support necessary to render > correct EPUB nor MOBI file formats. show me the "proper" markup to accomplish the mobi, and i will edit the template so you can get that markup. then have the .tei guys do what they would need to do. because i'd love to see the mobi they get from their .tei. -bowerbird

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"PG volunteer lounge" list at Yahoo Groups
by Joyce Wilson 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

In the spirit of the world-famous DP spa, there is now a "Project Gutenberg volunteer lounge" list at Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PG_vol_lounge/ Description: A friendly, supportive, and civil forum for Project Gutenberg volunteers. Will be moderated as needed to keep it that way. Group Email Addresses: Post message: PG_vol_lounge(a)yahoogroups.com Subscribe: PG_vol_lounge-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: PG_vol_lounge-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com List owner: PG_vol_lounge-owner(a)yahoogroups.com

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Ebook 30000! And some sort of catalog milestone
by Joyce Wilson 16 Sep '09

16 Sep '09

I saw today that ebook 30000 has been posted! Congratulations! And in other (more self-serving) good news, I see we have 14271 books with no subjects in their bib records and 12062 with no LoCC in their bib records, so I guess it's no longer the case that "more than half of our books don't have subject information added" and "more than one half of our books don't have LoC info" as the "Help on Bibliographic Record Page" says. : -) Joyce Wilson PG Cataloging Team

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david and marcello
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 Sep '09

16 Sep '09

both david starner and marcello are relegated to my spam folder, but it's nice to see them fighting. marcello has convinced himself that pgtei is the next big thing, and has been ever since 2001... unfortunately for mr. marcello, he hasn't persuaded d.p. people. they tried .tei, and ran screaming from the scene due to the stench. -bowerbird

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 Sep '09

16 Sep '09

greg wants the distributed proofreaders to jump through all kinds of _unnecessarily_ difficult hoops, just so that project gutenberg can _supposedly_ get the benefits that i've already _proven_ can be obtained from the .txt format. greg went to library school. he's supposed to be smart. -bowerbird

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 16 Sep '09

16 Sep '09

jim said: > You make my point for me. yes, i do, jim. and i make your point _much_better_ than you do, because i don't do the sabotage thing to it first. > When one relies on automagical tools to try to > recreate semantic information discarded by > the PG TXT representation, more or less often > one ends up with something that looks like sh*t – > your word not mine. actually, i got the word from the dictionary, so you should feel free to use it without me. your tools are neither "auto" nor "magical" enough. it is only when you've improved them to the point that they cannot be improved any more that you earn the right to bitch about what others are doing. > When the results break one is told > “Oh you did it wrong, you should > have done something else instead.” i didn't say "you did it wrong" as some kind of mystical power intended to make you go away. i said that you did it wrong because you did it wrong. it ends up that, with the right tool, and if you do it right, the p.g. e-text format works perfectly well, or at least it _can_, if the whitewashers really did what they say they do. and sometimes they do. for instance, if you would have taken your "hamlet" text from the newest version in the library, and put it into my unwrap site listed above, you'll see that it works just fine. so there is no _shortcoming_ of the p.g. plain-text format that needs to be "overcome". there are only some _flaws_ -- a portion of which seem to be intentionally inflicted -- which need to be corrected, so that the format can shine... > once one relies on human intervention to “fix” the problem > when a particular algorithm breaks, then one does not have > an automatic algorithm. i agree. but that's not what is at issue here. > Ultimately what one should do if one wants to “get it right” > is to abandon attempts at automagical tools which work > sometimes and end up looking like sh*t other times > and instead take the PG TXT file, take the original page scans, > look at the page scans to figure out where the PG TXT files > gratuitously entered line breaks where the author didn’t > intend line breaks, and take them back out. see, jim, here's where you get things half-right-but-kinda-wrong. you just haven't thought through these things well enough so that you can explain them clearly, so it comes out in this mumbo-jumbo. > After the gratuitous page breaks are taken back out > (the work of a few days – trust me on this!) again, you're severely unclear here. (and please, please, please, if anyone thinks that jim _is_ being "clear", do jump in and say so and help provide an explanation.) > then one can either, if one has a machine, such as a teletype, > incapable of reflow, run the now gratuitous-line-break free > TXT back through a simple unambiguous algorithm to insert > a line break at the appropriate point for your machine ok, here's a relatively straightforward description of the process. but, really, jim, there's no need for it. we programmers _know_ how to do this. it's not difficult. the guy who coded "eucalyptus" did a fine job on doing this, and he is using the p.g. text-files, so they don't really present the insurmountable problem you think... > Or tolerate slightly ugly word spacing on machines that > force right justify (sigh.) Better yet, we should ask our > technologist friends to include not only reflow but also > automatic hyphenation routines in our machines. again, not to beat a dead horse, but eucalyptus does ragged-right or justification, whichever the user prefers, and hyphenation too, so everything you're asking for has already been done at least once. rather than harping about the format -- which does just peachy, thank you very much -- you need to complain about the coders who are not giving you the type of tools you would like to have... > Is it too much, for example, to ask PG to provide the option > to the rare user who actually WANTS line breaks at char 72, > or for that matter actually wants line breaks at char 20, > is it too much to ask PG to provide a filter to insert such > “gratuitous” line breaks? Consider: PG *already* provides > literally 40 different such filter programs to help people > with various strange obscure legacy machines. more sloppy thinking, jim. what do you really _mean_ when you say "provide the option" or "provide a filter"? i take it to mean "give your users a tool that does that". and if you started saying it that way, you'd come to realize that your beef is not with the p.g. text-file format at all, but rather the fact that p.g. isn't supplying users with the tools we need... -bowerbird

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