October 2012 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

why isn't p.g. being user-friendly?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 Oct '12

30 Oct '12

greg, you still haven't answered my question. why doesn't p.g. offer to people the ability to request that a p.g. e-book be e-mailed to their kindle account? seems to me that would be user-friendly... if you don't know how to do this technically, i'd guess that someone here can probably help you figure it out. -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] don't fight human nature
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Oct '12

29 Oct '12

mjit raindancerstahl said: > Correction: none look as good > *to Passey* as /Passey/ "look right. i'm guessing that's what lee meant... but i don't know for sure, because i didn't read the post, nor am i gonna. moreover, it's neither here nor there, as when i made a reference to "looks right", both don and i were using the phrase to mean that _"it_resembles_the_pagescan"._ so it has nothing to do with a "preference". thus, although there might be some room to wiggle on whether the "resemblance" is close enough to _be_ "close enough" or not, the issue is more objective than subjective... so no, i wouldn't expect that there would be lots of variance in whether it "looked right". *** so either lee was _confused_, or else he was trying to confuse _you_. i used to _wonder_ which of these two things it was, with lee, because this same question always came up. it helps to know that lee is a lawyer. and it is in the mentality of _many_ lawyers, and then further reinforced by their training, that they don't care if something is pertinent, or relevant, to the topic that's being discussed. no, what they care about is saying _something_ in a way that will make you _agree_ with them. doesn't matter if it makes sense, or is germane. just matters whether it will be "convincing"... it's all about swaying the jury. doesn't matter if it's true, or just confuses you, as long as it works as a "counter", they'll use it. this is one main reason real people hate lawyers, and why truth-seekers hold lawyers in contempt. because lawyers hold _truth_ in contempt. so, was i ever able to answer the question about whether lee was confusing people _on_purpose,_ or whether he himself is the one who's confused? nope, not really. i was leaning toward the answer that he himself doesn't know which it is, and doesn't even care. so i decided that i too didn't care which it was... either way, it's a waste of time to talk with him, if you're trying to get to the bottom of a matter. which is why lee is now in my kill-filter. in case you were wondering... ;+) -bowerbird

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Books in Browsers Conference at Internet Archive
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Oct '12

29 Oct '12

alex said; > The event is being livestreamed at http://toc.oreilly.com > You may find this interesting. if anyone finds anything from this conference interesting -- anything at all, _anything_, even _mildly_ interesting -- do please let us know what it is, and why it's interesting... because i've been following that circle of people for years, and i am singularly unimpressed. i know, shocking, ain't it? frontchannel or back, doesn't matter. just let me know, ok? anything. even mildly. -bowerbird p.s. i offered my corrected text for "huck" to peter brantley. i'll let you know what he says...

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even more surprised to learn
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

don said: > What do you imagine I was surprised by? > > Not that PG tries to transform HTML into > something that is useful in epub and mobi; > rather that epubmaker > was responsible for this seriously? i thought you would profess a type of temporary amnesia, like forgetting your wife's name, or how to tie your shoes, and that -- _of_course_ -- you have known this all along, that epubmaker was used to... well, to make the .epubs... but you're really telling us that you have _not_ known? wow. i repeat my question: where have you been, don? did you really think everyone would be spending so much time and energy talking about epubmaker flaws if it was _only_ being used on the restructured-text submissions? (which, so y'all know, are dwindling off even as we speak.) for the record, in case anyone else is as confused as don, here are quotes from the d.p. forum. notice the aplomb with which carlo (who is known over there as garweyne) informs don of what he apparently has missed all along: > http://www.pgdp.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=875499#875499 don said: > In any case, I think we've > been discussing HTML markup, > not ReST markup (see the thread title). > Or are they somehow are they related? carlo replied: > epubmaker is used by PG to > convert HTML to epub and mobi, > not only to handle RST. don replied: > Really? > > Remarkable. No wonder the > results are so questionable. ... > > I'm amazed. so there you have it, folks. and thus i too am amazed. evidently, it's entirely possible to "contribute" to threads here without having the slightest idea about the basic information. -bowerbird

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surprised to learn
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

i am surprised to learn that -- roughly 12 hours ago -- don was surprised to learn that p.g. uses epubmaker to create .epub and .mobi files from the .html files that people submit... where have you been, don? what do you think we've been talking about for all this time? would you like to revisit any of your past posts here with this new knowledge you have? -bowerbird

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playing the italics game
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

here i finish up my thoughts on italics, by myself... as i said earlier, to get accuracy through the book, it's almost a necessity that more than one person go through the book. it would be silly to assume that a sole producer, no matter how dedicated or skilled or tenacious, had located _every_ instance. (i am not saying it cannot be done; i'm saying that it would be silly for us to _assume_ that it was so.) so, then, a different sort of question poses itself: how do you motivate additional volunteers to do the job the second, third, or fourth time around? it's usually easy enough to find someone to do it the _first_ time, because it's virgin territory, and every find is a new hit, and _feels_like_progress._ it's the second, and subsequent, times through it that the job gets unfulfilling, because most of the instances -- 80% or 90% -- are _already_ marked, so there are fewer cases where you get the "rush" of finding a new one. (and fixing a false-positive, although valuable, is rare, and even less thrilling.) *** but there _is_ a way to get the best of both sides. and that's to _hide_ the visibility of current italics, so the person can "have the fun" of finding them. then, because we do know about the presence of many of the instances, we can reward the person with _recognition_ that they "found" what we "hid". and we can also show them any that they missed. so we're both (1) rewarding their successes, and (2) training them, by showing any shortcomings. this keeps 'em motivated, and makes 'em better. *** moreover, we can give them _extra_credit_ when they find an instance that we didn't already know. after all, that's why we do the additional checks; so people find new cases we didn't know about... so that's what we're gonna give good rewards for. in my "italics game" demo, if the italics you clicked had a blue bounding-box, it meant, "hey, good job! you found one of the instances that we had hidden." in our game, this "find" might earn you one point. (or 1000 points, given the point-inflation today.) but if the italics you clicked had a _red_ bounding, it meant that you'd _discovered_a_new_instance_... (this isn't just something arbitrary that i made up; the words with red bounding-boxes are instances that were _actually_ missed by either david or jim, and usually both, in their digitizations of "huck". so, according to them, you _did_ find a new one.) so in our game, this "discovery" of a new instance might earn two points, or five, or 2000, or 5000. (a nice twist might be to base it on the number of rounds so far; it'd be 2 points in the second round, and 3 points in the third, 5 in the fifth, and so on. thus, the more people who'd missed it before you, the higher the reward you'll receive for finding it.) we could have other game-play considerations too. as one, of course, there would also be _penalities_ -- _deducted_ points -- for any missed instances. we could decide how heavily we wanted to charge people for such missed instances, but i'd say that it should be at least _twice_ as much as we reward them for "re-finding" a known instance, since the whole purpose of this exercise is to find new ones, so we want subsequent checkers to be _vigilant._ and we might want to base this penalty, too, on the round, to balance the increased "reward" for finding new instances. so you'd lose 2 points in the second round for misses, 3 in the third, etc. as another wrinkle, we might want to plant some "false misses" in the mix. here, we would _say_ the person had "missed" an instance, but we will then point to an _unitalicized_ word. this would be the equivalent of a "false positive", and thus we'll want the person to _appeal_ the judgment. that way, if round 2 incorrectly italicizes a word, then round 3 will be penalized for not finding it, but the player in round 3 will see that the word is _not_ supposed to be italicized, and _appeal_. and our referee will come and uphold the appeal, thus _removing_ the incorrect mark from round 2. (and yes, retroactively penalize the round 2 player.) so the false penalties teach the players to appeal, and that benefits us by removing false-positives... *** like any social game, you'd post the "standings", and give players a message-board to chat, boast, trashtalk, bellyache, and just generally have fun... *** so, would this kind of "game" thingee work? i dunno. don't care, really. i'm just a coder, building a tool to help automate a dull task... if you want an example of a non-game use of it, see: > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck241.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck258.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck271.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck303.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck313.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck320.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicscheck326.html these are the same 7 pages i had set up as a game, but here we just have the interface of the tool itself. you'll see that each instance of italics is _highlighted_ by a colorized box in both the left and right margins. (lines with multiple instances display multiple boxes.) these highlights are created by analyzing the text for the page, and seeing which lines have italics marked, then putting the margin-highlights at the appropriate place on the scan where we computed that line to be. or -- if people think it works better -- we can also mark each of those words themselves, with borders, the same way we did with the "game" version earlier. (to see this, click the "turn them on" button up top.) what the checker is checking for, then, is congruence with an italicized word in a line and a highlight for it. any noncongruence -- italics without a highlight, or highlight without italicized word -- needs attention. also note that, new in this version, i've included a _button_ in the right margin, for each line of words. when a line "needs attention", you'll click its button. this will send a report that that line needs attention. this is for when the text is sufficiently correct that changes will be rare, and we would want 'em to be confirmed by someone before they are committed. *** now let's recall how i described the current workflow: > look at the pagescan and note > where there are italics, then > check each instance in the text, > and mark it in the event that it > hasn't already been marked. > and then, just to be safe, > make sure that every italics word > that _is_ marked in the text > is actually an italics in the scan. so there are 2 entities in front of you on your screen. one is the pagescan, and the other is the text-file... and most of what you're doing is shifting between one and the other, and then back to the first one... look at the scan, then the text, then back to the scan. repeat, repeat, repeat. like watching a tennis match... haha! my goodness: "like watching a tennis match." sometimes i'm so funny i crack _myself_ up! ;+) now look at how this tool makes that more efficient. first, the text-file is removed from the picture entirely. all edits could be registered automatically by the tool. (however, i suggest instant review by an administrator, so that false-positives will not even get a toehold, and to address anomalies such as don's partial-word italics. this is the "confirmation" that i was mentioning earlier.) still, a person who's _checking_ doesn't mess with text. this means there's no loss-of-attention involved in the task-switch from examining-the-scan to text-editing. moreover, it is unnecessary to look at the text-file to see if an italicized word is marked, because the mark is shown _right_on_the_scan_itself_, where it's needed. you _know_ if a word's marked, or if it still needs to be. so if you see an italic _with_ a mark, you know it's fine. if you see one _without_ a mark, you know to mark it... and if there is a false-positive, you can see that as well, because there is a mark, but no italic-word alongside it. so all that tedious back-and-forth-and back movement of your eyes and attention from the scan to text to scan is eliminated. your eyes and attention stay on the scan. this is the essence of a _huge_ boost in task-efficiency. and that's why we build tools in the first place. are there any questions? -bowerbird

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don't fight human nature
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

don said: > I would like someone to try training someone > to use a subset of HTML markup, and use it properly, > and see how it works. does the person know any .html to begin with? > Even with a subset, there are lots of ways > of applying that subset improperly, and > having the display view look just fine on a PC. yes, that's a huge part of the problem with .html... and it's worse if the person knew any .html before. > I suspect users will be unable to > avoid the temptation to tell themselves > that "if it looks right, it's right,", interesting that you call that a "temptation"... > especially in cases where > the match between the markup > and the structure of the text > is unclear or complex. i guess you're saying that in such cases, it's not gonna be obvious "it looks right". *** your problem, in _my_ opinion, is that you are fighting against human nature, instead of using it to your _advantage_. my system adopts as a primary rule that "if it _looks_ right, it _is_ right". and, conversely, "if it doesn't look right, you need to change your input so it will." -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] any thoughts on the game?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

don said: > 1. It's an example of a way to enforce my recommendation > to proofread for italics only. as it was shown, yes. but that wouldn't have to be the case. > 2. The first page exhibits a flaw I found in another ZML text; > it only allows the selection of your definition of a whole word; > so "*I*'d" can only be displayed as "*I'd*". there's nothing inherent about that. z.m.l. can italicize just part of a word. and i did indeed do precisely that, several times in this book. the problem in doing that, however, is that it looks like crap. the typography in a browser doesn't handle that very nicely... anyway, back to the world series... -bowerbird

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any thoughts on the game?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

anyone have any thoughts on "the italics game" i posted? or on an italics-checking tool, in general? how about the world series -- reactions? what do you think about the presidential election? a possible resurgence of an "arab spring" next year? world peace? hunger in poverty-ridden nations? global warming? the coming mass-extinctions of wild animals? isn't "dancing with the stars" a hoot this season? who's your favorite "american idol" contestant? how about survivor? -bowerbird

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don't get yer knickers in a twist
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Oct '12

27 Oct '12

don said: > The alternative scenarios I can think of are: > > 1. The site has been hacked. But how could that be, > if it's still up? > > 2. Marcel, or someone else, has misrepresented > their authority to speak on behalf of the Corporation. > (And why is the attribution to the webmsster and > principle developer, without mentioning who that is? > Except to reinforce that this is published on PG's authority, > and not Marcel's authority.) > > 3. The PG site url has been hijacked, or actually belongs > to some US affiliate of PG that doesn't represent PGLAF. > > 3. PG is not who I thought they were. well, first of all, your numbering skills are off-kilter again. but more importantly, don't get your knickers in a twist... this is just marcello being marcello, overstepping his bounds, believing that _he_ is project gutenberg, just because he can post something -- whether authorized or not -- to the website. i'm guessing that greg never "approved" this, or even had the slightest idea that he'd have to tell marcello "you can't do that". like your 4-year-old making crayon drawings on the den walls. so as soon as greg gets drift of it, the "review" will be removed. and even if greg _did_ approve it, all we have to do is say "wha?", and he'll come to his senses. this is clearly not what p.g. does... but geez, don't get all hysterical... it's not that big of a deal. indeed, even if the "review" stays up, it ain't the end of the world. that's not what the mayans meant. -bowerbird

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