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

playing the italics game
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Oct '12

27 Oct '12

nobody has thoughts on a tool to help mark italics? why does this not surprise me? at any rate, the reasoning will be explained later, but for now, go try "the italics game" -- if you feel like it. when you find an italics word on the scan, click it, so it's surrounded by a bounding-box, either blue or red. (the bounding-box toggles on and off if you re-click.) when you're done with a page, click "grade me now", and you'll get a report on how well you performed... > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame241.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame258.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame271.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame303.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame313.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame320.html > http://zenmagiclove.com/misc/italicsgame326.html this game is not timed, so take as long as you need on each page, but remember that this book has 366 pages, so 1 minute per page means this job will take _7_hours_. even 1/2 minute on each page still means 3.5 hours... to get it down to 2 hours, each page has just 20 seconds. (19 seconds if you want a 5-minute-break after an hour.) -bowerbird

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when will they ever learn?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

keith said: > "Apparently" a master format can work! yes indeed, it is rather mind-boggling that jim -- not to mention so many others on this list -- can still be "surprised" by that fact, even though i have been proving it with pudding for so long... "apparently" they will never learn. -bowerbird

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polishing polishing polishing
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

still doing some last-minute stuff on huck finn... once again, as usual, i am struck by the required amount of attention-to-detail involved in polishing text for an e-book. even for an obsessive type like myself, it can overwhelm... (although, it should be said, most books are _not_ as hard as this one, which presents a variety of atypical challenges.) sometimes even something you think is going to be _simple_ ends up using more time and energy that you want it to take. just as an example, i did very little work on italics as i was cleaning up this text for "adventures of huckleberry finn", since i planned on splicing in the italics from jim's #32325. except now, in my confirmation work, i found at least _ten_ instances where jim might well have missed an italics word. (can't say for sure, because i don't know exactly what edition he used, but at least according to my edition, he missed 'em.) that's not a criticism of jim, or the quality of his work, since -- for all i know -- my file might be missing a dozen more... the whole reason i decided to import jim's italics is because i hate italics-checking, and it is hard, and time-consuming, and i miss lots of 'em, so the entire exercise is frustrating... of course, _part_ of the problem here is that i am trying to move this book as close to perfection as i can, when really, i should just say "ok, let's bring in the smoothreaders now." that "smoothreader" stage is an important one, because that's where the cost-benefit ratio achieves its primacy... smoothreaders will _not_ necessarily catch _every_ error. but, in a nutshell, if smoothreaders don't catch an error, then it's probably the case that the error is unimportant. the object, of course, is to move every e-book to perfection. but that can _cost_ more than the _benefit_ would be worth. if an error is so slight that it's not even _noticed_, then -- the odds are -- it is unimportant enough to matter much, so the act of detecting and fixing it simply _isn't_worth_it._ there are lots of cases, for instance, where it's hard to tell if something is a semicolon or a colon. but does it matter? probably not. especially since the typesetter didn't seem to be following any kind of consistent rule deciding between 'em, even in the cases where there is no uncertainty which one it is. sometimes it's hard to know, then, when to let something go... that's why smoothreaders can be so useful... -bowerbird

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aloha-readers and polishing and italics
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

i've made references to "smoothreaders" lately, mostly because that's a term commonly used over at distributed proofreaders... but i probably need to use some other term instead, because i'm not really talking about the same thing that they do at d.p. over there, "smoothreading" is a download-the-text-only deal. sometimes it can be .html, not just plain-text, but the point is that it _does_not_ involve the actual _pagescans_ themselves... whereas what i am talking about here _most_definitely_does_ involve an actual comparison of the text against the pagescan, albeit if only in those cases where there's doubt about the text. but the interface that i am talking about _always_ has the text displayed side-by-side with the pagescan, for easy comparison. *** also, at d.p., "smoothreading" is considered to be the _end_ of the process of preparing the text. i can see that viewpoint, but that means that the participants are volunteers who're already _embedded_ within the distributed proofreader infrastructure. i envision people who would consider themselves to be outside of such a system. and rather than the _end-point_ of the process, i would think they'd consider themselves to be the "beta-readers" for the e-text as it was _beginning_ its journey out to cyberspace. in other words, it's less of a "graduation" than a "commencement". then again, maybe the best way to think about this stage is as _both_ a "graduation" _and_ a "commencement", so perhaps we should be using one of those hello-goodbye words like "aloha". so i propose we call them "aloha-readers"... *** further, since these extra sets of eyes would be of the most value to _independent_producers_, i'd suggest that project gutenberg itself should recruit and train and enable these "aloha-readers"... i don't know (or care) where it would fit in the workflow that now has whitewashers doing (at least some of) this kind of last-minute checking -- perhaps, in the spirit of "aloha" it could be _both_ -- i'm just saying that it will be extremely helpful to solo producers. *** don said: > In my own proofing the only way I can have > any confidence at all that I'm catching all the italics > is to scan through the entire text looking for nothing but. i think that's true of a lot of people. and even then, any "confidence" might be undeserved. because most people will _still_ miss 5% to 15% of them, and sometimes even more. i have proven it with myself. i have stared and stared at some pages, _knowing_ that it contains one or more italicized words that i'm missing, and _still_ been unable to spot any. it's just the way it is. so i feel the only way to gain a good degree of certainty is to have the pages examined by more than one person -- and i wouldn't _bet_ on 99% accuracy with fewer than three. but of course, if/when you have independent digitizations, you can use the _comparison_methodology_ i'm discussing, and i can guarantee you that it will jack up your accuracy... so far, with this copy of "huck" that i'm digitizing right now, i've used jim's italics _and_ david's _and_ some of the o.c.r., and i am very confident that i'm getting fairly good coverage, although even then you'll notice the hedge with "fairly good". (and i can also report that both david and jim missed "some".) further, i'm making my text available, so you are welcome to take on the challenge of finding any italics that i've missed... > As soon as I start noticing (and marking) anything else, > I start missing them. i can also say that that's true for me too. i need the focus. > It also destroys my accuracy when the text already has > italics markup in it and I must check for false positives. well, there should almost never be "false positives" in a file. not for italics. false positives mean your workflow is flawed. but you bring me to a good point i have been preparing... for the proofing of italics (and other styling) we have a need -- an _overwhelming_ need -- for tools to help us do better. the current methodology -- 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. whew! this is tedious, back-breaking work. fatiguing. so, as you might expect, i've got some ideas for a tool. but i'm gonna let y'all think about it for a while first... so see if you can come up with anything, and then i'll dish... -bowerbird

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Basic simple test case.
by don kretz 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Here is a PG project that needs some formatting help. The HTML conversion would probably best be termed "fail". Yet it should be a simple case. How would you want proofers to submit it after "matching the scan"? What would you consider to be a properly marked up copy in the format of your choice? How should it get there from the previous step? http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14668/pg14668.html

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Books in Browsers Conference at Internet Archive
by Alex Buie 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

The event is being livestreamed at http://toc.oreilly.com You may find this interesting. Also, tonight, you're all invited to our 10PB party! http://blog.archive.org/2012/10/10/the-ten-petabyte-party/ Just shoot an email to june(a)archive.org. Alex

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kindlegen 2.7
by Marcello Perathoner 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

Finally kindlegen groks multiple classes eg. class="class1 class2 class3". https://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/english/Release%20Notes.html -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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blah blah blah elements blah blah blah
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Oct '12

24 Oct '12

don said: > The pglaf archives seem to have biig holes in them try here: > http://z-m-l.com/gutvold/ *** > bird, I can't find the list of elements you provided > that need to be identified. Do you have a date for that? do this: > go to http://z-m-l.com > click the "some z.m.l. examples" link > view the "test-suite" example > view the "11 rules of z.m.l." example if i think it's an element that needs to be identified, then z.m.l. has a way for you to signify it in your file. this might or might not be in accord with your desire, but i'm not sure i believe your desire is well-directed. my system doesn't need an explicit labeling of things; it's more than happy with the user's choice of labels... -bowerbird

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Ipad Mini
by James Adcock 24 Oct '12

24 Oct '12

Ipad Mini has been released. Form factor probably more interesting for most book readers who are Apple-centric. Unfortunately, comes with Apple's new proprietary incompatible GDMF USB cable. http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/overview/

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powering through the adventures
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Oct '12

24 Oct '12

ok, i powered through those last 1,000 diffs. definitely goes faster once you get the hang, and have sharply focused the displayed diffs. *** so now i turn to the "polishing" aspect... making sure the doublequotes are balanced, one final-final run through the spellchecker, slipping in the runheads, that kind of stuff... and thus, by the time of tomorrow's update, i should have something for smoothreaders. it has definitely been an adventure with huck. as usual, the latest edition is located here: > http://zenmagiclove.com/huckf/huckf-006.zml -bowerbird

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