- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

taking stock on march 8th
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

march 8th is international women's day. rock on, estrogen! :+) *** congratulations to d.p. on the posting of their 17,000th e-text! the volunteers who digitize these books are _awesome_people_! *** speaking of women, and d.p. volunteers, juliet sutherland is the volunteer who has donated d.p. the most time and energy, so a special shout-out to her on this day. in a recent post to the d.p. forums, juliet admits to being frustrated by many of the "volunteers versus admins" threads on those d.p. forums. she also notes that her frustration is multiplied whenever she considers that the site does have many problems and that she, as the former top dog, bears a good deal of the responsibility. i've criticized juliet a lot, because -- frankly -- she deserved it. but it's not fun to see that anyone is frustrated, ready to quit... so i'd urge juliet to hang in there... juliet also said she often finds dkretz comments "off the wall". here's a quick note, juliet: he's usually right, and you're wrong. so try to see it from don's perspective as you hang in there... *** i'm in the middle of lots of different threads here, so i'll try and work on finishing them up this week. in no particular order... *** i want to finish my work on gardner's e-text, showing how it can now be auto-converted into various formats, as a way to demonstrate my version of "postprocessing", which seems to be far more direct than the d.p. version. *** i have some messages to post in response to carel... i've started notes about creating a proofing system, for carel and anyone else contemplating doing that. *** i have a pair of posts on the good and bad aspects of roger's roundlessness experiment... i will be finishing up the handful of books that i have taken from roger's site, comparing 'em with his output. *** i'm also going to show you a little perl script i coded which summons up the various pieces of each page of a book on roger's roundless site, and stitches 'em on one webpage, and also lets you "thumb through" the pages of the books on his site, to check them... here's the first draft of that script: > http://z-m-l.com/go/showbarebones.pl it pulls in the scan and text for each page, obviously, as well as the tweet (if any) and the log file information. under roger's current system per se, it's not convenient to do this on page after page. (although a person _can_ access each of the pieces of information independently.) but really, there's no reason why it shouldn't be easy to "walk through" the pages of a book as it's being worked. the script works for my cinema screen, but i'm not sure how well it will fit on smaller screens. but i'm unlikely to improve it in that regard, since i believe it's unlikely anyone will spend much time actually using the thing... (not that it's not useful; everything i program is useful; it's just that few people here actually use what i create.) i wrote it just to get myself back into some perl coding. notice that i _am_ willing to smooth out this code _if_ anyone really wants to use it, but -- other than that -- i'm just gonna add a few refinements to it and it's done. *** there you go... plenty of meat for this week... -bowerbird

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al and his 10-foot pole
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

al said: > IMO - what bowerbird is proposing is outright theft. i guess it's silly season here on the project gutenberg listserve. people are quite casual lately tossing about the "t" word ("theft!"). won't somebody please come train the firehose on this attack-dog so i don't have to? some elementary public-domain f.a.q. will do. in the meantime, as i have "confessed" before, i've mounted some of roger's scansets on my own site, so if roger has a problem with me doing that, he should send me a cease-and-desist. (kidding, of course, which should be obvious since i hate lawyers so much; roger can just send an e-mail, and we can discuss it all friendly.) > His apparent "holier-than-thou" attitude doesn't make up for that. well, at least when i accuse someone of a moral shortcoming, i provide _evidence_, instead of just making some bogus claim. > Speaking both personally and as a Whitewasher, > I wouldn't touch such files with the proverbial ten-foot pole. gee, al, we certainly wouldn't want you, either personally or as a capital-w whitewasher, to get involved with _criminal_activity._ one day you're letting your parking meter run out prematurely, and the next day you're dealing in public-domain scansets, and the next day the russian mafia has got your sorry ass in a sling. can't be too careful. good thing you have a 10-foot pole handy. *** donovan said: > experience has shown that any discussion of DP on gutvol-d > generally and unfortunately serves little productive purpose. > While positive and insightful comments do occur, > (and are read and appreciated!), they are easily lost > in the background of posts which far too often contain > derision, belittlement, accusation, and misrepresentation. and again, i wish i could just toss out a phalanx of terms like "derision, belittlement, accusation, and misrepresentation" with a wave of the hand. but when i say something like that, i feel a very strong need to back the charges with _evidence_. because when the derision (and the belittlement) is _deserved_, then the "accusations" are not a "misrepresentation", but indeed a clear-cut indictment. beware the person who doesn't want to discuss the charges, but merely have them dismissed as a "misrepresentation"... -bowerbird

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Re: roundlessness -- 011
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Mar '10

07 Mar '10

michael said: > Just to make it "official". . .we will save all scans sent. roger doesn't appear to be interested in submitting scans yet... (d.p. reluctance on this perverts all who come in contact with it.) would you mount scans for his books that _i_ sent in? -bowerbird

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the best proofers
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Mar '10

07 Mar '10

here are some of the findings from my analyses of the various "experiments" done over at d.p. the best proofers miss between 5% and 25% of the errors over the course of proofing an entire book. the worst proofers miss an even higher percentage, but it is not all that much higher, probably 10-40%. there is no evidence for the position that proofers "get bored" and therefore miss a higher percentage if the text they proof is clean (i.e., has few errors)... p3 proofers are no better than p2 or p1 proofers. some errors withstood over 5 rounds of proofing; there was nothing obviously "difficult" about them. the best predictor of whether a page is now "clean" is how many people proof it without finding an error. if the last person to proof a page found an error, then you cannot reliably predict it to be error-free, no matter how confident the proofer believes that... if anyone wants to dispute or discuss these findings, i'd be open, and will ask about your supportive data. -bowerbird

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roundlessness -- 011
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

ack! rfrank has started "archiving" the books from his roundless site... it sounds like he'll be deleting the scans when a book posts to p.g., even though, so far, he has _not_ posted those scans to p.g. as well. please won't somebody tell him p.g. will mount those files for him? (and there are lots of i.s.p. who offer huge amounts of storage and bandwidth nowadays at a very cheap price, like dreamhost; there is absolutely no need to delete files for "space" reasons.) -bowerbird

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Re: the d.p. opinion on "prerelease" of e-texts
by cmiske＠ashzfall.com 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

> some people are quite agitated at the thought of the idea. > they drag out the old rot about how "d.p. means _quality_". > -bowerbird DP does have a standard of quality similar to many current publishers of books. I frankly cannot recall the last time I read a book in any format or from any publisher/producer of books that did not contain errors of some sort or another. Humans are not perfect. Writing, editing, and proofing are human endeavors and, as such, are limited by our imperfections. The fact that they even strive for quality at DP is a mark in their favor. There are many eBook producers of public domain books that hold quantity so far above quality as to make a majority of their books almost unreadable. I would worry that a pre-release version of a text might result in PG getting a reputation for being yet another supplier of illegible eBooks (even if these books are only available in a 'special area'). As Michael asked only for 'serious objections' against a pre-release section being created, I cannot think of any objections that go outside of simply wondering if you are willing to have these books circulated as they stand (people may grab them and distribute them 'as-is'). Would they have a header that specifies that they are 'not ready for prime time' as well as being in a special area? (Many people strip the headers, so the source of origin issue often becomes a moot point.) The more I think about it, the more I feel that it would actually be rather nice to see something along the lines of the 'roundless experiment' produce decent quality 'first release' books and then have people nitpick them to 'perfection' later. The point would be the format of storage so that the rough version could be compared to the original scans and corrections/updates be done with ease. Also, if a book is backlogged at DP, it would make sense to have a method for someone outside of DP to adopt the book and finish it. Carel -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [gutvol-d] the d.p. opinion on "prerelease" of e-texts From: Bowerbird(a)aol.com Date: Tue, February 23, 2010 5:22 pm To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org, bowerbird(a)aol.com just in case you were wondering, dkretz _did_ copy michael hart's saturday post over to d.p., giving michael's position in favor of prerelease of texts while they're still "in progress" at d.p. that was on saturday evening, and since then there have been over 100 posts in response: > http://www.pgdp.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42940 there was an earlier discussion on the issue too: > http://www.pgdp.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42695 the earlier discussion had over 100 posts as well, and had a poll, which got a high number of votes. the poll question? > Making preview texts available on a dedicated site, > with a clear label that they're work in progress. > Good idea/bad idea? the poll results? > 45% -- I'd rather you didn't > 17% -- I couldn't care less > 36% -- Great idea! some people are quite agitated at the thought of the idea. they drag out the old rot about how "d.p. means _quality_". -bowerbird _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d

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Re: DP/PG vs. Google
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 05 Mar '10

05 Mar '10

jim said: > they would lose that bet! then jim said: > (Not that a lot can't be done to > get rid of 90% of the errors "automagically!") so you won't grant 100%, but you will grant 90%. well, google is probably betting they can get rid of 97% of the errors automatically. do you want to bet against google? because i'll take that bet against you. -bowerbird

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do not listen, pray
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 05 Mar '10

05 Mar '10

do not listen to non-lawyers discussing legal matters. do not even listen to lawyers discussing legal matters, not unless you are paying them. do not pay lawyers, if there's any way you can help it. *** do not listen to people who are talking about "theft". or "trespass". or any other stupid crap such as that. this is project gutenberg, where we transcend via gift. *** do not listen to the people who treat d.p. as if it is a factory, where "parts" are assembled into "products". the improper metaphor will only distract from truth. the queues are not the problem, they are an _effect_ of the problem. treating symptoms is bad strategy. the queues cause problems of their own, but _those_ problems are not the cause either; do not forget that. the problem is you cannot expect dozens of people to match the output created by thousands of people. remember what the problem is. treat the problem. *** pray for the volunteers whose time and energy is wasted. -bowerbird

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Re: the d.p. opinion on "prerelease" of e-texts
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 05 Mar '10

05 Mar '10

jim said: > Well, I guess I should stop complaining now why? i thought your complaints were made on a principle. you were just bellyaching for a speed-up exception favor? -bowerbird

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Re: The conundrum of FOSS projects (was Re: do not listen, pray)
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 04 Mar '10

04 Mar '10

dkretz said: > What you experienced is in fact the primary method > employed by the DP process managers for > trying to ameliorate the consequences of their system. > When a perceived deficiency is detected, it is > defined as a "special case" and given "special treatment". it's actually become quite humorous to see all the efforts to "route around the damage" caused by the bad workflow. they're repeating rounds, skipping rounds, limiting people, cajoling people, it's a cavalcade of exceptions to the rule... and hey, it makes perfect sense to "make someone happy" (i.e., shut them up) if you can do it by doing them a favor. meanwhile, if you're not a "special case" and you don't get "special treatment", you'd better enjoy the end of the line. -bowerbird

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