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Question about Scanned Books
by Michael McDermott 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

Archive.org has many DJVU files of books that have lapsed into the public domain. Would it comply with PG's guidelines to take one of these volumes (the one I was thinking of has a copyright date of 1915 and can be found at http://www.archive.org/details/worksmartinluth00spaegoog)? The important elements here are: 1) I do not have a copy of the paper edition 2) This is a scan of a work that, by all appearances, qualifies having been published in the US before 1923 3) Was digitized by Google Would this work or would its ancestry cause problems? -- Michael McDermott www.mad-computer-scientist.com

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so let's talk about my collaborative proofreading site, part 2
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

here's more info on my collaborative proofreading site... *** to see what we're talking about, you can visit this u.r.l.: > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/editr.pl *** we talked about 4 main topics last week: > navigating the pages... > certifying a page as clean... > searching the book for a string... > feel the power with the "command" field... under the 4th topic -- the command field -- we discussed 3 of the commands you can issue: > showmap... > concat... > showcustom... today we'll discuss a few more commands... *** blubberbaby... you'll remember that i also discussed how you can implement spellcheck functionality in your workflow. one key to this is creating a custom dictionary for each specific book that you are digitizing, one that contains the words unique to that particular book... at first, you'll have a "bad-words" list, which contains low-frequency words not found in a regular dictionary. the other list is the "good-words" list, which contains high-frequency words plus those in a regular dictionary. the process of correcting the book is one of _moving_ items on the "bad-words" list to the "good-words" list, either by certifying o.c.r. did recognize them correctly, or by correcting the misrecognition to what it should be. (or, in the case of an error by the publisher, correcting it.) what is handy, for this process, is knowing which pages have words that are contained on the "bad-words" list. you _could_ navigate through each of the pages, to see which ones have flagged words, which are shown in red. but why not have the computer just tell us what they are? voila the next command, christened "blubberbaby", to honor alaska, for this sitka book. enter "blubberbaby" in the search-field and click "find", and in a little while -- it's not yet unoptimized, so it's about 20 seconds -- you will be shown a page that includes all of the pages that have words which are still on the "bad-words" list... from that display-page, you can use the links there to open a number of these pages -- each in its own tab -- and work on them to deal with all of the flagged words. questionable words should be handled in preprocessing, for the most part, so if the workflow is designed correctly, you won't need to use this "blubberbaby" command often. but it's useful to have it, so you can do the check if desired. and if questionable words were not fixed in preprocessing, then you'll find "blubberbaby" to be even more important. *** pairsearch... you'll remember when i was discussing _inconsistencies_ in the sitka book that i used the "bad-words" list to find possible problems. specifically, when two variants of a word (usually a name) came up sorted next to each other, it was easy to spot 'em and tell that they needed checking. here are a few of them, so you can see what i mean... > Globokoe************** > Golobokoe************** > ... > Golofnin************** > Golovin************** > ... > Hagemeister************** > Hagmeister************** it's pretty obvious that these _might_ be inconsistencies... not all of them are. for instance, "golofnin" and "golvin" were -- apparently -- the names of two different people. but the others were errors made by the original printer, errors that coulda been caught (i caught 'em) and fixed. what you have to do, though, to check these pairs out, is go to the actual pages where they appear, and read the text, so as to determine the correct course of action. now, with the search capability, it's fairly easy to do that. you just enter each term, and then click on the links to open up the pages where that term appears. fairly easy. but that can get a bit tiresome if you have a lot to check. so i programmed this "pairsearch" command to help out. you enter the command "pairsearch", followed by pairs of terms that you want to search for, and the program presents the relevant pages to help you make a decision. so, for instance, for the three pairs above, you'd enter: > pairsearch hagemeister hagmeister golofnin golovin globokoe golobokoe the search-terms can be separated by spaces or line-ends. the output from that search is appended to this message. the lines are long, and will likely wrap, so it's also here: > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/pairsearch-output.html the pagenames aren't linked now, but eventually will be. this "pairsearch" command can be extremely useful in resolving inconsistencies within the book, both those introduced by o.c.r. and those by the original publisher. one more note... remember that publishers back in the old days didn't have the wonderful tools that we now have at our disposal, so it's no wonder that they had some problems when it came to words like "globokoe" and "golobokoe", or russian names. i'm sure if i had to use the primitive tools they had back then, i'd be making 3 times as many errors as they made, or more... *** end-page-hyphenates d.p. has proofers mark end-page-hyphenates with an asterisk. i'm not sure why they feel that's necessary. the computer can find end-page-hyphenates just fine. here's a routine to do it. put the command "end-page-hyphenates" in the search-field, and then click "find", and you'll get a list of where they occur. the list has links for both pages, containing both fragments... for this book, you'll get this: > sitkap002.txt ... and ... sitkap003.txt > sitkap007.txt ... and ... sitkap008.txt > sitkap018.txt ... and ... sitkap019.txt > sitkap019.txt ... and ... sitkap020.txt > sitkap021.txt ... and ... sitkap022.txt > sitkap027.txt ... and ... sitkap028.txt > sitkap043.txt ... and ... sitkap044.txt > sitkap051.txt ... and ... sitkap052.txt > sitkap077.txt ... and ... sitkap078.txt > sitkap079.txt ... and ... sitkap080.txt > sitkap083.txt ... and ... sitkap084.txt > sitkap087.txt ... and ... sitkap088.txt > sitkap102.txt ... and ... sitkap103.txt those pagenames are clickable, and take you to that page... there isn't a lot of reason you need to check those fragments, since the computer will also rejoin 'em if you unwrap the text. but if i didn't include this functionality, you know _someone_ would say "yeah, but your system doesn't do _this_, does it?" so now i can say, "well yes, as a matter of fact, it _does_..." *** so, we've added "blubberbaby" and "pairsearch" commands, as well as "end-page-hyphenates"; that's enough for today. by now, you should have a pretty good feel on how we will continue to implement functionalities as they are needed... we'll discuss more stuff as i get it put into place... -bowerbird p.s. here's the output from the "pairsearch" command above: > .....here it is, in order of appearance in the book: > > globokoe ... sitkap002.txt ... the inlet at Ozerskoe Redoubt and Globokoe (Deep) Lake; the island-studded > hagemeister ... sitkap006.txt ... ngland English Francisco Georgeson Hagemeister Jamestown Kashavaroffs Katle > hagemeister ... sitkap009.txt ... g instructions previously given to Hagemeister, instructing him to find the > golofnin ... sitkap032.txt ... r the command of Captain Vasili M. Golofnin, who was widely known for his a > golofnin ... sitkap034.txt ... stant, nor one doctor's pupil.'?? Golofnin soon left Sitka to return to St > hagmeister ... sitkap042.txt ... ills of Golden California. Captain Hagmeister came to re- lieve him, and in > golofnin ... sitkap045.txt ... to trade with the Kolosh [45-1] Golofnin, Voyage of the Sloop "Kamchatka > golofnin ... sitkap060.txt ... ccording to the account of Captain Golofnin, it was an establishment well b > golovin ... sitkap072.txt ... erica, by Captain-Lieutenant P. N. Golovin, pp. 72-73. [[72]] > globokoe ... sitkap072.txt ... other at the Ozer- skoe Redoubt on Globokoef[72-2] (Deep) Lake, ground the > golobokoe ... sitkap072.txt ... f the present improvement. [72-2] Golobokoe Lake was sounded to a depth cf > hagemeister ... sitkap075.txt ... nuary 11, 1818. Leonti Andreanvich Hagemeister, Jan. 11, 1818, to Oct. 24, > globokoe ... sitkap105.txt ... mountainside. The Redoubt and the Globokoe Lake.-- Southwest from Sitka ab > globokoe ... sitkap106.txt ... re in the rocky wall which divided Globokoe, or Deep Lake, from the sea, an > > > .....and sorted, by search-term: > > globokoe ... sitkap002.txt ... the inlet at Ozerskoe Redoubt and Globokoe (Deep) Lake; the island-studded > globokoe ... sitkap072.txt ... other at the Ozer- skoe Redoubt on Globokoef[72-2] (Deep) Lake, ground the > globokoe ... sitkap105.txt ... mountainside. The Redoubt and the Globokoe Lake.-- Southwest from Sitka ab > globokoe ... sitkap106.txt ... re in the rocky wall which divided Globokoe, or Deep Lake, from the sea, an > > golobokoe ... sitkap072.txt ... f the present improvement. [72-2] Golobokoe Lake was sounded to a depth cf > > golofnin ... sitkap032.txt ... r the command of Captain Vasili M. Golofnin, who was widely known for his a > golofnin ... sitkap034.txt ... stant, nor one doctor's pupil.'?? Golofnin soon left Sitka to return to St > golofnin ... sitkap045.txt ... to trade with the Kolosh [45-1] Golofnin, Voyage of the Sloop "Kamchatka > golofnin ... sitkap060.txt ... ccording to the account of Captain Golofnin, it was an establishment well b > > golovin ... sitkap072.txt ... erica, by Captain-Lieutenant P. N. Golovin, pp. 72-73. [[72]] > > hagemeister ... sitkap006.txt ... ngland English Francisco Georgeson Hagemeister Jamestown Kashavaroffs Katle > hagemeister ... sitkap009.txt ... g instructions previously given to Hagemeister, instructing him to find the > hagemeister ... sitkap075.txt ... nuary 11, 1818. Leonti Andreanvich Hagemeister, Jan. 11, 1818, to Oct. 24, > > hagmeister ... sitkap042.txt ... ills of Golden California. Captain Hagmeister came to re- lieve him, and in > > > .....and sorted again, this time in the order in which they were entered: > > hagemeister ... sitkap006.txt ... ngland English Francisco Georgeson Hagemeister Jamestown Kashavaroffs Katle > hagemeister ... sitkap009.txt ... g instructions previously given to Hagemeister, instructing him to find the > hagemeister ... sitkap075.txt ... nuary 11, 1818. Leonti Andreanvich Hagemeister, Jan. 11, 1818, to Oct. 24, > > hagmeister ... sitkap042.txt ... ills of Golden California. Captain Hagmeister came to re- lieve him, and in > > > golofnin ... sitkap032.txt ... r the command of Captain Vasili M. Golofnin, who was widely known for his a > golofnin ... sitkap034.txt ... stant, nor one doctor's pupil.'?? Golofnin soon left Sitka to return to St > golofnin ... sitkap045.txt ... to trade with the Kolosh [45-1] Golofnin, Voyage of the Sloop "Kamchatka > golofnin ... sitkap060.txt ... ccording to the account of Captain Golofnin, it was an establishment well b > > golovin ... sitkap072.txt ... erica, by Captain-Lieutenant P. N. Golovin, pp. 72-73. [[72]] > > > globokoe ... sitkap002.txt ... the inlet at Ozerskoe Redoubt and Globokoe (Deep) Lake; the island-studded > globokoe ... sitkap072.txt ... other at the Ozer- skoe Redoubt on Globokoef[72-2] (Deep) Lake, ground the > globokoe ... sitkap105.txt ... mountainside. The Redoubt and the Globokoe Lake.-- Southwest from Sitka ab > globokoe ... sitkap106.txt ... re in the rocky wall which divided Globokoe, or Deep Lake, from the sea, an > > golobokoe ... sitkap072.txt ... f the present improvement. [72-2] Golobokoe Lake was sounded to a depth cf > > > --30--

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[SPAM] PGDP down?
by Greg Weeks 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

Is PGDP down, or is something with just my link? -- Greg Weeks http://durendal.org:8080/greg/

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Project Gutenberg DVD Release Candidate now available for testing
by Aaron Cannon 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

Hi all. Finally, I have a release candidate of the new Gutenberg DVD available for testing. Currently, it is only available via BitTorrent. Please download and test, and let me know if you find any bugs. At this point, I'm not looking for suggestions on which new titles to add, but any other feedback is welcome and appreciated. I would not yet recommend distribution of this DVD image for any purpose other than testing. Please do not seed this torrent after April 30, because by then, we should have an official version available. This image is an .iso for a dvd-9, so you will either need a way to open or mount .iso files, or a dual layer DVD burner. You can download the torrent via the following magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:JB4PMPIXNTYMFCUZABAYYTX56JWQINPI or if your client doesn't speak magnet links, you can download the torrent file from: http://www.fireantproductions.com/pgdvd201004-rc1.torrent Thanks in advance for all the feedback. Aaron Cannon

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spell-check functionality and the sitka book
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Apr '10

12 Apr '10

in discussing how to bring about a spell-check functionality, i talked about the "bad-words" list as a part of that workflow. i posted the "bad-words" list from the o.c.r. for the sitka book. > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/sitka-reversedictionary.txt i talked about how the proofing process can be envisioned as movement from the "bad-words" list to the "good-words" list. now that rfrank has posted the "final" version at p.g., we can do the same "dictionary-check" procedure on his finished book: > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/sitka-reverseposted.txt you'll see i have introduced blank lines into these files, so as to coordinate their lines so they can be merged into one file. this will allow us to see how each word traversed the process. the merged file is here: > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/sitka-reverse-review.html *** go ahead and take a quick look at the words... one thing you might notice is that a number of the words are marked with asterisks. those are the ones that are suspicious, in that they appear to be _variants_ of each other, which might be a good indication of either (1) an o.c.r. misrecognition, or (2) an inconsistency in the p-book which should be corrected... (some people use levenshtein edit-distance to find these words. that's nice, but a plain old review of a sorted list works well too.) i checked those variants against the p-book, and many of them were indeed errors. (the ones marked "ok" at the end were right.) that's how i found many of these consistency errors rfrank missed. oh, by the way, there is still at least one more of those errors that i didn't mention earlier... so if anyone wants to go looking for it... ok, so let's go on to look at the list in other ways... *** for each individual word, we're gonna see how it was handled... the first group are some words that had garbage characters. those words didn't have any direct equivalent in the final file, at least none that were close enough to be sorted similarly... once we get into the lowercase words, we get some matching. and that continues as we get into the words with an initial cap, and on into the compound-words, and then into the numbers... focus on the initial-cap words -- which are primarily names -- and you'll see that the vast majority of these were recognized correctly, in that they persisted through to the final version... about 85% of the initial-cap words were recognized correctly. the same is true of the compound-words, with few exceptions. and most numbers seem to have been recognized correctly too. but lowercase words are more of a mixed bag. some were right, it's true, but a relatively high percentage of them were incorrect, as evidenced by the fact they were changed, one way or another. only about half the lowercase words were recognized correctly. you might remember that i had predicted precisely this pattern. most lowercase o.c.r. words that are in the "bad-words" list are generally misrecognitions, while most initial-cap words are not. indeed, the percentage of correct lowercase words in this o.c.r. was much higher than is normal, because this was not typical o.c.r., in the sense that the scans were clean, but also because rfrank probably did some preprocessing on the raw o.c.r. text, which we can tell because it had very few garbage characters... so what we see is that roughly 75% of these words were _correct_, despite the fact they were "bad-words" (i.e., not in the dictionary). they weren't in the dictionary, but they were "good" in this book... that so many "bad-words" can be correct and unique to the book is why it's important to use a "custom" book-specific dictionary. only about 25% of the "bad-words" were actually misrecognitions. to the extent that you can narrow down your _flagging_ of the "bad-words" to the ones that are _really_ bad, you can relieve your proofers of a _lot_ of unnecessary flags, which is _good_, because false flags sap the attention of proofers unnecessarily. once you've done this analysis a number of times, like i have, you'll come to recognize that it is a very important analysis... -bowerbird p.s. hey, dkretz, thanks for the shoutout! but one correction! i wasn't "baited" into "crossing a line" that got be banned at d.p. i never get "baited" into _anything_. i always know what i'm doing. and i've been banned from enough places that i know how it works, so it wasn't that i "crossed a line". again, i know what i'm doing... no, if i get banned from somewhere, it's something i _anticipated_, and after a consideration of that outcome, decided it didn't matter. which is _not_ to say that i _like_ to get banned, or that i _try_ to, but is _rather_ to say that i won't allow myself be banned _unless_ i have decided that i don't really care whether i'm banned or not... as for "crossing a line", there's no need for it. even though people will generally say that i broke some technical rule and that is why i was banned, the truth of the matter is that one only gets banned if one pisses off the person with the power to push the ban button. it has nothing at all to do with "the rules"... it's just raw emotion... oh, and let me say one more thing; it's _nice_ that d.p. still lets me come to their forums and read them. if they tried to prevent that, i _could_ get around it, but it's a hassle. so i thank them for that...

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more notes from the merry-go-round
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Apr '10

12 Apr '10

gosh i love a merry-go-round... :+( *** here's a few notes, repeated too many times already, but whatchagonnado? if this doesn't make sense to you, that's probably because it wasn't intended for you, so pay no mind. *** any heavy bracket markup like [i]italics[/i] is obtrusive, and that's why proofers complain about it, justifiably... use light markup, like _italics_, and they won't complain. better yet, have them do the proofing with an .html field -- using a text-area field only when editing is required -- and you can use _real_ italics (and highlight it with color). you can also use _color_ to flag your questionable words, which makes the flagging a whole lot harder to "miss"... *** spacey double-quotes are _easy_ to solve if you pay heed to the _paragraphs_. ergo... pay heed to the paragraphs! yes, paragraphs cross page-boundaries... but so what? you start with the first file, and keep track of paragraphs while you proceed to the second, and the third, and so on. there's a ton of redundancy in the quotes -- open, close, open, close, open, close. make use of that redundancy... it's not rocket-science; it's not even difficult programming. get over the mind-blockage you have on this topic. *** and once you _do_ get over that mind-blockage, you just might see that books that use _single-quotes_ for dialog aren't really all that different. "but", you are sputtering, "yes they are, because contractions cause big difficulties!" poppycock. here's a file with a list of contractions (among other stuff): > http://z-m-l.com/customdictionary.txt that file's been up since june of 2007. use that list intelligently to control those contractions... possessives also use the single-quote, but they're easy to deal with as well; just do a little thinking about them. don't give up so easily. _try._ you'll find it's not as hard as you thought. and if you actually honestly _try_, and hit a wall anyway, show me your actual honest efforts, and i will help you... *** "probable markup on this page"? are you purposely trying to be vague? how about listing the italicized words, _specifically_? geez! -bowerbird

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Newby/Hart at Illinois symposium April 15-16
by Greg Newby 12 Apr '10

12 Apr '10

For those in the region, this might be of interest: http://50years.lis.illinois.edu/ PGLAF CEO Greg Newby will join PG founder Michael Hart at a symposium on the U. Illinois campus. Registration is free but limited. The panel with Michael & Greg is scheduled for Thursday April 15 from 1:30-3pm. -- Greg

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my report on that sitka posting
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 09 Apr '10

09 Apr '10

ok folks, here's my book report on the "sitka" book which was done over at fadedpage, and posted to p.g. it's #31862 if you want to go and take a look at it: > http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31862/31862.txt *** i'll discuss the high points in the body of this message; appended you'll find the data documenting these points... *** 1. ...stealth scanno... the first thing to note is that a sharp-eyed proofer caught a stealth scanno. my system, which relies on spellcheck heavily, is susceptible to stealth scannos, so i'm always interested in their frequency, and whether or not they will cause a serious problem in comprehension. in this book, there was 1 stealth scanno, so they were infrequent in this book. further, it wasn't a bad one... a "heeded" was misrecognized as "needed", so no big deal. *** 2. ...publisher corrections made; here's a list of 15... rfrank made his digitization philosophy very clear here, as he made a number of _corrections_ to the original book. and i agree! i'm firmly against the "transcription" model, which holds that we should merely reproduce the print-book. i maintain we are _republishing_ the book, and therefore i strongly believe we need to correct any errors we find. and like me, roger doesn't bother with a "list of changes", either. i don't think it's necessary to make such a list. they're boring. just make the change and keep on moving... however, there is one aspect to note about this, which is that means rfrank sets a higher standard for his work, and if we find errors in the p-book which he should've found, then he is now accountable for having missed those errors. *** 3. ...more fixes, requiring research outside the book... to his credit, rfrank went out of his way to check things, so as to make sure that he was _only_ fixing actual errors, and not introducing bad changes. sure, it's not too hard to look up a sailor's name on wikipedia to spell it right, or to check that a word means "an edit from the czar", but it takes time, and it improves the output, so give kudos... *** 4. ...he even did "corrections" i might not have done... as is often the case when you adopt a "re-publication" philosophy as opposed to "transcription", some of the changes that you make might not get universal agreement. but that comes with the territory, so you roll with it. *** 5. ...and some i _certainly_ wouldn't have done... and you continue rolling, even when disagreement is thick. *** 6. ...and yet he didn't do some that i woulda done... everybody has their own opinions... :+) i won't count these as "errors". but _i_would_ do them differently... *** 7. ...and i disagree on how he did some formatting... once again, everybody's got an opinion... for the first 2 cases shown, i put a comma after the period, just so the following lowercase letter wouldn't throw a flag every time i did that check. the third case is a bit more complicated... i believe that the formatting rules used by rfrank -- and d.p. in general -- are slightly misguided... first of all, they are arbitrary, with wiggle-room, which means they're hard to understand and interpret. i think rules that are firmly grounded work better... second, in many situations the rules instruct us to put the formatting toggles _inside_ the word itself (at least inside the punctuation which surrounds it). in this case, for instance, the _italicized_ word is placed inside some _non-italicized_ parentheses. so an italic letter butts a non-italic parenthesis. but _none_ of the rendering engines we have today (like browsers and e-book apps) are capable enough to make that look reasonably good, let alone nice. indeed, most of the time it looks absolutely dreadful; a shift from non-italic to italic (and back) is ugly. so even when it doesn't "make sense" grammatically, my recommendation is to italicize the entire string, it looks better, so that's what i do; you should too. *** 8. ...the previous errors... ok, now we get down to the brass tacks. were there any errors in the posted book? well, yeah. i've already pointed out 6. they are repeated below, to refresh memory. but there are more errors... *** 9. ...there are hyphenation differences... rfrank has clearly shown that he is more than willing to make changes to the book, so as to correct errors, and for consistency. for instance, he changed several cases of the name "wrangel", consistent to "wrangell". so if we now _find_ errors or inconsistencies, even if they were present in the original book, we'll hold him accountable for not having made the proper corrections. it's only fair. and yes, the book had several hyphenation inconsistencies. rfrank may have found and fixed some, i don't know, but i _do_ know that there were some that he did _not_ fix... do you like the word "sealion"? or is "sea-lion" better? i like the second. the book was split 50/50. rfrank did 3 of them one way, then left the final 1 the other way... i'd call the error-count 2, but you can call it 1, or 3. there were 2 cases of "far-off" and 1 case of "far off", so i'd go with "far-off", and raise the error-count by 1. there was 1 "far-seeing" and 1 "far seeing". ironically, they're both on the same page. talk about short-sighted. call 1 of 'em an error. there was 1 "guest-house" and 1 "guesthouse", so 1 error. and 1 "ice-houses" and 1 "icehouses", so again, 1 error... so let's say 6 hyphenation errors, due to inconsistency... *** 10. ...and the other consistency errors... i show 11 other consistency errors, all on names... feel free to argue about any of them. if you can find someone who's willing to argue them, that is. so far, 17 new errors... *** 11. ...and finally, the last 2 errors... there was 1 case of some missed formatting, as shown clearly in the scan for this page: > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/sitkap025.png _barabaras_, barabaras, ^^^^^^^^^^ it's humorous to note that this missed italic was on the same page as the missed italic i reported before. but nobody said anything about "barabaras" earlier... last but not least, 1 misspelled word: "gooch-heat", which should have been "gooch-haet" -- wolf-house... yes, it was printed wrong, but it shoulda been caught. so 2 more, for a sum of 19 new errors, plus the original 6, making a grand total of 25. that's twice my usual standard -- 1 error per 10 pages -- but since _most_ of these errors were also present in the p-book (along with many more which were corrected by rfrank), i'd call this a good digitization. *** in conclusion... many people will say that most of these errors are trivial. i wouldn't argue with them. at the same time, i'm compulsive enough to fix the trivial. i don't want any errors in my books. even "trivial" ones... i'm guessing that roger will want to fix these errors too. i'm also guessing that roger will say most of these errors can be laid at the feet of the postprocessor, so that his "roundless" system has passed this test with flying colors. and, in a sense, he's right, in that most of these errors _should_ be located within the realm of the postprocessor. (or -- to once again stress my model -- the preprocessor.) but to give the postprocessor the _luxury_ of enough time to do the job of catching errors like these, we must have the proofers perform as many duties as they possibly can. when a page can conceivably be seen by only _one_ proofer, then a postprocessor simply can't have enough faith that each page is correct, and will inevitably perform checks they would not do if they believed every page was solid... if you're worried about simple things like missing italics, you just won't have the focus to look for more subtle stuff. use your proofers to make sure every page is rock-solid. give the postprocessor the luxury to _polish_ the book... -bowerbird p.s. here's a "bonus error", thrown in for good measure. "blockhouse" isn't capitalized elsewhere in the book, and if we did capitalize it here, we'd capitalize "upper" too. > near the site of the upper blockhouse. Her successor, > near the site of the upper Blockhouse. Her successor, > ===========================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ =============================================================== 1. ...stealth scanno... > and was needed. Captain A. Holmes A'Court, > and was heeded. Captain A. Holmes A'Court, > ========^================================= 2. ...publisher corrections made; here's a list of 15... > Narative of a Voyage Round the World. > Narrative of a Voyage Round the World. > ===^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > pupil.' > pupil.'" > =======^ > an air of prosperity prevaded the place. > an air of prosperity pervaded the place. > ======================^^================ > Her successor, the sceond Princess > Her successor, the second Princess > ====================^^============ > in these waters bought skins for mere trifles, some for > in these waters, bought skins for mere trifles, some for > ===============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > bath house > a bath house > ^^^^^=^^^^ > island but > islands but > ======^^^^ > ungents, combine to make > unguents, combine to make > ===^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Hudson Bay Co. the Russian ships that sailed > Hudson's Bay Co. the Russian ships that sailed > ======^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > of the educational institution of Sitka. > of the educational institutions of Sitka. > ========================^^^^^^^ > The liquid refreshments serve to him > The liquid refreshments served to him > =============================^^^^^^^ > the villianous liquor called "hoochinoo" > the villainous liquor called "hoochinoo" > ========^^============================== > island to the broad Pacific. What were the thoughts > islands to the broad Pacific. What were the thoughts > ======^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > or "Ranche," there is choice of two streets, > or "Ranche," there is a choice of two streets, > ======================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > and three who names I do not know. > and three whose names I do not know. > =============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 3. ...more fixes, requiring research outside the book... > Priest Vasili Michaeloff Ocueredin, > Priest Vasili Michaeloff Ocheredin, > ===========================^======= > of the harvest. Her captain, Entienne Marchand, > of the harvest. Her captain, Etienne Marchand, > ==============================^^^^=^^^^^^^^^^^ > ukaze, > ukase, > ===^== 4. ...he even did "corrections" i might not have done... > all the Russians to the Republic > all the Russias to the Republic > ==============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > of the American troops, Gen. Jeff C. Davis, > of the American troops, Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, > =================================^^^^^^^^^^ > is called Kosters Trail. The first > is called Koster's Trail. The first > ================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 5. ...and some i _certainly_ wouldn't have done... > articles, carved with totemic design > articles, carved with totemic designs > ==================================== 6. ...and yet he didn't do some that i woulda done... > --The Author > The Author > ^^^^^^^^^^^ > in the Bering Sea, > in Bering Sea > ===^^^^^^^^^^ 7. ...and i disagree on how he did some formatting... > to the Hudson's Bay Co., the Russian ships that > to the Hudson's Bay Co. the Russian ships that > =======================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Total, 400. Ib., p. 52. > Total, 400. Ib. p. 52. > ===============^^^^^^^ > of New Archangel _(Novo Arkangelsk),_ > of New Archangel (_Novo Arkangelsk_,) > =================^^===============^^^ 8. ...the previous errors... > _yukali_ (dried salmon), > yuhali (dried salmon), > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > _prazdnik_ (holiday) > prasdnik (holiday) > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > _Sheetkah_, > Sheetkah, > ^^^=^^^^^ > Seattle Intelligencer, December 14th, 1868; > Seattle Intelligencer, December 14th. 1868; > ======================^^^^^^ 9. ...there are hyphenation differences... sea-lions (#19, but at line-end) sealion (#29) sealion (#48) sea-lion (#101) > and sea-lion meat from Kodiak, and > and sealion meat from Kodiak, and > =======^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > adorned with sea-lion heads > adorned with sealion heads > ================^^^^^^^^^^ far off (#35) far-off (#42) far-off (#80) > in the far-off possession of the Czar. > in the far off possession of the Czar. > ==========^=========================== far seeing (#16) far-seeing (#16) (yes, inconsistent on the same page) > wealthiest and most far-seeing of the leaders > wealthiest and most far seeing of the leaders > =======================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > being entertained in the guest-house were ...but yet... > went to the guesthouse of the kwan. All the > The ice-houses were near the outlet of ...but yet... > icehouses was laden on the ship 250 tons, and 10. ...and the other consistency errors... > in Chicagof Island, sent his ship's boat > in Chichagoff Island, sent his ship's boat > =======^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Admiral Chicagof, Minister > Admiral Chichagof, Minister > ============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > and Chicagof." (A Voyage Round the World, Lisianski, p. 235.)] > and Chichagof." (A Voyage Round the World, Lisianski, p. 235.)] > ========^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > of Golden California. Captain Hagemeister came to relieve him, > of Golden California. Captain Hagmeister came to relieve him, > =================================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > of St. Michael > of St. Michaels > ============== > stir the lust for vengeance. The Keeksitties, > stir the lust for vengeance. The Keeksittis, > ==========================================^^ > [Footnote 19: Globokoe Lake was sounded to > [Footnote 19: Golobokoe Lake was sounded to > ===============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Prince Dmitri Maksoutoff, Dec. 2, 1863, to Oct. 18, 1867.] > Prince Dmitri Maksoutof, Dec. 2, 1863, to Oct. 18, 1867.] > =======================^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Annahootz, the friendly Kokwanton war chief, > Annahootz, the friendly Kokwantan war chief, > ===============================^============ for these two, we'd have to research which variant is correct: ...in one place, we have one spelling... > the mouth of the Indian River, or _Kolosh Ryeku_. ...but in another place it's spelled differently... > the river, known as the _Kolosh Ryeka_, by the Russians ...in one place, we have one spelling... > Captain Leontius Andreanovich Hagemeister ...but in another place it's spelled differently... > Leonti Andreanvich Hagemeister, Jan. 11, 1818, to Oct. 24, 1818. ...getting now down to some smaller points... ...for consistency, and clarity, i'd change these lines... > Total, 400, Ib. p. 52. > their own account. Id. Vol. 2, p. 38. ...i would use "ibid" in both, replacing the "ib." and "id."... ...but i wouldn't call a "failure" to do this "an error"... ...for consistency, i would also change this reference... > Russian American Archives. Corr. Vol. I, p. 275. ...so that it matched with this reference... > Russian American Archives, Correspondence, Vol. II, No. 108. ...but i wouldn't count a "failure" to do so as "an error"... ...and, to finish off this consistency section... ...i'd do research to find out how these archives are named... > Russian American Archives. Corr. Vol. I, p. 275. > their own account. Id. Vol. 2, p. 38. ...because in the top line, it's "vol. i", roman-style... ...while in the bottom line, it's "vol. 2", arabic-style... ...obviously, one of these versions is incorrect... ...but so much for the trivial obsessive-compulsive points... 11. ...and finally, the last 2 errors... _barabaras_, barabaras, ^^^^^^^^^^ gooch-heat gooch-haet ========^^

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so let's talk about my collaborative proofreading site
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 09 Apr '10

09 Apr '10

ok, so let's talk about my collaborative proofreading site... yeah, that's a real knee-slapper, isn't it? :+) ok, i'll talk, and y'all can just sit and listen. or go watch t.v. *** to see what i'm talking about, you can visit this u.r.l.: > http://z-m-l.com/go/sitka/editr.pl when you go there, you're proofing the "sitka" book... unlike other proofing systems, pages are not "assigned" to you. you can go and proof any page you wanna proof. even go back the next day and proof it again, if you like. you'll see a row of buttons at the top-left of the screen, which includes one that says "go", and "prev", and "next"... navigating the pages... "prev" and "next" are what you'd expect. they take you to the previous page or the next page in the book, obviously. at the end of that row of buttons, you'll see an edit-field that has a number in it. (or perhaps a letter and numbers.) that number is the pagenumber. (and, ergo, the filename.) if you want to jump to a specific page, put its number in the edit-field, and then click the "go" button. boom, you're there. the ability to navigate the book at will, and to proof any page you like, can be extremely powerful once you learn to use it. certifying a page as clean... there's also an "ok" button. that's what you will click when you've proofed a page and found nothing at all to change. by clicking "ok", you indicate you certify the page is clean. searching the book for a string... next to "ok" is another edit-field and a "find" button next to it. this field lets you enter a search-term, and then when you click "find", a screen appears that lists pages with that search-term... the line containing the word is shown, with a link to its page. if you want to visit any of these pages, you can open them in a separate tab/window. and it's fine to open a bunch at one time. for instance, say you want to check the sitka chapter-headers. enter the term "chapter" in the edit-field, and then click "find", and you will get a list that includes the table of contents page as well as each of the nine pages where each chapter starts... (red lines are a case-insensitive hit; black are case-sensitive.) there are many other ways you can use the search functionality, but we'll save the discussion about all of those for a later time... to return from the search-results page back to a proofing page, just use the "back" button in your browser. you'll have to clear the search-term out of the edit-field, or it'll do the search again. (i should make it so it only does the search when you click the "find" button, but that's not the way it works now, sorry folks.) feel the power with the "command" field... the edit-field where you enter your search-term also serves as a "command" field. i'll eventually have a number of commands that you can issue, but for now there's just a couple of them... showmap... the first command is "showmap". enter that, and click "find". the program will show the "map" of files comprising the book. each one is a clickable link, so -- as before -- you can open any pages you like in separate tabs and proof them just fine... ("listcat", short for "list catalog", is a synonym that works too.) concat... another command is "concat". enter that, and click "find", and the program will concatenate all the text files into one, and put them on a web-page for you. this will allow you to look at the entire book, save it to your machine, and so on... you can also use the browser's "find" command, so "concat" is useful when you need more context to a "find" operation than the single line output from the native find command... showcustom... a third command is "showcustom". this command spits out the "custom dictionary" that has been created for the book. *** that's enough for now. give you a little toy to play with over the weekend, if you like. we'll discuss more stuff next week. anyway, thanks for the little chat. so, how was the t.v. show? -bowerbird

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Re: how to create a spellcheck workflow
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 09 Apr '10

09 Apr '10

gardner said: > what use is preserving or fixing the page headings? > If they can be mechanically fixed, they were not worth much. well, to take your second sentence first, the runheads cannot _always_ be mechanically fixed. sometimes they contain text that describes the current point in the chapter, like an outline, and aren't just limited to a boring recitation of title and author. and returning to the question, runheads are useful since they help you keep your bearings in the book. even when they are nothing but title/author, they help keep recto/verso straight... plus -- especially when you're working on multiple projects -- it's useful to have the reminders about which book you're in... because without 'em, after a time, the pages all look the same. > Do you include or exclude running headings in > your word-count dictionary analysis? Does it matter? never paid much attention, so i guess it doesn't matter much. but runheads are definitely excluded from search operations. -bowerbird

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