- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: Marking bold & italics in .txt (was Re: [gutvol-d] a few questions that i don't know the answer to)
by Jim Tinsley 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:33:29 -0800, Greg Newby <gbnewby(a)pglaf.org> wrote: >On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 11:00:52PM -0500, Bowerbird(a)aol.com wrote: >> second, for greg. people over at distributed proofreaders >> have reported that the f.a.q. here at project gutenberg >> do not state that styled text (specifically, italics and bold) >> be marked with underbars and asterisks in the text files. >> the understanding i have from you is that this has become >> the official policy of project gutenberg. if that's not the case, >> would you please inform people here? and if it _is_ the case, >> when you next update the f.a.q., could you include this policy? >> thank you. > >Jim maintains the FAQ, and DP has their own style guides that >sometimes vary for different texts. So, I'm not really the right guy >to ask. I don't think there was agreement on how to handle bold >& italics, but I do think everyone I heard from agreed it should be >indicated somehow in plain text. > >So, I don't think there is an official policy on handling >bold & italics in plain text files. But if DP has an official >policy I'm unaware of, then it should probably be reflected >in the FAQ as a recommendation. > >Sorry I don't know the current state on this, but perhaps >Jim or some of the DP project managers can contribute the >latest thinking. Italics is well covered at http://gutenberg.net/faq/V-94 http://gutenberg.net/faq/V-95 About three years or so ago, 'most everyone settled on _underscores_ for italics, with a few holdouts for /slants/. CAPITALS, of course, are still represented in a lot of older texts, but I haven't seen anyone using them in a new text for quite some time. Compared to italics, bold as a method of emphasizing text, as opposed to bold as an incidental property of a heading, is relatively rare. Where bold does need to be rendered in plain text, the current most common usage (from DP) is *bold text*. There are times when it is appropriate to signify bold, but I have seen some texts coming from DP where it has been used unnecessarily -- mostly to indicate a sub-heading or chapter title in the book. In such a case, where a chapter title is clearly a chapter title and on a line by itself, there really is no need to mark it in the plain text version as having been bold face in the original. I think this practice comes from people pre-marking the text for later conversion to HTML, rather than any intent to clutter the plain text. jim

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Perfection
by Norm Wolcott 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

Instead of worrying about perfection, we would be better advised to fix the many texts which are or have become unreadable. It is also uncomfortable, when there are several translations of a work with the same title and an anonymous translator to havve the publisher routinely or randomly removed. Also there are many DOS texts with accents that are hence unreadable. Any code page should be acceptable? maybe but. . . Also although there are explicit directions for submitting a text, correcting one or updataing one, even one I contributed, has apparently no explicit provision. Also, at random apparently, a little preamble I have added to help the reader identify the text or its possible shortcomings is removed. Although many texts shave no unique provenance as MH has advised, but that is no reason for removing any hint of preovenance when one is supplied by a contributor. nwolcott2(a)post.harvard.edu Friar Wolcott, Gutenberg Abbey, Sherwood Forrest keeping the inkpots full.

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Re: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by D. Starner 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

"Norm Wolcott" writes: > Also there are many DOS texts with accents that are hence > unreadable. Any code page should be acceptable? maybe but. . . Can you point to one? I was under the impression that all the texts in old DOS codepages were updated to use Latin-1. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] PG audience
by Joshua Hutchinson 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Noring <jon(a)noring.name> > > It mystifies me why the original page scans are treated by some here > as some sort of waste product, meant to be flushed down the toilet > when done, or that we don't need to preserve them, or need to have > access to them (I'm still surprised to hear that the scans for some of > the DP texts are not available to the public because of licensing > issues.) > Just to clarify a little... DP produces a large quantity of work based on scans produced by other organizations. At different points in our history, we couldn't have kept up with the proofers any other way. With some organizations, we are able to automate the "harvesting" of images with utilities. Some, though, are willing to work with us, sending us the files or providing an easy access path. In return, we agree (if they ask) not to post the images for use other than as proofing sources. The credit lines always have a reference back to the original site for the images. Basically, if we wanted to be rude, we could post the images any way we wanted to. The copyright laws certainly seem to be in our favor if we did. But these sites are going out of their way to help us, so we return the favor by routing people that want to see the images (the fruits of their labor) back to them. Josh

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Re: [gutvol-d] Scholarly acceptance
by Joshua Hutchinson 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Hart <hart(a)pglaf.org> > > On the other hand, there is always the Darwinian approach: > > Those who do not use eBooks simply won't be able to keep up with > the those who do. > > This might be one of the best reasons for NOT giving them each > eBook as an exact copy of a particular paper edition. Ok, I'm not following the mental jump from point A to point B. How does people being savvey with eBooks lead to not putting good bibliographic information in place in the book? Dead tree editions will usually have information on how the text was obtained. Why not ours? Josh

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Re: [gutvol-d] a few questions that i don't know the answer to
by Joshua Hutchinson 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Bowerbird(a)aol.com > > > the next questions involve long-standing and often-repeated > requests that i have made for other changes to p.g. policy. > having received no satisfaction, in spite of the reasonableness > of these requests, i will pursue a strategy of lobbying for them > to a wider audience, but i make them again here for the record. > > 1. could you _please_ strive for consistency in your e-books? We do. We don't always succeed, but we do strive for it. > > 2. could you please ensure the policy on styled text is upheld? > The whitewashers most definitely do. As far as the style goes (beyond _ and *, we don't specify much). > 3. could you please start including graphic-file-names in your > plain-text versions, so my viewer-app knows what to display where? > Nope. Plain-text means ... plain text, nothing more. > 4. could you please start including page-break information in your > plain-text versions, so my viewer-app can use original page-breaks > for those end-users that might desire that capability? > Once again, nope. Text doesn't provide a way to have this information in the file without it being jarringly placed in the middle of the flow of the text. Other formats can provide this, but plain text cannot. > 5. could you please start including line-break information in your > plain-text versions, for the same reason? > Nope (see answer for the above). This would be even more invasive to the reading experience, because you'd have a character or markup of some kind all over the place. And plain text has to be able to be fully used in any old text editor/reader. We can't assume the reader program will hide the line break information. > my documentation on zen markup language (z.m.l.) will demonstrate > how you can incorporate these requests into your plain-text files... Sigh. And once they are marked up, they are no longer plain text files. They are z.m.l. files. If you want to convert the entire catalog to z.m.l, feel free. No one will use them, but feel free. Josh

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Scholarly acceptance
by bkeir＠pgdp.net 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

The many discussions I've had with academics about PG and DP point to their unshakable distrust, sight unseen, of the quality of work done by "unqualified" volunteer/amateurs. "You mean you let ANYONE do your proofreading??!?!?" is both a question I was asked, and a fair summary of their attitude of incredulity. The open-source, distributed but computer-linked volunteer paradigm is still too new in the world for its strengths, and the quality of its productions, to be trusted by the average academic. Give it a few decades, and population replacement MAY change this.

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Re: [gutvol-d] [BP] The Future of eBooks
by D. Starner 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

Andrew Sly writes: > Something very similar to this has been attempted before, with > rather dismal results. Hardly anyone seemed interested in writing > a little synopsis (or "blurb") What do you mean "has been attempted before"? If you mean the newsletter, you've got less than a week to write it up, and last time I submitted something to the newsletter, it got dropped into the void. If you're interested in synopsises, then express that interest and where we can direct the result to, and I'm sure people will respond. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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goodbye
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

nearly exactly one year ago, i came on the gutvol listserves, challenging the gutvol-p markup wonks as all-talk/no-action, noting that in spite of years of discussion, they hadn't made any of the promises of a heavy-markup strategy materialize, and indeed hadn't even gotten many of the e-texts marked up! a year later, after an exchange of literally hundreds of messages -- maybe thousands, i don't know, i wasn't really counting them -- many of them inflammatory, the situation is essentially the same. i tried to wake people up to a simpler way that was still effective. but nobody here was willing to hear it. in fact, i was "moderated", blamed for the flaming that my detractors used to victimize me. i don't play the victim role though, so i'm off now, to work on my own. i'll drop by again in another year, and see if y'all have made any progress by then, or if you're still stuck in the same old merry-go-round circles... in the meantime, i'll start up a blog, telling the world all the things that i think you're doing wrong. because i think they deserve to learn them. i tried to tell you all this personally, as friends, here on your own lists, but you weren't willing to listen. so now i'm going public. i tell you this so you know i'm not going "behind your backs". heck, you might want to read the blog yourself; maybe it'll help you see what you've been missing. here's a message i posted a while back. you can call it "21 steps to happiness". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ here's a little _overview_ to help you get your bearings, at least in regard to _my_ work, _my_ viewer-program, _my_ format, _my_ markup system, and _my_ philosophy. 1. the e-texts -- as they are now -- must be regularized. 2. i can write programs to do most of that automatically. 3. the results need to be checked for quality control, and 4. some missing information will need to be re-inserted. 5. once that is done, the files will be _finished_, in that 6. my viewer will present them as high-powered e-books. 7. users can push a button to create high-end .html files, 8. or save text as an .rtf file, or print out to paper or .pdf, 9. in a way that gives 'em customized high-quality output. 10. my program will do text-to-speech, and screenshots, 11. and let people explore the project gutenberg library, 12. and easily report errors they encounter in any e-text. 13. those error-correction reports will be automatically 14. routed to a system that presents all the material, so 15. a human only has to say "yes" to approve the mod, and 16. change-logs will be updated and a notice distributed. 17. this e-text standardization and ease of handling will 18. nurture a flowering of synergistic uses of the library 19. by an array of creative and imaginative programmers 20. that will engender a book-driven revolution in thought. 21. and everyone will live happily ever after. the end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ in the absence of a more compelling vision from anyone else, i now depart... -bowerbird

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Sources for PG texts
by Andrew Sly 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Jon Noring wrote: > Let me clarify (again) below, what I wrote in a separate message. You > may still reject it, but PG's past carelessness and looseness leads to > legitimate questions about the accuracy and acceptance of the pre-DP- > era texts. "Corrupt" may be a strong word (and inaccurate), but not > placing "textual integrity" as #1 (including the perception of textual > integrity) is simply wrong. Note that perceptions are just as real as > reality itself. I would be careful about making a distinction between pre and post DP-era texts. Since the creation of DP, there have been countless texts added to the PG collection from other sources, without page images saved, or indication of exact editions used. Project Gutenberg has always been open to accepting texts from any source, as long as they can be copyright-cleared. I don't see any likelihood of this changing. Andrew

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