Michael Dyck wrote:
Subject: [gutvol-d] DP anniversary? From: Michael Dyck <jmdyck@ibiblio.org> Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:43:26 -0800 To: gutvol-d <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org>
To: gutvol-d <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org>
In today's PG Weekly newsletter, and in a posting to the Book People mailing list, Michael Hart says: "This is the 4th Anniversary of The Distributed Proofreaders!!!"
However, if you go to the DP site <http://www.pgdp.net/c/>, you'll see that it says that DP was founded in 2000. Moreover, Charles Franks posted to the gutvol-d list on April 20, 2000, saying (in part) "I have completed the working beta of a distributed proofreaders website." and giving a link. I'm not sure if that was the first public announcement of DP, but in any case, DP is about 5 years old.
Michael Hart appears to be referring to the 4th anniversary of March 13th, 2001, which is when the PG Weekly newsletter says DP completed its first book (PG #3320). However, that book ("Mohammed Ali and His House" by Louise Muhlbach) was actually posted April 2nd, 2001, so it's unclear where the March 13 date comes from.
Moreover, a month or so *before* then, the PG newsletter for February 2001[a] says "The Online Distributed Proofreading Team has completed 8 books since mid October 2000!". This suggests that DP completed its first book in mid-Oct 2000, which then might have appeared in the list at the bottom of the mid-October "PG needs you" email[b], but I don't see any DP books there.
Checking the "Completed Gold E-texts" page, in ascending order by submission date (http://www.pgdp.net/c/list_etexts.php?x=g&sort=4), it shows: 1) "Mohammed Ali and His House", L. Muhlbach () Uploaded: Tuesday, March 13th, 2001 The link for that etext is to #3320. The above was relied upon in arriving at the March 13th date. Which has run in the newsletter since June 16, 2004, with no notice of correction.
Instead, I believe the first DP book to be posted by PG was #3059 (Homer's "The Iliad", trans. Andrew Lang) which was posted by December 6, 2000[c].
Are in you for a surprise: DP didn't do that one. From the etext: "This etext was prepared by Sandra Stewart <unfettered@aol.com> and Jim Tinsley <jtinsley@pobox.com>" #3320 has a credit to C.F. and D.P.
[a] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_2001_02_07.txt [b] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/Other_2000_10_18_Project_Gutenbe... [c] http://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/archive/PGMonthly_2000_12_06.txt
-Michael Dyck
Hopefully, someone from D.P. will step up and provide more meaningful activity updates for inclusion in the newsletter. People outside of DP would be interested in seeing what's going on over there, and why not include such in the weekly PG newsletter? And, boy, I'd like to be a fly on the wall in Jim's office when he reads this! <vbg> [<G>eorge] -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.5 - Release Date: 3/1/2005