ok, so after about a year or so when the "dissent" at distributed proofreaders had exhausted itself, and nobody was questioning anything any more, the natives have once again become semi-restless. so there is now a whole handful of forum threads where people are once again thrashing stuff out... (ironically, many of the people who worked hardest to shut me up have now become the loudest voices registering their own discontent. rather amusing.) as usual, the discussions are a rats-nest of quality. some people have good observations and ideas, and other people have lousy ones, and the masses are unable to distinguish the good from the lousy. and nobody knows what they need to do in order to make anything actually _happen_, and by this time, most of them have become acutely aware of _that_, so it's amusing to watch their frustration boil over... and it's still good to see that they are _trying_... i made note of rfrank's test of a "roundless" system, which is one of the more positive things going on... (it's interesting that roger's distaste for open debate, which manifested here on this listserve, extends to his action over there as well, so he does his research outside of the purview of d.p. "proper" so he doesn't have to deal with anyone whose input he doesn't like, so he's kept himself "above the fray" using that tactic. he'll also opt out of a thread if it gets "unproductive" in his mind, and just start up a new thread elsewhere.) at any rate, one of the _worst_ ideas being floated now involves attempts to "reduce" output from p1 proofers. this is one of those awful ideas that keeps cropping up, due to a few people with more persistence than brains... the "problem" is that there are lots of p1 proofers who are churning out lots and lots and lots of proofed pages. now, you can be excused if you ask why that's a problem. after all, isn't the whole idea to proof o.c.r. on the pages? well, yes. which is why this is such a stupid ignorant idea. but nonetheless, because some people at d.p. cannot see past their convoluted ridiculous workflow, this "excess" of p1 proofed pages is considered to be a "problem" that needs to be "solved" so that their workflow can be saved. numerous methods have been enacted to try to _force_ the p1 proofers to "move up" to the later proofing rounds. none of these numerous methods seem to have "worked". at times, the effort seems to even be directed specifically at a handful of people in the "top 10 list" of p1 proofers. each of these people has proofed thousands and thousands of pages, which i consider as a very productive contribution, yet they're being portrayed in an extremely negative manner, as people who are causing problems for the site as a whole... now, i haven't looked at the list of p1 proofers to determine just who these "troublemakers" are, but it seems to me that a very nice "solution" has presented itself for this "problem". specifically, those "problem" p1 proofers should move over to rfrank's "roundless" system, where they'll be appreciated. in a roundless system, the faster a page moves to perfection -- and by all accounts, these "problem" p1 proofers provide _excellent_ proofing results -- the better the system works... moreover, instead of being "blamed" for a bad infrastructure, the roundless system will _laud_ these high-profile proofers. so there you go, my suggestion for d.p. for the day... -bowerbird