This sounds like "2" to me. As has been said before, the "real" problem is that the best prepared eBooks are often not found first. Instead, orderingis based on popularity, which tends towards self-reinforcement. It would be nice for the search engine at www.gutenberg.org to rank by quality, not just popularity, when similar titles are found. All we need is a good way of assessing quality. -- Greg On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 02:30:55PM -0500, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
they won't allow you to use facts to embarrass them...
that seems to be jim's objection to the whitewashers.
and they won't let you step in and replace their work...
***
which is why david widger posted jim's version of "huck" at a separate number from david's own version of "huck".
otherwise, david woulda voluntarily replaced his own work. which, quite realistically, we cannot expect anyone to do...
but it wouldn't have been that different even if it had been some other volunteer's work david was reluctant to replace.
as greg has pointed out, it's a somewhat delicate issue to answer the question about the removal of _anyone's_ work.
and i certainly don't have the answer.
(well, i could probably think up a number of ways to avoid the situation where jim's superior "huck" gets downloaded much less frequently than david's inferior version, but that just sidesteps the more thorny question of replacing work.)
however, i pretty much accept that the whitewashers have the power to do whatever they want, so it wouldn't really make any difference even if i _did_ have the answer, since the whitewashers will just keep on doing what _they_ want.
so i accept david's action. indeed, since jim has admitted that his version is _different_ than david's, i don't see how jim's version could replace david's version in any situation. it would be different if jim's version were the same as #76.
it seems to me, though, that different versions _should_ be posted as different numbers. they're not exactly the same.
but since jim has whined about this matter for so very long, i think it might be interesting to give him a thought problem about just exactly what he would recommend on this issue...
so let's give him a little incentive...
let's imagine... say i've corrected the errors in jim's version. i have generated a list of his errors, and created an interface where you can check that all those errors are indeed wrong.
moreover, i have created a clean version of the same edition that jim used. so imagine that i am going to submit it to p.g., along with the pagescans, to create a better overall package...
this is the question for jim.
what should p.g. do with my submission?
1. reject it.
2. put it under a new number.
3. accept it, and overwrite jim's edition with mine, complete with a new credit-line mentioning "a volunteer", but no name. (i would not take a joint credit-line, because that might imply we'd worked together; and likely neither would jim, probably. it would be acceptable to me if the credit-line got _deleted_.) jim's flawed version could be stored in the "old" subdirectory, because hey, nobody ever looks inside those anyway, do they?
anyone else is invited to chip in their opinion as well, but i am especially interested in jim's thoughts. and, if he makes a post before thanksgiving, i will consider it in my deliberations about whether or not, after thanksgiving weekend, i will indeed make a submission to p.g. of a corrected edition of jim's "huck finn".
-bowerbird
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