-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: d.p.'s undeserved superior attitude about "quality" From: Bowerbird@aol.com Date: Wed, February 24, 2010 5:12 pm To: gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org, bowerbird@aol.com
carel said: The fact that they even strive for quality at DP is a mark in their favor.
not really. everyone is gonna tell you they strive for quality... (trust me, nobody's gonna say, "quality doesn't matter to us.")
Actually, I think google more or less did say this when they initially scanned the books (with fingers visible and all), but they now correct bad pages, so they do want quality. :) [snip]
but it's not the notion that d.p. "strives" for quality that's irritating; it is their blind stubbornness that they have already _attained_ it, coupled with an unwillingness to measure the price they pay for it.
Yes, that is an entirely different matter. To believe one has attained perfection is quite different than the pursuit of it.... [snip]
but when you start wasting the time and energy of _other_people_ -- who are _volunteers_ who've donated time and energy to you -- by putting them into a workflow that is decidedly inefficient, i mind.
You don't need to talk to me about having your time wasted. I am the somewhat infamous Carel that left DP nearly a decade ago (after spending around 500 hours creating a front-end and revamping the horrific code that resided on the back-end). I also tried to get them to add markup and additional computer generated pre- and post-processing and formating at the time, but they resisted. It was nice to see them add HTML a few years later. When I left DP, I was going to create my own project that had a more logical flow and used more computer processing (so as to reduce the workload for the volunteers), but the point seemed moot due to the sheer power that DP already had in the PG community. I assumed it would be quite difficult to recruit volunteers. Every once in a while, I toss the idea around again, but it always comes back to the point that the majority of volunteers willing to proof in such a fashion are already cemented in the DP process. (Now that I think about it, I believe I still have a copy of the test site for my own proofing community on some CD some place. It might be worth a chuckle to see how outdated my efforts now look.) It is nice that DP strives for quality in the work that they do. I am not however surprised that they ultimately became backlogged. DP has managed to produce a huge number of etexts and for that their efforts should be appreciated. Their etexts also have a decent level of quality. If the volunteers at DP are blissfully unaware that their time is being wasted then they do not feel like victims of the process, but rather champions of the cause. So, efficient or not, no harm is being done and books are being produced. If the inefficiency bothers you and me (and others), it's a moot point because it is not our time that is being wasted. And, we have no power to change what is at DP. At least that is the way I look at it. The only thing that does bother me is having all those books 'stuck' in the system rather than being available to the public. But the pre-release idea takes care of that. And, thank you for explaining the process that led DP to have so many rounds and member levels. That is quite the workflow, but I now understand how it came to exist. Carel