"Walter" == Walter van Holst <walter.van.holst@xs4all.nl> writes:
Walter> On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:26:09 -0800, don kretz Walter> <dakretz@gmail.com> wrote: >> or not, making quite clear. We can't recast the decisions made >> in the past, but we need to do a better job of learning from >> them and dong better. Sooner would be nicer than later. Hence >> rfrank's project. Walter> In that vein, how flexible is the DP software? I've been Walter> wondering to what extent parallel P1 rounds might be Walter> helpful. I find P2 proofing exceedingly boring because of Walter> the small number of errors that are left to be fixed in Walter> texts that are well-scanned and well-proofed in P1. I Walter> can't imagine how mind-numbing P3 will be if I ever become Walter> eligible for that 'status'. I can imagine that only having Walter> to look at the differences between redundant P1 proofed Walter> texts might be helpful since it would take two independent Walter> P1 proofers to overlook the same error to have it slip Walter> through. This would be simple enough, just allowing a PM to load a set of txt files and a dummy proofer name in one of the projects columns. The administrators (having DB access) do this if asked, I suppose with a script (I have one in the test site). Another improvement would be to allow a PM to skip a round; this too is reserved to the few, overloaded administrators, but it is just changing a flag at one point in the code. Walter> Another potential improvement might be to make texts Walter> available to the next round on a per page basis instead of Walter> having to wait for all pages to be finished in the Walter> previous round. This might be trickier, since the whole philosophy of DP code is based on rounds and per-round permissions. It would require at least to start a new test DP site in which new changes in the code are made and extensively experimented in a live environment. The current test site is used for testing features that are potentially disruptive, and is inadequate for live testing: it is for alpha testing, a beta testing site would be necessary, or probably more than one. rfrank's test site at fadepage has abandoned the round philosophy, but is not derived from DP code, it is reimplemented from scratch. Walter> Aforementioned suggestions may be silly, feel free to Walter> point out their silliness. Not silly at all; I believe that the main problem of DP is its rigidity, the "one size fits all" philosophy, that is partly in the code, but mostly in the procedures, and is necessary in a huge structure. Smaller DP sites like DP-EU and DP-CAN have shown a more flexible structure, so I believe that a confederation of different DP sites, sharing a common aim and a common codebase, but different local laws and software configurations, and a loose coordination, would be a better model. Carlo