On 2012-09-26, Greg Newby wrote:
As mentioned, it is already FullySupportedAndEncouraged that scans be provided with eBooks. DP generally doesn't do this, but they have the scans archived (not always immediately available).
My suggestion has been to start from scratch with a new scan set, rather than trying to fix existing eBooks. It's OK to choose a title we already have. I'm going to visit B&N today to see whether they might have a suitable dead trees edition for this purpose.
Thanks Greg, I think I see where you are coming from now. Sorry for being a bit dense and despondent. So... the two "facts of PG life" that affect are: 1) Replacing an extant project is not realistically possible, but doing the same title twice is fine. You will be assigned a new number, and you will have first mover prerogative. You therefore get to pick an edition and it is actively encouraged that you include the scan set. 2) Your new version _will_ be buried by the current version. Therefore, to make a difference in the short term you need to improve the current version. The only approved method for improving current versions is to send errata to the WWs. Fact 2 means that the only possible way to make a difference in the short term is to generate comprehensive errata and give it to the WWs. Anything else requires policy change. Nothing is forcing the WWs to do anything with the errata you send them, of course, but it would be reasonable to suppose that generally they would welcome it in the same way that they would welcome errata from any user, and it would also be reasonable to suppose that an improvement in the text would be a likely outcome. To generate comprehensive errata we generate a clean text and diff it against the extant text. What is an edition difference and what is an error is the WWs prerogative -- if the version that they are working on has no provenance then it's a judgement call that only they have the right to make. We can generate the clean text in a new project by selecting and publishing a scan set and using DP to create an RTT. Assuming an RTT is an acceptable submission format, all this is, as far as I understand it, bog standard PG procedure and doesn't require anyone's permission. So we would have done some work and it may have resulted in _some_ of the improvements we would like to see. Chalk that up as a win. Our version, even with its scan set, accuracy and provenance will, of course, be buried. Most normal users will never see it, and therefore there is no point doing final formatted versions for PG. There may, however, be a point to using them to do final versions for FadedPage. FadedPage is buried by Google rather than by PG and there is a slim chance that a large selection of superior quality texts would make a difference -- it is not against Google policy for FadedPage to bubble up, after all. Cheers Jon