I do have some thoughts about "free-range" proofing.
The size of the corpus that is being proofed is important. The
Australian Newspaper project
(http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home) allows a volunteer to proof
any article from ~100 yrs of lots of newspapers. They built it so that
their readers could improve articles when they found errors. It works
very well for that purpose, but it also has several problems. One is
that they don't provide any information about whether or not someone
has already proofed this article. The proofing interface is totally
optional, so if a reader doesn't see any errors, then they don't invoke
the interface. From that point of view, it works beautifully. But they
didn't make provision for someone who just wants to proof an article,
any article. There is no way to say "give me another article". I find
it very hard to choose at random when the number of possibilities is so
large. Also, since there's no information as to whether or not anyone
has looked at (proofed) this article yet, there's no way to know if one
is duplicating work already done.
Another problem with their system is one of completeness. For example,
if they want to know whether an entire issue of a newspaper (1 day) is
completely corrected (or at least that someone has edited every
article) they can't do it. Part of this can be solved by them keeping
track of this information. But, by the nature of their system, with
efforts scattered all over the place, it is very unlikely that any one
issue will be completely done. For their purposes, that doesn't matter.
But when working on things that are meant to be read from beginning to
end, it *does* matter.
All of this ties in to a sense of progress. If the unit of proofing
produces a complete entity (as with an article in a newspaper) then one
can count progress by counting how many articles have been done. But if
the unit of proofing is not the complete entity (as with a page of a
book), then matters change. The whole idea of distributing the work of
proofreading is that no one has to feel like they must do an entire
book by themselves. With the current systems, a volunteer knows that
even if they can't do the entire book themselves, someone else will
help out and it will get done. In a free-range system, there is no such
assurance that anyone else will want to help finish that book.
I guess what I'm saying is that people who proof for the sake of
proofing like to see progress. To have a sense of accomplishment while
knowing that they contributed. The only way I can see to achieve that
in a free-range environment is by limiting the number of books that are
currently available. That is, concentrating the work somehow so that
eventually a book is completely "done" (or, as good as it's going to
get for now).
I think that there is a need for both kinds of systems. The free-range
system is good for material that is short. It's also good for allowing
casual readers to fix something that's wrong. I don't think it works
very well as a system for producing entire corrected books.
Another issue with a free-range system has to do with abuse. If no one
is likely to look again at whatever page I've just done, there is
nothing to keep me from changing what it says. Think of it as a kind of
graffiti. The Australian Newspaper project hasn't had trouble with
that, but I believe that that is because they haven't been going long
enough and haven't attracted a wide enough audience yet. I predict that
they will have trouble with it eventually. Most people are
well-meaning, but there's always the few who have to write "John was
here" on a wall, or in an online book. And there will inevitably be a
few fanatics who just have to substitute their view of the world,
either by carefully changing a few words, or by simply putting an
entire tract in place of the text that used to be there. One advantage
of many people looking at a single page (or, at least 2) is that it
becomes hard to get away with that kind of thing. As long as the
proofing effort is relatively small, and not very high profile, a
free-range system would probably not have trouble with vandalism. But
if the effort were associated with a high profile organization (Google,
say) it suddenly it would become much more interesting to folks who
like to disrupt.
In summary, I think there are three issues that a free-range proofing
system must address: choice, completeness, and vandalism. I'm not
saying that a free-range system wouldn't work. It obviously can. But I
do think that how well it works depends on what its purpose is.
JulietS
On 3/10/2010 6:52 PM, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
the d.p. proofing system locks each page to a single
proofer.
(there's one and only one p1 proofer, p2 proofer, and so on.)
so does rfrank's roundless system; once a page has been
assigned to a proofer, it's semi-difficult to even look at it.
and if someone else has reproofed it _after_ that person,
then the old version is stored somewhere i can't figure out,
so tracking the diffs simply cannot be done by an outsider.
(the d.p. system at least allows you to do that tracking, and
even has a routine that will show you round-to-round diffs.)
it is by analyzing these round-to-round diffs very closely
that you can get a sense for how a page progresses from
the initial o.c.r. to its final -- hopefully perfect -- stage...
***
the question i have today is whether there is a good reason
why a page needs to be assigned-and-locked to one person.
is there any reason why you shouldn't allow any proofer to
go and proof any page in a book? yes, it would mean that
some pages might be proofed several times, but so what?
that's not necessarily a _bad_ thing, is it?