On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:

michael said:

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First things first. . .before changing ALL files, let's try changing SOME files, eh?

before changing _some_ files, let's try _one_, eh?

my z.m.l. version of alice in wonderland has been up for a while now. consider it submitted to p.g.

Ask for a dozen to try out, get one, from a while back. You are not going to get a lot of volunteers that way.

failing that, you could do the minimum necessary, which is to eliminate of one extra carriage return.

This would have been done long ago if you had merely send in an error message to Newby or myself, or even most likely to Jim Tinsley. Are you TRYING to "poison the well" from which you claim you want to drink?

that's what some of these changes boil down to, a carriage-return added here, or deleted there, brackets put around a footnote, things like that.

You've made that obvious previously. Why not actually try DOING something about these?

and i could generate a list of tens of thousands of such changes, involving thousands of e-texts and therefore, probably twice that many files...

Ah, so it's either overkill or underkill. . . . "Reductio ad absurdum" as currently practiced.

your whitewashers will tell you their workflows cannot handle a spectrum of changes that vast.

Refuted: as above.

at least that is my understanding of the situation, one that indicates that your grasp of it is tenuous.

One would have to actually grasp something to know if it were tenuous or not.

but i enjoy it when someone proves me wrong! :+)

Smile!

so, if i see you are willing to fix that _one_ file, then i can generate _some_ more, if you want...

You have continued to keep that error message to yourself, so it doesn't really matter if anyone is WILLING to help you.

but your people still haven't gotten around to correcting the errors i noted on "a secret garden".

Somehow I didn't seem to have received a copy of that error message when you sent it. Would you mind resending it? Please cc: me on all error messages, but try to limit it to only a dozen once in a while to start with, eh?

(at least i hope they "haven't gotten around to it" yet, because if they did actually act on my report, their performance was dismaying, even abysmal.)

This kind of talk is beneath even you, certainly beneath the people you are pretending to address.

and the errors i found on "swiss family robinson" are _still_ there. so it certainly seems to me that your error-correction machine ain't working well.

I do recall some corrections made there, but I don't recall if you had anything to do with them. If you aren't sending me messages, there isn't much I can do to help you. [biting tongue to withhold comment]

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That's the way to get yourself some volunteers.

michael, i don't know how many times i need to say this to you before you finally "get" it -- but i am not _looking_ for any volunteers. i simply don't need any; i'll be happy to do the job myself.

It is all too obviously one of those contradictions.

(the task is largely automated by now, so the only need for a human is in the quality-control arena, and i'm quite happy to leave that up to end-users.)

That's what we have always said and done, but YOU don't seem to be satisfied with that.

now, if _you_ want to find some volunteers who will help make _your_ library consistent, then i _might_ be willing to help you out in that regard, but your _first_ task would be to convince yourself that your whitewashers will actually support the drive.

Don't pin this on the Whitewashers, pin it on your own chest. If you have something positive to say, please just say it, and then let the volunteers go where they may.

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Or, barring that, you are welcome to download ALL files you can get your hands on, by hook or crook,

by hook or crook? they're all available for downloading.

I guess you don't know as much as you think, eh? You were the one who said you wanted the books done right the first time just recently, weren't you?

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and work on them to your heart's content or form, and republish them here, or elsewhere.

i believe you need to check with your whitewashers before you offer to "republish them here". but yes, republishing elsewhere is precisely what i will do, once i get around to making them all consistent...

When something is in the public domain, or we have permission for copyrighted works, you don't need to check with anyone, as long as you stay within the minimal guidelines, as you well know. Stop pretending, start DOING.

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As always, you are welcome to address all of the Whitewashers individually or as a collection, to make whatever point[s] you wish.

i'm "addressing" them by posting to this listserve...

Actually, there is, or at least was, a Whitewashers listserver, but I don't know if anyone but myself still keeps it as a potential address.

whether or not they choose to engage, who cares? as long as i go down on the record, i'm satisfied...

"What satisfaction cans't thou have. . . .?" It's ain't over until it's over."

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The one thing about volunteers, you have to SELL them on your ideas.

if i ever decide i need volunteers for something, i'll keep that in mind.

You put forth many such needs, then always deny it. It it any wonder you end up in this kind of conversation?

-bowerbird