andrew said:

As has already been pointed out, this is not a word that BB made up.

i don't agree with the definition that was given in the link provided earlier. i gave the definition that _i_ am using. because i aim to be crystal-clear, and not use the doublespeak of technocrats.

Yes, it is complicated, but no one needs to use it if they don't want to.

right. that's the "choice" that technocrats always give to the users: "take it or leave it." "do things my way, or you hit the highway."

My impression is that opds is not a tool for end users

that's my point. the technocrat doesn't _want_ end-users to be able to do that. the technocrat wants you to hire them (and to kiss their ass) to do it "for" you.

but a tool that the more technically inclined can use to share information between systems.

the "more technically inclined" (did you invent that?) want to make sure that we cannot do it ourselves... if we wanna "share information between systems", we're going to have to hire them, because they've built the kind of system only a technocrat can love.

And in this case I cannot see a way to deny the fact that this particular tool has helped to share PG texts among many more people than than would have been the case otherwise.

you repeated the word "than" there... this is the kind of bogus argument that the technocrats always use. first they make it impossible for anyone else to do anything... then they do a little bit... then they say "look what we did for you!" you'd better be thankful for your gruel!

As someone with cataloging experince

you misspelled "experience" there...

As someone with cataloging experince (albeit as an amateur) I cannot take the idea seriously that a catalog should be "just a simple thing".

that doesn't surprise me one bit, andrew... you've let the librarian technocrats tell you that cataloging is a very complicated thing. it is. if you _make_ it a complicated thing... which is precisely what they have done... and they did that so you would back off, and decide that you cannot do it yourself, because it is _far_ too complicated, so you will now hire a technocrat to do it "for" you. fortunately we have a good counterexample right here, in front of our very eyes, namely jim's catalog. it's nothing but a list of titles, which are linked to the appropriate files online. that's not complicated. it is drop-dead simple. and jim's catalog "has helped to share p.g. texts among many more people than would have been the case otherwise". does that sound familiar? and jim's catalog has been doing it since 2009. and my goodness gracious, you wouldn't think it is necessary here at _project_gutenberg_ to remind ourselves that if you make it possible for volunteers to do something worthwhile, _they_will_. so let's empower the volunteers, not turn this library over to the technocrats, who will eventually transform things so much volunteers won't be able to accomplish jack.

The more one learns about it, more detailed it can get.

that's always the way it is with bureaucrats and their "regulations" and "documentation" and "specifications" and "manuals" and what-not... that's _always_ the way it is. you _never_ get to the end... all you get when you get to "the end" is even more complication. it's worse than "lost". at least that thing ended.

More complexity comes when you

please. i'm not interested in the quicksand, thank you very much... i'm immune anyway.

This seems to be a rather distorted point of view. Many people have made their own "simple catalogs" of Project Gutenberg materials, and continue to do so.

and a lot more would. if the catalog was available as a plain-ascii file, or better yet, a nice set of files, a set which was constantly being kept fully updated. but it's not. it's wrapped up in some compressed file, which balloons to huge bloatware when uncompressed, mostly because it's stored as a database with a bunch of arcane and obtrusive x.m.l. markup mixed inside of it... that's so the "naive' user won't be tempted to look at it, or be able to do anything with it once they do look at it.

I believe that Marcello's effort was worth commenting on because it was immediately shown to be useful, and was used by other people.

and what we failed to see is all of the other efforts, by those "naive" people, to create their own catalogs, which might have been "immediately useful" as well... this is how the technocrats pull the wool over our eyes, by making it so that we cannot see what we have lost...

All the old plain-text gutindex files are still there, and anyone who wants to can use them.

they are outdated even now, and become more and more useless by the day. so that's disingenuous for you to say.

The catalog is in the same basic form that it has been for years (although the public user interface has been changed recently).

you must mean the p.g. web interface to the catalog, which is not what we're talking about. so that's disingenuous too. you seem to be getting desperate here.

This is BB's creative re-imagining of history.

hardly. i wish that what i said was not true. but it is.

I do not know of any PG resource which has been discontinued, and would be interested to hear if anyone does know of one.

i'll go to confirm it. but the last time anyone said anything, the final word was that the gutindex files were discontinued. and there has never been any willingness since then to make a version of the catalog that is available in plain-text form...

and in the time that he has availible

you misspelled "available"... technocrats always let you know that their time is short, because they are busy, important experts, yes they are... -bowerbird