
do not listen to non-lawyers discussing legal matters. do not even listen to lawyers discussing legal matters, not unless you are paying them. do not pay lawyers, if there's any way you can help it. *** do not listen to people who are talking about "theft". or "trespass". or any other stupid crap such as that. this is project gutenberg, where we transcend via gift. *** do not listen to the people who treat d.p. as if it is a factory, where "parts" are assembled into "products". the improper metaphor will only distract from truth. the queues are not the problem, they are an _effect_ of the problem. treating symptoms is bad strategy. the queues cause problems of their own, but _those_ problems are not the cause either; do not forget that. the problem is you cannot expect dozens of people to match the output created by thousands of people. remember what the problem is. treat the problem. *** pray for the volunteers whose time and energy is wasted. -bowerbird

Am 03.03.2010 um 10:38 schrieb Bowerbird@aol.com:
do not listen to the people who treat d.p. as if it is a factory, where "parts" are assembled into "products". the improper metaphor will only distract from truth.
Oh, puppi-cock! You do not even know the difference between an analogy and a methaphor! DPs approach is that of an assembly line. Scans of pages are processed, put together, processed further, go through further processes and eventually a final product comes out.
the queues are not the problem, they are an _effect_ of the problem. treating symptoms is bad strategy. They are part of the system and assembly line!
the queues cause problems of their own, but _those_ problems are not the cause either; do not forget that. Especially, if input and output are not balanced.
the problem is you cannot expect dozens of people to match the output created by thousands of people. remember what the problem is. treat the problem. So you suggest slowing down the work of the volunteers, stopping them? Come on you are smarter than that. The queues definately are not the problem. There are just to few handling the output, or input depending from which side you look at them. As you claim there are thousands creating output. That output becomes input. At some stage SOMEONE has to process that output to finalize it. So QED. There need to be more volunteers working in the latter stages of the production.
Nice of you to prove my point!! Cheers Keith.

There need to be more volunteers working in the latter stages of the
production. And under the current DP "high priesthood" system the only way to get more volunteers working in the latter stages of the production is to get new people working on the earlier stages of production, which then perpetuates the problem. You have to be willing to adjust or modify the "high priesthood" system.

On Wed, 3 Mar 2010, Jim Adcock wrote:
There need to be more volunteers working in the latter stages of the production.
And under the current DP "high priesthood" system the only way to get more volunteers working in the latter stages of the production is to get new people working on the earlier stages of production, which then perpetuates the problem. You have to be willing to adjust or modify the "high priesthood" system.
I wrote an entire essay on this subject overnight, but was uncertain as to whether I should send it or not, for obvious reasons. However, this brings up at least one point I wanted to make: TO BE EFFICIENT YOU HAVE TO ADJUST YOUR HIGHER LEVELS TO LOWER LEVELS: Meaning that what the higher levels do, and how they do it, the time a higher level person is given, has to be in proportion to lower levels, or you will be inefficient, either due to to much or too little, going through the higher levels. . .it's like the gas to air ratio, driving. You get the most mileage AND the most power when the mixture is right. If people are interested, I will post at least part of that essay, I'm afraid it was VERY late at night, and I got carried away at the end. Please advise, Many thanks!!! Michael

On 3/3/2010 11:29 AM, Jim Adcock wrote:
You have to be willing to adjust or modify the "high priesthood" system.
I have participated, or attempted to participate, in a number of FOSS projects over my career as a programmer, and I have a few observations which you may find relevant. Every successful FOSS project I have ever observed has started with the vision of a single individual. In the years leading up to 1995, Eric A. Young single-handedly managed to implement the full suite of cryptosystems used in SSL, and in that year made it available on the internet for free. This effort became the foundation of OpenSSL. Until he was lured away by RSA, Mr. Young was the driving force behind OpenSSL. Today, the role of visionary is played by Ralf Engelschall and Ben Laurie. In 1991 Andrew Tridgell, another Australian needed to mount disk space from a Unix server to his DOS PC. Using a packet sniffer he was able to reverse engineer the System Message Block protocol used by IBM's NetBIOS system, and which was the basis for DOS and Windows networking. This work eventually became Samga, a Unix/Linux software suite that provides file and print services to Windows-based clients. Mr. Tridgell still participates, and is the driving force behind the Samba open source project. While many have criticized his alleged heavy-handedness, I believe that the success of the Linux kernel is primarily due to the fact that Linux Torvalds still has absolute authority over what changes go into that kernel. Michael Hart plays the same role at Project Gutenberg that these programming giants played in the development of their respective software projects. Project Gutenberg was the brainchild of Mr. Hart, and he continues to be the driving force and visionary behind the project. While he, with uncharacteristic modesty, primarily credits the volunteers for the nature of Project Gutenberg, I disagree. For better or for worse, Project Gutenberg is the product of Mr. Harts vision and tenacity. Distributed Proofreaders was founded in 2000 by Charles Franks to assist in the production of electronic texts specifically to be distributed by Project Gutenberg. According to my recollection, Mr. Franks' theory was that production of e-texts was hampered by the fact that few people were willing to take on the task of producing an entire e-text, particularly through the arduous text proofreading process. His vision was to take a text and break it up into discrete units (in this case, pages) so that many people could be involved in the proofreading process and lightening the burden. Thus, the one time DP catch-phrase, "Proofread a page a day, that's all we ask." The volunteers at Distributed Proofreaders have become very good at proofreading texts. I have also seen any number of FOSS projects which have attempted to begin through consensus and team building. I can't name any of these projects for you, because they have all either failed or were still-born. I think I have learned this lesson from my observations of these projects: to be successful you must have one single visionary who controls, more or less, the project. Having that visionary will not guarantee success, but not having it will surely doom it. At if a project loses its visionary, or marginalizes him or her to the point where he or she no longer controls the vision, the project will become increasingly ineffective and inefficient, and will descend into in-fighting and turf wars as others try to control the vision. Vision cannot be obtained by consensus. When someone criticizes Project Gutenberg for supposed failings, or the inability or unwillingness to keep up with the times, and Michael Hart responds with his now inevitable suggestion to "JUST GO FOR IT," what he is saying is "what you are suggesting does not match my vision. If you feel your vision is better than mine I encourage you to go elsewhere to pursue it. We can offer some infrastructure support (disk space) and you are welcome to invite Project Gutenberg volunteers to go help you actualize your vision, but I will not substitute your vision for mine." I am not prepared to say that Distributed Proofreaders has lost its vision. It is still proofreading a lot of pages every day. It is clearly /not/ an efficient process, but efficiency was not one of the project goals. We are all familiar with the old saw that while one woman can have a baby in 9 months that doesn't mean that 9 women can have a baby in one month. I don't believe that DP is saying "if one person can proofread a text in 10 days, then 10 people can proofread it in one day," but they are saying "100 people can proofread it in two days." Distributed Proofreaders goal was to increase the speed that texts would be proofread, to lighten the load from any one individual and to make the process more fault-tolerant (if one volunteer quit, the project would not need to be restarted). What has happened is that the needs of the consumer has changed. I'm fairly certain that the proofread texts now sitting in DP's Post-Processing queue would meet Michael Hart's standards (or lack thereof, as he is continually telling me he has no standards) and could be released to Project Gutenberg as is. Other consumers, however, have higher standards, and Distributed Proofreaders is now trying to satisfy those standards as well, and those new standards require post-processing of a work as a single unit by a single person. DP's vision and expertise is in the area of distributed proofreading, not in the area of efficient e-book creation. This is why texts languish in the Post-Processing queue. Your problem, Mr. Adcock, is that you believe you can change the vision underlying either of these organization through rational argument. Vision is an intuitive, almost religious, experience, and blind faith is immune to rationality. It is virtually impossible that you will be able to change the vision either of Mr. Hart or whomever is currently the visionary at Distributed Proofreaders. I suspect that this is why Roger Frank has created his own web site for "roundless proofing;" his vision differs from that of Distributed Proofreaders, and it was simply easier to go his own way than to try and change someone else's vision. I believe I agree with every criticism you have leveled at both Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders, which is to say, I believe I accept your vision. So let me mimic the words of Michael Hart: GO FOR IT! Put together your own project to complete high-quality public domain e-books. You could certainly harvest all of the files currently in the DP post-processing queue to start with. You might be able to grab the HTML files from PG if you can find scans to go with them. Take advantage of the hardware resources that Mr. Newby has offered. Post messages here and at DP inviting volunteers to help you out. No need to return the e-books to either of those organizations; if they want them they will know where to find them. I will help out as much as possible. But please stop trying to convince Distributed Proofreaders or Project Gutenberg to accept a new vision. They are old and are set in their ways. They represent the last internet generation, not the current one. Show us the way forward, and let sleeping dogs lie.

I have participated, or attempted to participate, in a number of FOSS projects over my career as a programmer, and I have a few observations which you may find relevant.
Sorry, but by a "high priesthood" system I mean the typical pattern of a tech organization, the same way that DP is organized, where a newbie starts at the "grunt" level, and by playing the game and following the rules advances to the roll of "Lord High Pooh-Bah." My only objection to this organization at DP is that they are not getting the right number people in each of the various roles, and don't seem to understand (or be willing to accept) what changes they would have to make in order to get the right number of people in any particular role.
Every successful FOSS project I have ever observed has started with the vision of a single individual
I don't believe that DP is saying "if one person can
And every (continuing to be) successful organization eventually must grow past that individual. proofread a text in 10 days, then 10 people can proofread it in one day," but they are saying "100 people can proofread it in two days." On the contrary, the problem is that an individual, such as myself, can create a decent book in about 40 hours work over the course of one month which consists of about 720 hours elapsed time. The average book passing through DP nowadays takes over 30,000 hours elapsed time, with an average of 20 volunteers working on each book. I think we know from previous analysis that doing a book through DP takes at least 1.5X as much hands-on time as doing it "solo." Whether that is a problem or not depends on what you think about volunteers and their time. I look at it and say gee, we could be getting an additional 10,000 books out of DP if we got the system tweaked right. That seems like a change worth doing to me. Now the fact that doing a book through DP takes 40X more elapsed time than doing it "solo" is that a problem or not? Obviously some people think that taking that long corresponds to "quality" -- a project needs to age on the queues like an old cheese. Other people like me find waiting for our projects to "go live" again for a few days or weeks once or twice a year a bore and a nuisance. Some DP insiders agree that getting "scooped" by others posting that which DP is still sitting on can be disheartening -- but there seems to be a misunderstanding for who there is to blame when this happens.
Your problem, Mr. Adcock, is that you believe you can change the vision underlying either of these organization through rational argument.
I wouldn't think that having a wrong number of people in any particular role at a particular point in time would be a big-enough deal as to qualify as a "vision statement". But if does then I agree this would be a problem. I would certainly agree based on personal experience that NFP organizations that run into difficulties are frequently not very receptive to rational analysis! "My problem", if we have to talk about my problems of which there are many, is that I submitted two books in good faith to DP which are now stuck there indefinitely after I contributed many many hours of my own time and tears, and I have no way to get those books back out.
GO FOR IT!
I am. I create books for PG "solo." Are they are high quality as DP? No, probably not quite there. Are they created much more efficiently? Yes, much more efficiently. I have created at least one tool that makes this much more efficient for me. Others are welcome to try it if they wish.

Jim/James: re:
... I submitted two books in good faith to DP which are now stuck there indefinitely after I contributed many many hours of my own time
Of your two projects, the first went from creation to completion of all rounds solely through the normal operation of the queues in two months, and is being post-processed/verified. If you have concerns as PM about specifics of the project or its status, you should contact the post-processor or the PP-verifier of the project via the several means available to you on the DP site. The second project has also gone from creation to completion of P1, P2, P3 and F1 in two months, also solely through the normal operation of the queues, and has been waiting in F2 for seven months. In the normal operation of the queues, this project would release about six weeks from now. That's pretty far from "indefinitely." I have taken the liberty of releasing this project into F2 where a group of F2 volunteers are focusing their efforts on it and will easily complete it before day's end, possibly before this post reaches the list. re:
... and I have no way to get those books back out.
Since you are the project manager, you could have assigned yourself as post- processor and requested that it skip F2. However, as the F2'ers are finding and correcting formatting and other errors, it's probably better that you didn't. Project managers have options within the DP process, including, but not limited to those mentioned above, either of which could have progressed your project. Any of the DP project facilitators, db-req, dp-help, or admins could have heard your concerns and and discussed options with you, which could have saved much of the frustration which you've expressed on this list, had you only asked. David (donovan) James Adcock wrote:
"My problem", if we have to talk about my problems of which there are many, is that I submitted two books in good faith to DP which are now stuck there indefinitely after I contributed many many hours of my own time and tears, and I have no way to get those books back out.

Of your two projects, the first went from creation to completion of all rounds solely through the normal operation of the queues in two months, and is being post-processed/verified. If you have concerns as PM about specifics of the project or its status, you should contact the post-processor or the PP-verifier of the project via the several means available to you on the DP site.
I have certainly done so, and have been told that it is "normal" for a PP to take a long time at DP and that it would not be nice to keep asking the PP every three months or so "how's it going."
Any of the DP project facilitators, db-req, dp-help, or admins could have heard your concerns and and discussed options with you, which could have saved much of the frustration which you've expressed on this list, had you only asked.
I did ask, and I was told that there was nothing I could do to expedite the process and that these delays are normal, and what I should do is spend my time and energy sticking more projects into the front end of the queue.

On 3/3/2010 7:21 PM, D Garcia wrote: [snip]
I have taken the liberty of releasing this project into F2 where a group of F2 volunteers are focusing their efforts on it and will easily complete it before day's end, possibly before this post reaches the list.
Man, you've got to love it! Mr. Adcock points out that the production process at Distributed Proofreaders is broken, and offers a sample demonstrating /how/ it is broken. In response, Mr. Garcia removes the sample from the standard process and deals with it as a special case. In other words, instead of trying to fix the broken process, Mr. Garcia has simply tried to neutralize the complaint! I've worked at a number of few different companies for which this was just Standard Operating Procedure ... most of whom are no longer with us.

Lee Passey wrote:
Mr. Adcock points out that the production process at Distributed Proofreaders is broken, and offers a sample demonstrating how it is broken. In response, Mr. Garcia removes the sample from the standard process and deals with it as a special case. In other words, instead of trying to fix the broken process, Mr. Garcia has simply tried to neutralize the complaint!
It's telling that based on zero knowledge you first assume (wrongly) that I am not working on improving the DP process, and then compound the error by assuming that addressing a volunteers issue constitutes "neutralizing" a complaint, all the while ignoring the rest of the message which outlined the full situation instead of the narrowly spun perspective you present. I'm sorry you believe that DP has nefarious intent in responding to a situation where a volunteer believed they had no recourse. Since I can't believe that you think ignoring that issue would have somehow been better, I am forced to conclude that your only concern is the spin you've tried to put on it. Congratulations on winning a bet for me that someone would attempt to do exactly that. :) David (donovan)

I will in this case vouch for at least part of the representation given by David (donovan). What you experienced is in fact the primary method employed by the DP process managers for trying to ameliorate the consequences of their system. When a perceived deficiency is detected, it is defined as a "special case" and given "special treatment". So your first project probably qualifies as a "First Project", and therefore has access to a good deal of standard "special treatment" that you might not have been aware of (though it was your responsibility to be so, unfortunately.) Your second project may have also been qualified for another standard "special treatment"; I'm not very familiar with all the nuances, but put he certainly is - as he points out, he is one of those primarily responsible for it. (In tact, it's also true that he is one of the primary gatekeeepers for innovation and process improvement generally.) It's too bad you had the misfortune to be advised by someone not familiar with the proper navigation of the dp process. As is apparently also the case for whoever is responsible for the Shakespeare projects.

On 3/4/2010 1:41 PM, D Garcia wrote:
I'm sorry you believe that DP has nefarious intent in responding to a situation where a volunteer believed they had no recourse.
I would never suggest than anyone at DP has nefarious intent without incontrovertible evidence, and I do not do so now; I'm a firm believer in Hanlon's razor.
Since I can't believe that you think ignoring that issue would have somehow been better, I am forced to conclude that your only concern is the spin you've tried to put on it.
First of all, I don't think it is the responsibility of anyone at Distributed Proofreaders to make sure that any particular volunteer is satisfied. I'm confident that Mr. Adcock is a competent producer of e-texts, and if you were to have told him, "look, we're doing the best we can here, but if you want to pick up the project on your own here's where you can get everything we've done up until now," that would have been sufficient. However, I certainly don't believe that ignoring the issue would have been a better option; instead I believe that addressing the issue head-on would have been better. There is an adage in Washington that "sunshine is the best disinfectant." Likewise, I believe that transparency is the best defense. First of all, we must recognize that the problem that Mr. Adcock was complaining of was /not necessarily/ that two of his projects remained in the Post-Processing queue for an unduly long time. Rather the problem he identified is that somehow the current production processes allow /any and all/ projects to become backed up in that queue. Given that problem statement, I would have liked to have seen something more like one of the following responses: 1. "There are no problems with the processes at Distributed Proofreaders. If you don't like the way we do things here, you don't have to participate." or, 2. "We recognize that there is a problem but we can't seem to agree upon the cause. We'll keep you informed as to the results of our inquiry. In the meantime, here's where you or the public-at-large can retrieve /all/ of the pieces of the stuck projects so you can take one and move it forward outside of the aegis of DP if you like." or, 3. "We recognize that there is a problem in our production process and we think we have identified the cause, which is [fill in the cause here]. As of yet we have not agreed on the best way to reform the process, but we'll keep you informed as to our progress. In the meantime, here's where you or the pubic-at-large, etc..." or, 4. "We have identified a problem in our production process, and believe it can be resolved by [fill in the proposed resolution here]. Please be patient while we see if this proposal resolves the backlog. If it does not, we will resume our search for the underlying problem, and in the meantime, here's where you or the public-at-large, etc..." Instead we saw a response more along the lines of: "We can not confirm or deny the existence of any problems in the production processes of Distributed Proofreaders, nor can we confirm or deny that we have identified any of the causes for these problems which may or may not exist. We may or may not have agreed upon what may or may not be a solution to these unidentified, alleged problems, but there is a possibility that we might change our process in unspecified ways. Or not. But as a special favor to you we will extract the two projects you are interested in to route around the damage, which may or may not exist, and process them using an entirely different procedure so that you will be satisfied." It seems to me that this kind of response is designed, in fact, to ignore the issue at hand, which is that changes need to be made at D.P. to increase the throughput of e-texts. Now it very well may be that this problem has already been recognized by The Powers That Be, and that a solution will be in place Real Soon Now. In that case, wouldn't it have been better to just say so?
Congratulations on winning a bet for me that someone would attempt to do exactly that. :)
I'm always happy to help. ;-)

Lee Passey wrote:
... Rather the problem [Jim] identified is that somehow the current production processes allow /any and all/ projects to become backed up in that queue. Given that problem statement, I would have liked to have seen something more like one of the following responses:
[Lee's four hypothetical responses omitted]
Instead we saw a response more along the lines of:
[Paraphrase of my actual response omitted] I addressed Jim's issue here solely because gutvol-d is where he raised it.
It seems to me that this kind of response is designed, in fact, to ignore the issue at hand, which is that changes need to be made at D.P. to increase the throughput of e-texts.
I don't believe that there is anyone at DP at any level of participation who is unaware of the need for improvements in the process. However, the variously proposed "solutions" run the gamut from the obviously naive/simplistic, through horribly manual kludges, all the way up to byzantine complexities requiring considerable effort from the entire volunteer base. Your statement even reflects a common barrier to getting a grip on the issues: "to increase the throughput of e-texts" is actually a statement of goal. While increasing the throughput of the process should be and is a component of DP's long-term goals, the specific problems and their underlying causes need to be identified first in order to effectively address them.
Now it very well may be that this problem has already been recognized by The Powers That Be, and that a solution will be in place Real Soon Now. In that case, wouldn't it have been better to just say so?
I'm certain some of these problems have been identified and the underlying causes and potential solutions are being examined, but I'm equally certain that no consensus can be achieved within the DP community as to what the causes are, much less what solutions are feasible, achievable, or even desirable. Whatever solutions do eventually result, interim or otherwise, some fraction of volunteers at DP will disagree. By no means am I ignoring the broader issues at DP--but I feel those are usually better discussed in a more appropriate venue. Overall, experience has shown that any discussion of DP on gutvol-d generally and unfortunately serves little productive purpose. While positive and insightful comments do occur, (and are read and appreciated!), they are easily lost in the background of posts which far too often contain derision, belittlement, accusation, and misrepresentation. One almost wonders whatever happened to basic respect. But then I remember the synergistic relationship between media and popular culture (of which old books are an excellent reminder). :) David (donovan)

I addressed Jim's issue here solely because gutvol-d is where he raised it.
I also raised the issue on two DP forums which were discussing the issue, where my points have been discussed, with less heat generated perhaps, but also generating less light, and certainly no less action. Sorry to find these issues are still so controversial in NFPs -- these issues were controversial in industry when Deming first applied them to Japan quality issues in the 1950s, and again in US industries in the 1980s -- nowadays these principles are almost universally applied: JIT means no investment locked up unused, and no place for a LACK of quality to hide. JIT also keeps people busy rather than idled.

Robert A. Heinlein said it 1941. Not original with Robert J. Hanlon [many suspect error from Robert Heinlein to Robert Hanlon] Napoleon might have said something like it.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post Lee. That helped put things in a new context for me. --Andrew On Wed, 3 Mar 2010, Lee Passey wrote:
I have participated, or attempted to participate, in a number of FOSS projects over my career as a programmer, and I have a few observations which you may find relevant.
[snip]

While Lee's comments are pretty great, there are a few comments/corrections: On Wed, 3 Mar 2010, Lee Passey wrote:
On 3/3/2010 11:29 AM, Jim Adcock wrote:
You have to be willing to adjust or modify the "high priesthood" system.
I have participated, or attempted to participate, in a number of FOSS projects over my career as a programmer, and I have a few observations which you may find relevant.
Every successful FOSS project I have ever observed has started with the vision of a single individual. In the years leading up to 1995, Eric A. Young single-handedly managed to implement the full suite of cryptosystems used in SSL, and in that year made it available on the internet for free. This effort became the foundation of OpenSSL. Until he was lured away by RSA, Mr. Young was the driving force behind OpenSSL. Today, the role of visionary is played by Ralf Engelschall and Ben Laurie.
In 1991 Andrew Tridgell, another Australian needed to mount disk space from a Unix server to his DOS PC. Using a packet sniffer he was able to reverse engineer the System Message Block protocol used by IBM's NetBIOS system, and which was the basis for DOS and Windows networking. This work eventually became Samga, a Unix/Linux software suite that provides file and print services to Windows-based clients. Mr. Tridgell still participates, and is the driving force behind the Samba open source project.
While many have criticized his alleged heavy-handedness, I believe that the success of the Linux kernel is primarily due to the fact that Linux Torvalds still has absolute authority over what changes go into that kernel.
Michael Hart plays the same role at Project Gutenberg that these programming giants played in the development of their respective software projects. Project Gutenberg was the brainchild of Mr. Hart, and he continues to be the driving force and visionary behind the project. While he, with uncharacteristic modesty, primarily credits the volunteers for the nature of Project Gutenberg, I disagree. For better or for worse, Project Gutenberg is the product of Mr. Harts vision and tenacity.
Distributed Proofreaders was founded in 2000 by Charles Franks to assist in the production of electronic texts specifically to be distributed by Project Gutenberg. According to my recollection, Mr. Franks' theory was that production of e-texts was hampered by the fact that few people were willing to take on the task of producing an entire e-text, particularly through the arduous text proofreading process. His vision was to take a text and break it up into discrete units (in this case, pages) so that many people could be involved in the proofreading process and lightening the burden. Thus, the one time DP catch-phrase, "Proofread a page a day, that's all we ask." The volunteers at Distributed Proofreaders have become very good at proofreading texts.
I have also seen any number of FOSS projects which have attempted to begin through consensus and team building. I can't name any of these projects for you, because they have all either failed or were still-born.
Sadly to say, this is all too true, both locally and nationally, not to mention internationally.
I think I have learned this lesson from my observations of these projects: to be successful you must have one single visionary who controls, more or less, the project. Having that visionary will not guarantee success, but not having it will surely doom it. At if a project loses its visionary, or marginalizes him or her to the point where he or she no longer controls the vision, the project will become increasingly ineffective and inefficient, and will descend into in-fighting and turf wars as others try to control the vision.
I would like think that Project Gutenberg, and Distributed Proofreaders will continue on without me until they can't find anything more to do on eBooks, and perhaps then even continue on to something else.
Vision cannot be obtained by consensus.
I suppose I have been lucky enough to have managed this once or twice.
When someone criticizes Project Gutenberg for supposed failings, or the inability or unwillingness to keep up with the times, and Michael Hart responds with his now inevitable suggestion to "JUST GO FOR IT," what he is saying is "what you are suggesting does not match my vision. If you feel your vision is better than mine I encourage you to go elsewhere to pursue
"I encourage you to go elsewhere to pursue it" is not quite correct, even though there is some amerlioration below. We are more than happy to house any free eBooks efforts right here at Project Gutenberg, with or without our gutenberg.org or pglaf.org domain being associated, it's pretty much up the the people in question, and if they don't want some asscociation with PG we will provide readingroo.ms, etc., etc., etc. We will provide ALL of the infrastructure possible, and ask volunteers to help, but, being volunteers, it is really up to them. To lead here at Project Gutenberg you have to lead by example. DO SOMETHING!!! [You'll probably have to do it a couple dozen times.] Then ask others to get on the bandwagon with you and do it some more. When this works it is like starting an avalanche with snowballs. /// I think if Mr. Bowerbird had been willing to follow such a plan and to post an example of a completed book he did once a month, or even once every two or three months, he/we would have dozens of them online by now and there would no longer be arguments of such hypothetical types, but much more concretized. I must state for the record that I have encouraged him to this, pretty much every single year he has been here. I would encourage anyone/everyone else to do the same. It's all you would have to do to wrest "control" of PG from me, and then I could go invent something else.
it. We can offer some infrastructure support (disk space) and you are welcome to invite Project Gutenberg volunteers to go help you actualize your vision, but I will not substitute your vision for mine."
Not quite right: What I will not do, as asked so many times, is to state for official record that YOU are the official boss of Project Gutenberg and that YOUR method IS THE ONLY OFFICIAL METHOD OF PROJECT GUTENBERG.
I am not prepared to say that Distributed Proofreaders has lost its vision. It is still proofreading a lot of pages every day. It is clearly /not/ an efficient process, but efficiency was not one of the project goals. We are all familiar with the old saw that while one woman can have a baby in 9 months that doesn't mean that 9 women can have a baby in one month. I don't
No, but a group of women can have an average of one baby per month. When you are dealing with larger numbers it's not exactly the same.
believe that DP is saying "if one person can proofread a text in 10 days, then 10 people can proofread it in one day," but they are saying "100 people can proofread it in two days." Distributed Proofreaders goal was to increase the speed that texts would be proofread, to lighten the load from any one individual and to make the process more fault-tolerant (if one volunteer quit, the project would not need to be restarted).
Actually, 10 people CAN do that kind of job in one day, and have!!! However, it is nice to have both someone at the wheel and a substitute.
What has happened is that the needs of the consumer has changed. I'm fairly certain that the proofread texts now sitting in DP's Post-Processing queue would meet Michael Hart's standards (or lack thereof, as he is continually telling me he has no standards)
Again not quite right: It's not that I have no standards, I just don't force them on people. Even when it comes down to hard and fast accuracy percentages, I will state the accuracy level I hope for at any given time. Right now it is 99.975% Earlier it was 99.95% [co-opted by the Library of Congress, hee hee!] Before that it was 99.9%, but that was when I started with a version 0.1 not a version 1.0, and worked up to 1.0.
and could be released to Project Gutenberg as is. Other consumers, however, have higher standards, and Distributed Proofreaders is now trying to satisfy those standards as well, and those new standards require post-processing of a work as a single unit by a single person.
We always had a single person as the last post-processor. First it was me, then Judy Boss, then me again, then Greg Newby, then me again, then Newby again, etc., etc., etc.
DP's vision and expertise is in the area of distributed proofreading, not in the area of efficient e-book creation. This is why texts languish in the Post-Processing queue.
Your problem, Mr. Adcock, is that you believe you can change the vision underlying either of these organization through rational argument.
Personally, I believe in rational argument, with stated premises followed by stated conclusions, stacked on top of each other to final conclusions. However, as many of you have undoubtedly note bened, when such arguments are put forth, the opposition ignores them in "fair and balanced" ways. [Just to make sure those who never heard of "fair and balanced" look it up]
Vision is an intuitive, almost religious, experience, and blind faith is immune to rationality. It is virtually impossible that you will be able to change the vision either of Mr. Hart or whomever is currently the visionary at Distributed Proofreaders.
While my faith in the whole of the eBook movmement and Open Source is pretty much unshakeable, it is a rational faith, not blind, based on the simple cost/benefit ratio. In then end just plain individuals can do all the eBooks and post them where seach engines can find them. It's nice to have large collections, but not necessary.
I suspect that this is why Roger Frank has created his own web site for "roundless proofing;" his vision differs from that of Distributed Proofreaders, and it was simply easier to go his own way than to try and change someone else's vision.
And so too could anyone else, with less effort, and more cooperation. However, doing it yourself has certain inalienable advantages!!!
I believe I agree with every criticism you have leveled at both Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders, which is to say, I believe I accept your vision. So let me mimic the words of Michael Hart:
GO FOR IT!
Put together your own project to complete high-quality public domain e-books. You could certainly harvest all of the files currently in the DP post-processing queue to start with. You might be able to grab the HTML files from PG if you can find scans to go with them. Take advantage of the hardware resources that Mr. Newby has offered. Post messages here and at DP inviting volunteers to help you out. No need to return the e-books to either of those organizations; if they want them they will know where to find them. I will help out as much as possible.
But please stop trying to convince Distributed Proofreaders or Project Gutenberg to accept a new vision. They are old and are set in their ways. They represent the last internet generation, not the current one. Show us the way forward, and let sleeping dogs lie.
I'm still interested in new visions, but just not those that tell me to do something YOU should be doing, even though I am willing to help. I am willing to help!!! Period. That's the bottom line. And you don't even have to give me or PG any credit. . . .
participants (9)
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Andrew Sly
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Bowerbird@aol.com
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D Garcia
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don kretz
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James Adcock
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Jim Adcock
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Keith J. Schultz
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Lee Passey
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Michael S. Hart