[PGCanada] Status of Mothership and DP-EU (and even DP-CAN)

[Andrew Sly]

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Michael Lockey wrote:

> I've been around long enough
> that I can honestly say the quality of submissions from DP is much
> higher than when individuals were doing all their own work, with no
> checks except ad hoc.  Naithless, PSTB have determined that quality and

Interesting argument. One that I might disagree with on some levels.

Some books, prepared by some people for PG have had a truly exceptional
quality, without going through the DP process. But yes, overall the
quality evens out to a higher level from DP. What I miss from the DP
process is having a holistic view of the book in question. I find that
if I am preparing a text carefully, I really get a feeling for its
quirks, its style, its _personality_. This puts me in a better
place to anticipate what errors are worth searching for, and
what choices to make in ambiguous situations.

It is my impression that not all PP's connect with a text on
this same level. As the system is set up, it's easy to just
check what other peopl have marked as possibly needing attention,
run some automatic checks, and then forward the file.

As I perceive it, PP'ing has been a bottle-neck in in DP, the
same the equivilant in a smaller process
because to actually _do it well_ takes a bit of creativity
and a decent amount of effort, and is sometimes quite boring.


Andrew