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Beginning Proofreaders'
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Version 1.7, released May 27, 2004
The purpose of this FAQ is to provide answers to common questions that new people
joining us at the Distributed Proofreaders Canada web site have asked.
Obviously not all questions can be included here. If you don't find an answer here,
you can look in our
other documentation
pages or email us at DP Help.
Distributed Proofreaders Canada is an effort to support Project Gutenberg Canada. The basic concept is that our website software allows several
proofreaders to be working on the same book at the same time, each proofreading on
different pages. This will significantly speed up the proofreading process.
How it works:
- This website uses online software and databases to create a "library".
- People ("content providers") scan books and upload the scanned images into this
library.
- People like you ("proofreaders") choose a project ("book") to work on today.
- The website then shows you a webpage containing the scanned image of one page and
the text from that image (as produced by OCR software). This allows you to easily
compare the scanned text to the image of the page, so you can note the differences
and fix them.
- You read the text, and correct it to match the page image.
Basically fixing OCR errors, and marking things like bold or italic text,
footnotes, etc. according to our guidelines (so we all mark them the same way).
- When done with that page, you save the page, and then either request
another page to proofread or quit for the day.
Note that, at the same time, others will be working on other pages from
this book, or from different books. Each proofreader does just a bit (we suggest
"a page a day"), but working together we can get a lot of books done!
- The site stores that proofread page in our database for the next round. Each book
goes through two rounds of proofreading, to try to catch all errors in the text. Then it goes through
two rounds of Formatting to match the style of the origianl book.
- When all the pages in a book have been proofread, a "post-processor" does the
finishing work of getting this book ready: combining all the pages into one big
file, making sure the markings are consistent, etc., and one last check for
errors.
- Finally the book is submitted to the Project Gutenberg Canada archive, and is posted on
mirror sites all over the world, freely available for anyone to read and enjoy.
Michael Hart founded Project Gutenberg in 1971. His idea was: anything that can be
entered into a computer can be reproduced indefinitely. This led to the concept of
entering books into computers and sharing these books with the whole world.
These Electronic Texts (E-texts) would be made available in the simplest, easiest to
use form. This means "Plain Vanilla ASCII." Italics, underlines, and bolds would be
converted to ASCII. In the same vein, the books selected would be those that
appealed to the greatest number of people possible. In 2007 Mark Akrigg created PG Canada, to take
adavantage of Canada's more liberal copyright laws, and to preserve Canadiana.
You can read more about the history of Project Gutenberg here
The Project Managers pick whatever books we can find. We
go to Used & Rare bookshops and scour the Internet websites & auctions.
We check out rare books from libraries and scan them. We obtain page images from other archive sites. We try to find
books that we think people would enjoy reading and that we can find at an acceptable
price.
Before selecting a book to convert to an etext, we check
Project Gutenberg's list
(to make certain that it hasn't already been done) and we check
David's In-Progress List
(to make certain that it isn't being done by someone else).
In summary, we do whatever books people provide to us (that we legally can).
If you have a book that you would like to see done (and it is copyright cleared)
we can probably do it (with your help).
Contact us at DPC Help.
or see the
"Content Providers" Forum.
The process of creating an etext is a long one.
Distributed Proofreaders Canada was set up to make that go faster, by letting you help the
Project Managers by proofreading pages in their books. If you have not already done
so, click on the "Register" link and make an account. This enables you to select an
available book and proofread a few pages. We encourage people to try to do
at least "a page a day", but any work done is greatly appreciated and goes a long
way toward assisting in creating etexts. This is the way most people help.
If you really catch Distributed Proofreading Canada fever, you may want to become a Project Manager.
Project managers mainly shepherd a project ("book") through the uploading,
proofreading and post-processing processes on this website. Sometimes they do most of
the tasks themselves; sometimes they coordinate others who are working on the tasks.
If you think that being a Project Manager is for you, Read the Project Manager's FAQ. (We do
have experienced Project Managers who will mentor you in this process.) When you
feel ready, contact us at DP Help.
If you want to do more for the site, but don't have the time, or inclination, to
become a Project Manager, you might consider making a donation. Funding for
the site comes entirely from the founders and the Project Managers, and voluntary
donations.
See the "donate" button on our
main page if you wish to make a
tax-deductable donation. Or here!
You can also donate books (Public Domain) by shipping them to us for scanning
(better if they do not need to be returned). You can also scan the books and send us
the images (best if you want to keep the book). We would prefer it if you would
clear the books first before scanning and sending us the
images. Please refer to the Content Provider's
FAQ for more details on clearing and scanning books.
So if you want to do more than just proofreading, you can also help by taking on any
of the following roles:
- Content Provider. Does any or all of the following tasks:
- Find a suitable (non-copyright) book to proofread.
- Obtain copyright clearance for the book.
- Run each page of the book through a scanner.
- Process each page image through OCR (optical Character Reader) software.
- Run pre-processing software on the OCR'd file to fix common problems.
- Upload the page image files and OCR'd text files to the DP website.
- Project Manager. See discussion above.
- Post Processor. Does all the finishing work to take a project from a set
of proofread pages into a combined etext file suitable for adding to the
Project Gutenberg Canada archive. Combines all the pages into one big file, deals
with words or paragraphs split across pages, moves footnotes & sidenotes
to the proper place, and generally makes sure that all the proofreaders were
consistent in the way they proofread the text, and then finally sends it on to
Project Gutenberg Canada.
- Website Help. We always welcome people to help in the work of
maintaining and improving this website. Programmers (PHP, mySQL and some Java
Script) who can work on the website software, beta testers to check out new
versions, document writers to help with our documentation are all needed.
Contact DP Help if you
you would like to help with any of these tasks.
You can do any of these entirely on your own, or you can work together with others to
do the tasks. Most of our projects are done by a group of people working together.
There are no set "Rules" enforced by Project Gutenberg Canada, but in order to allow the
distributed proofreading to work, we have written up our own
Proofreading Guidelines and Formatting Guidelines.
Please read these and any project comments that a project manager may have provided
before starting to proofread. The main goal is to preserve as much formatting as
possible, marked the same way, while making the etext readable on a computer. If you
are a new proofreader it may be helpful to print out a copy of our 2-page summary,
the Handy Proofreading
Guide, and keep it handy while proofreading. This covers the basics of
proofreading.
Also, some of our projects are marked "Beginners only". These are books that are
straightforward, without complex proofreading issues. It's a good idea to choose
one of these books when you first start proofreading.
You can email DP Help at: DP Help
Other Project Managers can be reached by clicking on their name on
the Projects page. Each project has a link to the Project Manager in charge of it.
Also, the "Discuss this book" link on the opening page where you start proofreading the
book links to the Forum for this book. That's the best place to contact the Project
Manager of the book, or to ask questions about the book or ask how to handle some
proofreading issue in the book.
A book follows a long road to become an etext. These steps are
covered in more detail in the
Project Manager's FAQ.
This Workflow Diagram
for the site shows the general flow of material into and out of the site.
On the opening page where you start proofreading a book there is an item "Book
Completed". Click on "Yes, I would like to be notified when this has been posted to
Project Gutenberg Canada." If you do that, when the book is eventually added to the Project
Gutenberg Canada archive, you will receive an email notifying you and giving the link to
download this book.
Also, on the DPC main page, there is a weekly list of links to recent books completed
and sent to Project Gutenberg Canada, books proofread and being post-processed, and books
currently in the process of proofreading.
You can go to Project Gutenberg Canada's online catalog and get copies of any etext in
the library, including the ones done through Distributed Proofreaders Canada.
Don't panic. We all make mistakes. If you think you made a mistake on the last few
pages of a particular project, go back to the Project Page and note the "DONE" links.
They reconnect to the last 5 pages you proofread for that project.
Click on one, and you can make corrections to your proofreading of that page.
If it's earlier than one of these last 5 pages, or you are not sure that you handled
something correctly, leave a note in the Project Forum for that book (reached from
the opening page where you started proofreading -- click on "Discuss this Project").
Give the number of the page you were on (if you remember) and what you did. This
lets the second round proofreader or the post-processor fix it if it was not correct.
Remember that all your proofread pages will be proofread again in the 'second round' of
proofreading. Few mistakes make it by both proofreaders undetected! So just do
your best and don't worry. (Second-round proofreading is limited to more experienced
proofreaders.)
Also, feel free to leave short notes in the pages as you do them, just make certain
to mark them with an asterisk so that the next proofreader can find them. Like this:
John Smyth* [**image too faint--I can't tell if it's Smythe or Smith here.]
Almost all browser-related problems (not being able to log in, not seeing the
proofreading page, not getting a fresh page to proofread after you have proofread your first
page) can be solved by verifying that your computer is set with the correct time and date and that your
browser options are set the following way:
- Cookies accepted/on*
- Javascript enabled
Also, if in your Preferences (located
here), "Launch in New Window" is set to "Yes", then there is
the following additional requirement:
- Pop-up Windows allowed* (and make sure they aren't being blocked by another utility)
Setting these options correctly solves most problems accessing or using the site.
For specific examples of setting these options for various browsers, check the latest
info on the DPWiki post, available by
clicking here.
* Security note: for security and privacy reasons, many people have some of
these options turned off. They must be turned on for the DP website to work.
However, they can be limited: |
| Cookies: |
DP cookies are only for the DP Website, so rather than setting this
option to "Accept All Cookies", you can set it to the more restricted option
"Accept Cookies for the originating website only". |
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| Pop-up Windows: |
Most browser Pop-up options or pop-up blocking utilities
offer an option to list specific sites from which you accept pop-ups. So
rather than simply setting it to "Accept all pop-ups", you can set the more
restrictive option of "Suppress all pop-ups" but include the DPC website
(www.pgdpcanada.net) in the Exceptions list. |
| Note: the exact wording of these options will depend on your
browser. |
The DPC site attempts to cooperate with firewalls, web caches and proxies, though if you see the
'I get the same page to proofread over and over again' difficulty, please email us at DPC Help, including your browser details.
Revision History of this Document
05/27/2004 -- Version 1.7: Major changes by pourlean - updated for caching changes
04/16/2004 -- Version 1.6: Major changes by pourlean - removed all personal email addresses.
06/16/2003 -- Version 1.5: Additional updates & style revision done by Tim Bonham.
10/27/2002 -- updated version produced by Charles Franks.
10/16/2001 -- original version of this document produced by Robert Rowe.
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