April 25, 2008
From DPCanadaWiki
Issue #10--April 25, 2008
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
Newsletter Logo--LAST CALL
The deadline for logo entries is set for May 8. We've received a couple of entries; anymore budding artists who'd like to try their hands at it?...
Editorial
Revisions to the Proofing Guidelines--There is now a wiki page with the "draft" revised Guidelines: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Proofreading_Guidelines. It looks great--much more logical "table of contents". There has already been quite a bit of discussion in the related forum thread: http://pgdpcanada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=449&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0. Check it out if you haven't already.
Check out the list of "possible future articles" at the end of the newsletter--are you interested in contributing or do you know of someone who could, or would like to, contribute, we'd love to have your article and/or thoughts. And you can do so anonymously.
Simon Says...
IonaV and I have been working, as many of you know, on a complete revision of the FAQs and Guidelines; we are changing them over to Wiki format, adjusting them to meet DPC's particular technical requirements, and re-organizing them for easier access.
The draft version of the Proofreading Guidelines have been open for discussion for about a week, and I have begun to consolidate all the really excellent and useful suggestions that have been made. These will be made available on the Wiki at http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Proofreading_Guidelines in the next few days, for a final round of comment. Then they will become official as our first DPC Guidelines release, and effective for at least 6 months. All Mentoring and Advanced Qualifications will be adjusted to them from May 14, 2008 onwards.
Next up, to be ready for comment next week, will be the Beginning Proofreader's FAQ. I would ask experienced proofers and mentors to examine these, not only for accuracy, but also in the light of a "roadmap" for a completely new member of DPC.
And the next stage will be the Formatting Guidelines. Could everyone think about ideas they'd like to see included, or changes to the existing DP-INT Guidelines that should be made to match our procedures, and send them to the Documentation Forum--I'll start a new thread.
Of course, we'll keep working our way through all of the FAQs and Guidelines--does anyone have any suggestions for other areas/activities that should have Guidelines prepared?
We've already lined up some of our members to translate the various Guidelines documents into other languages, which will also be available from the Wiki page.
And the final step will come when we upgrade to synchronize our site code with that of DP-INT. At that point, we'll be able to add more complete services in other languages, and effectively translate much of the site.
While I'm at it, what other changes/improvements would you like to see at DPC?--I'm not talking about the little code changes, "tweaks" and feature additions that usually come forward--I mean anything major, global or earth-shattering, that might need to be planned for and prepared against over the long haul. We're definitely open to improvment suggestions.
Printer's Error Quote
Gironina wrote: for want of an "i", the sense was lost...
While smooth reading Clouds of Witness, she found a printer's error (006.png, line 6 of last paragraph; others have found it and commented on it as well): After that, of course, all his eccentric ties were accepted as wit,... The quote does appear to make some sense on its own, except that Lord Peter Wimsey is much too refined/cultured/well brought up/etc. to wear "eccentric ties".... When read with the rest of the paragraph, it makes NO sense at all until one adds the missing "i": After that, of course, all his eccentricities were accepted as wit,... Much more like Lord Peter....
Great catch, Gill.
Quotable Quotes:
Be generous. People will remember you for doing things you don't have to do. --Renn Zaphiropoulos
Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is a success. --Henry Ford
I think that DPC has certainly passed stage 1, is well into stage 2--now let's look forward to stage 3. --Simple Simon
ÜberProject #1: Chronicles of Canada
There continue to be lots of spaces for volunteers to PM, PP and even CP. To see the current status of the volumes, check out the ÜberProject wiki page for The Chronicles of Canada here: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/The_Chronicles_of_Canada. De2164 has been very busy prepping new volumes; there are 9 ready for uploading by PMs.There are also two volumes in the PP pool waiting for someone to pick them up. PP standards have been set and the books do not have anything extremely difficult at all. Check the Chronicles wiki page for the PP standards.
Two volumes have been posted to PGC: Volume 20: Adventurers of the Far North, A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas and Volume 29: The Day of Sir John MacDonald, A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Dominion.
ÜberProject #2: Jesuit Relations
We've started our test volume (Vol. 65: Lower Canada, Mississippi Valley, 1696-1702); it's currently in P2. Simple Simon is the PM and has decided that he will definitely PP this first volume, though he says that he will undoubtedly seek help from someone fluent in French to "look over his shoulder" on that side of things.
He also sees no reason that we should not go ahead with additional volumes--this first volume has bee reasonably well received and does not appear to move any slower than other "specialty" material.
There were some very interesting posts in the discussion forum mostly about how to proof the various non-standard characters. A set of standards has been determined and added to the Project Comments. An ÜberProject wiki page for Jesuit Relations has been created. It includes the basic instructions for proofing and formatting.
Potential ÜberProject #3: Governor General's Award Books
Warmheart has created an ÜberProject page for this potential uberproject. The page looks very good and has lots of links. You can see the details of what she has completed to date here: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Governor_General%27s_Literary_Awards Check it out, you might find something interesting there....
ÜberProject #4: Periodicals
Graham's Magazine has been confirmed as the first part of our ongoing ÜberProject #4: Periodicals. Simple Simon has the entire first year of volumes in hand and will release them as demand calls for them.
However (there's always a "however" isn't there?), this isn't the only periodical that we can do--there are lots of others out there and some that are very different than "Graham's". Is there one that you'd like to do? Suggestions for favourite OLD periodicals are always welcome, but they must meet 3 criteria:
- published before 1860 to avoid the need for copyright checking
- good quality scans of a reasonable number of issues (preferably in whole volumes=a year)
- interesting content, out of the ordinary
Contests / Competitions--Let Your Creativity Run Wild...
You've probably seen topic threads under the Promotion of DP Canada forum ... basically, how can we improve DPC? If you have any ideas, let us know. Simple Simon and coachmike won't make promises, but they'd like to know what you want to see improved and/or changed.
Calling all artists and wannabe artists--LAST CALL: Simple Simon has suggested a mascot for the newsletter and I thought, why not a mascot that can be used for the DPC site as well? After all, they already are asking for ideas to improve look of the DPC site. I did like his suggestion of a "beaver working on a book"; however, use your imagination. If some of you are "paper and paint/ink/pencil/pen" types and need help getting your creation into an electronic format, I'm sure one of our illustrator types or CPers would be glad to give you help or provide instructions on how to scan it. I've set up a folder on DPC's dpscans folder called "DPC_logos". We've received a couple of entries already. The deadline for submission of entries is May 8.
If you do not know how to access dpscans:
- You'll first need a simple piece of software called an FTP "client" (that's File Transfer Protocol). I recommend one called FileZilla--it's freeware, easy to use and available from http://filezilla-project.org . Download and install it, instructions are on their site.
- You'll see that it looks like 2 "Explorers" side-by-side--the left one is your computer's hard disk, the right is the dpscans directory. You run the program, it connects you to dpscans (use host=ftp.pgdpcanada.net, user=dpscans, password=2Proof).
- You'll see a directory called "home".
- Double-click on it, you'll see "dpscans".
- Double-click on that, you'll see a lot of directories, one for each DPC member using this area.
- Scroll down to "DPC logos" and then drag and drop your image file(s) to that directory. Time to upload will depend on the size of your image file(s).
- You're done; so just disconnect from the ftp server.
We Grow Every Day
We are now up to 368 members. Welcome to all new members; I hope you find some projects that you will enjoy doing. Many of our members are also members of DP-Int/US and/or DP Europe--we welcome them and thank them for all their continued support and interest in DPC. (Numbers are accurate up to "press" time.)
| New | |
|---|---|
| April 2008 | 25 |
| Q1 2008 | 106 |
| 2007 total | 237 |
| Total to date | 368 |
Proofing & Formatting Stats
We're more than three-quarters of the way through April and everyone has been very busy.... All rounds have already exceeded their April goals: P3 is in the lead, closely followed by F2; while F1, P2 and P1 are not far behind. We've 5 days left to go in the month--which round will end up with the highest percentage of pages done?
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| April goal | 3,000 | 3,000 | 2,250 | 3,000 | 2,250 |
| *April to date | 3,625 | 3,892 | 4,432 | 4,179 | 4,246 |
| April % | 120.83 % | 129.73 % | 196.98 % | 139.30 % | 188.71 % |
*Numbers accurate to "press" time.
For more statistics and related links go to: Statistics Central.
For May, we are going to implement a slight increase in our page "targets". They will be: P1=3,300; P2=3,300; P3=2,500; F1=3,300; and F2=2,500.
Books In Process And/or Posted To PGC
At press time, we had 41 Gold Star books posted to PGC (with 6 in PPV). Fantastic work, all.
There are currently 55 Silver Star projects in post processing and 60 Bronze Star projects which are currently undergoing proofing or formatting. For more details about these projects, please see the listings on the bottom of the DP Welcome page.
User Team Talk
Have you checked out our user teams? To check out the teams or to join one go to: User Teams. The Team threads are located under Proofing Team Talk. Is there a team that you'd like to see? You can create a team from the link on the User Teams page--you might be surprised by who shows up to join you.
We have 16 teams; but more are always welcome.
Possible Future Articles
This is YOUR newsletter: yes, there are forum posts and user team posts, but is there something that you want to tell the whole DPC community? You are allowed to brag here. You can also be anonymous if you choose ... we won't tell.
- Tips or Hints: for those people who do/did a lot of proofing and/or formatting on DP-Int/US &/or DP-Eur, do you have any tips or "rules" that you follow to help yourself while you proof or format? Even a re-wording of a guideline that helps you remember how to do something specific.
- Tell us why you joined DPC.
- Quotable Quotes: have you seen a thought-provoking quote that is relevant to the DP Community while you were doing your proofing that you just had to pass on?...
- The most interesting, outrageous, or strangest line you proofed: before it was proofed (if that was the outrageous or strange part) and what it was after proofing (please do not submit obscene language, it will not be published).
- New projects: PMs is there a series of books or books by a very prolific author that you'd like to do?--let us know so that we can help pass the word to the proofers so they'll be there to jump in and work on them.
- Kudos, Bouquets & Compliments: are there any DPers that you would like to give special thanks and/or recognition to: a mentor who gave you lots of guidance, a PPer that made your project into a very wonderful looking book for posting to PG, a CPer or image/text preparer who went the extra little bit to provide you with clean scans, well OCR'd text, or good illustrations for your project, another DPer who made you feel really welcome or provided you with some good advice or....
- "Guest articles" by anyone and everyone who wishes to....
