June 6, 2008
From DPCanadaWiki
Issue #13--June 6, 2008
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
Book Preview--Simple Simon
Those proofers who do P1 may get a kick out of the project I started last month.
“Dr. Chase’s New Receipt Book” dates from 1870, and is typical of hundreds of (largely self-published) recipe books that were promulgated by authors who were convinced they had the “cure for all your ills”. They were actually the beginning of the “vanity” press that persists to this very day, where an author pays a publisher to assemble a book from a manuscript, print, and distribute it. The edition often sold very poorly, because the author was unknown, the material was (to say the least) esoteric, and occasionally the type-setting, editing and printing were second-rate. The poor author, having paid all expenses, was often sent a second bill “because the edition did not sell out, and we must remainder (or destroy) the balance”. Terrifed lest his brain-child be lost to the world, the author often paid up, and was shipped hundreds of copies--which were actually a second printing for the very purpose of extorting more money.
Having said all that, this book is actually very charming, though quaint by our modern standards. Some of the remedies are very humorous. And the printing, type-setting, and spelling are all quite acceptable. The OCR came out rather well (good old TIA).
And I must confess to a soft spot for this type of book. My maternal grandmother, a fascinating lady of the Quaker persuasion, was abandoned by her husband, with 9 children ranging in age from “out at work” in the wool mills of Yorkshire, to toddler. She proceeded to bring them up alone quite successfully, without ever holding a job--she did own her own house at the time.
She had a “green thumb up to her shoulder”, and could raise any plant or fruit. She set up her own business (we’re talking 1908 here, folks), raised herbs and “simples” (or remedies), and bartered them to friends, neighbours and strangers across Yorkshire, usually paid in kind--food, clothes, staples for the house, work done for her, whatever she needed. She corresponded with hundreds of people, and rarely had, or needed, money. What taxes?
Something tells me my grandmother would have enjoyed Dr. Chase’s book, though she'd have had her own ideas about “receipts”.
I think you’ll enjoy it too--try proofing a few pages.
Editorial
Revisions to the Beginning Proofreader's FAQs--Simple Simon advises that these are done. He’ll be updating the links on FAQ Central.
Revisions to the Formatting Guidelines--If you've been following the forum thread (see below for the link), you will have noticed that there is a difference in opinion as to whether or not any proofing-related should be included with the Formatting Guidelines.... Simple Simon wants to reiterate his promise that he will put together a combined Proofing/Foofing wiki page for those Formatters who like to have only one document open at a time but also want to be able to check on certain Proofing Guidelines.
Comments regarding links to FAQs and Guidelines--A number of people have let Simple Simon know about problems or glitches with these various links. Most of the links are embedded in various website page templates that are used by the site code. To be perfectly honest, they are going to be difficult to change without causing a lot of related problems with the coding; the original page designers “hard-coded” some things and “templated” others without making any notes or comments--very poor documentation procedures (I can see the grimaces of pain out there). To further complicate things, some of the links are “round sensitive” meaning that they point to different documents depending on which round you are in at the time that you click on the link.
However, Simple Simon that they will be fixed soon. Please give him your patience.
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.
Revisions to Guidelines, FAQs and the DPC site code
The Beginning Proofreader's FAQs have been updated. The wiki page is here: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Beginning_Proofreaders%27_FAQ
Now it’s time for the Formatting Guidelines. Simple Simon started a thread ( http://pgdpcanada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=479 ) for comments; but he’s about ready to go ahead with his draft so if you’ve got any last minute ideas, please let him know PDQ. And don't forget about those things that annoy you--those are very important, too. After all, they can't be revised if we don't know that they are annoying....
Of course, we'll keep working our way through all of the FAQs and Guidelines, one by one--does anyone have any suggestions for other areas/activities that should have Guidelines or FAQs prepared?
Guidelines translations--Simple Simon has had discussions with some of our members about translating Proofing Guidelines wiki page into other languages. All that’s necessary is the translation--we can put them into wiki page format. If you were waiting for them to be finalized so that you could start translating...well, the Proofing Guidelines are ready and waiting for you....
Finally, we hope to upgrade and synchronize our site code with that of DP-INT or at least as close as we can since DPC is a UTF-8 site where DP-INT works in iso-8859-1. At that point, we'll be able to add more complete services in other languages, and effectively translate much of the site. However, that is still a few months off--it’s all that software code...; we must thank coachmike for all his hard work and try not to get too frustrated with the waiting….
When we upgrade our site code, we’ll also be getting WordCheck with its Good Word and Bad Word lists--I know that there are lots of people who are waiting for WordCheck. I am most certainly looking forward to it....
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 prepped 9 volumes, so there's lots to do.
- Volume 3: The Founder of New France, A Chronicle of Champlain is in P3: Available. Volume 18: The Adventurers of England on Hudson Bay, A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North, is in the P1: Waiting queue. Volume 1 is a New Project. Volume 27 is being prepped for proofing. Volume 5 is in Post-Processing.
- There is one volume (20) in the PP pool waiting for someone to pick it 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.
- Volumes 13, 17 and 24 are being done at DP-Int since the authors of these volumes are out of DPC's copyright purview. They will be posted to PG-Int in due time.
- 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.
ÜberProject #3: Governor General's Award Books
Warmheart has created an ÜberProject page for this 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....
Three Came to Ville Marie by Alan Sullivan and which won the GG Award for fiction in 1941 was posted to PGC on May 4, 2008. The HTML version is here: http://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/sullivan-three/sullivan-three-00-h-dir/sullivan-three-00-h.html
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. There are 3 volumes currently undergoing proofing and/or formatting: one each in rounds P1, P3 and F2. The 4th volume is now waiting in the wings....
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
We Grow Every Day
We are now up to 394 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 | |
|---|---|
| June 2008 | 1 |
| May 2008 | 23 |
| April 2008 | 27 |
| Q1 2008 | 106 |
| 2007 total | 237 |
| Total to date | 394 |
Milestones
We are going to use this space to “celebrate” notable milestones achieved by a member, team, group or project. For example, we'll report when a member completes 5,000 pages in any one round; then we'll let you know when they've done 10,000 pages and so on.
Completed 10,000 pages in a round:
- uwe-joachim in F2
Completed 5,000 pages in a round:
- no new milestones since the last issue
Great work, people!!!
Proofing & Formatting Stats
P3 did it again--they more than doubled their page goal for May to finish at 220%; even if they had had to do 3,300 pages like P1, P2 and F1, they still would have finished on top with 167%. Great work, P3.
Maybe we should have P3 match their page goals with the other Proofing Rounds; what do you think?
We’re just under 1 week into June and so far P1 is in the lead (barely) with P2 keeping pace; but anything can happen...and usually does. :wink:
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| June goal | 3,000 | 3,000 | 2,250 | 3,000 | 2,250 |
| *June to date | 977 | 970 | 250 | 481 | 444 |
| June to date % | 32.57 % | 32.33 % | 11.11 % | 16.03 % | 19.73 % |
| May goal | 3,300 | 3,300 | 2,500 | 3,300 | 2,500 |
| May final | 4,499 | 4,409 | 5,504 | 4,423 | 2,182 |
| May final % | 151.48 % | 133.61 % | 220.16 % | 134.03 % | 87.28 % |
*Numbers accurate to "press" time.
For more statistics and related links go to: Statistics Central.
Books In Process And/or Posted To PGC
At press time, we had 53 Gold Star books posted to PGC (with 4 in PPV). Fantastic work, all.
There are currently 61 Silver Star projects in post processing and 79 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....
