March 27, 2009
From DPCanadaWiki
Volume 2, Issue #34--March 27, 2009
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
Congratulations!!!
from Simple Simon
Tremendous congratulations to firefox88 (Tess) for completing her first PP project "The Transplanted", soon to be posted at PGC. She has done an Excellent job, and it cleared W3 Validation on the first pass!!
Tess used a PPing checklist that I prepared as a guide for her work, and says it helped her quite a bit. As a result, I've published it in this issue's "Simon Says…" for comment and suggestions. Remember, it's not intended to be a complete guide to PPing (that will come later, and be the combined work of a lot of experienced PPers), but a quick checklist for new PPers doing simple projects."
Great work, Tess--anyone else like to try PPing?
Editorial
Server and site problems--Simple Simon advises that any remaining problems on-site are set aside now until the "synch-up" (unless something really major rears its ugly head).
Checklists--Simon has started with PPing basic checklist for simple projects. This one covers startup and text version; he'll provide HTML version in the next issue. Any and all comments and/or questions from PPers are requested and welcome. Anyone else can comment as well. Send any comments to Simple Simon.
More projects needed--WCPers and PMs need to get busy and make sure that we've got lots of projects to drop into the P1 queue--it's getting rather thin again….
If you are interested in being a Project Manager, please send a private message to Simple Simon, our Site Admin. There are also some experienced PMs who will gladly mentor newbie PMs.
ÜberProjects--see the updates below.
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 anonymouslyAnd you can do so anonymously if you choose. It doesn't have to be long: a sentence or two, a short paragraph or two, 500 words or more if you really like to "talk"; send a PM to Quill.
Simon Says...
Here is the quick checklist for beginner PPers: this issue, I'll cover start-up and text version, next issue, I'll add the HTML version.
Start-up: make sure you have PP status--if not, contact Simple Simon and request it.
- Select your project to work on--try to choose something relatively short and straightforward--avoid large numbers of illos, indexes, tables and footnotes--but always a book that interests you.
- Go to the project page, and click on the "Check Out Book" button.
- Click on the "Download Zipped Text" button.
- Decide whether to download the zipped Images file--you could work from the .pngs in the project itself. If you want the images, contact Simple Simon, and request he create the zipped images, wait a few hours, then click the "Download Zipped Images" button.
- Create a directory for the project on your hard drive, with subdirectories for .pngs (if you have them) and the PP files themselves. If there are illos, make an "images" sub-dir inside the PP directory.
- Open the zip archive for the text, and extract the "concatenated" text file to your PP directory. Re-name the file project.txt where "project" is your favourite abbreviation of the book title.
- Open the zip archive for images and extract them to your .pngs directory.
- Move any illos to your "images" directory.
- Read the Project Instructions on the project page, and scan through the Forum for any issues that have been raised, and problems flagged.
- You will need to produce a text version (ASCII or Latin-1) and an HTML version. If you're not sure about this "character encoding" subject, consult Simple Simon, or one of the PFs.
- You will need some tool for doing the PPing. While some people do it in a simple text editor, like Word for Windows, I recommend guiguts--if you don't have that, contact me for instructions.
Text version: NB this is "bare-bones"--many other checks and tools are available.
- Open the text file in guiguts, and scan through it checking out the structure of the book.
- If you have the .pngs, open them with IrfanView, and page through them. Otherwise, look at the scans in the Project.
- Use the guiguts "Fix Page Separators" tool to remove all the page header information--don't worry, it won't remove the actual page markers--they will be preserved in the text.bin file automatically created the first time you save the file in guiguts.
- Use the Search tool to find, and deal with, all the [**] notes left by the proofers and formatters.
- Move all footnotes to the end of a paragraph, and close up the gap that may have been left in the text.
- Same with illos.
- Clean up the title page and other front material--use spacing to create a close approximation to the original "look".
- Align the Table of Contents, making sure that items and page numbers are lined up.
- Check all illos--should look like [Illustration: caption if any].
- Check all formatting for consistency; all < i >, < b >, < sc > tags should be in pairs; thought breaks should be <tb>.
- Check spacing of chapter, section headings: chapters 4-1-2 (4 blank lines, Chapter title, 1 blank line, chapter sub-heading (if any), 2 blank lines, then first paragraph), sections 2-1 (2 blanks, section heading, 1 blank, first paragraph).
- Run guiguts "Search for Stealth Scannos" tool, and resolve any that turn up.
- Run Jeebies to find "he" and "be" errors.
- Run Word frequency routine: check for Unicode characters, accents, click "suspects" option, the check em-dashes, hyphens, use Character Count to find weird characters, Check Spelling; NB you should have Aspell installed--or else take the file "off-line" to your favourite spell-checker.
- Run Gutcheck, and resolve errors reported. Note that many items reported by Gutcheck are not truly errors, you'll have to bounce these off an experienced PPer until you learn which ones you must deal with.
- Now, scan through the file line-by-line, looking for remaining "weirdnesses".
- Move the file into your browser, or other sophisticated text reader, and see how it looks.
- Rewrap the file (item on the Selection menu)--special areas will be protected by /* and */ markers, or treated specially by /# and #/ markers.
- Put the file aside for half a day, then look through it again.
- Save a copy of the file, and re-name that copy as project.html. This will be the starting point for the HTML version.
- Go back to the project.txt version.
- Replace all < i > and < /i > tags with _ (the underscore character), using the search tool.
- Replace all < b > and < /b > tags with =.
- Replace all < tb > tags with a line of 5 asterisks separated by 4 spaces (....*....*....*....*....*).
- Remove all < sc > and < /sc > tags, and consider whether to change the material between them to ALL CAPs.
- Remove any < f > and < /f > tags, and consider whether to change the material between them to italic (surrounded by _ ).
- Remove any /p and p/ tags, and indent the material between 4 spaces, and add relative indents on lines to match the scans.
- Remove any /# and #/ tags, and Block Rewrap the material between (there is an item on the Selection menu).
SAVE YOUR FILE FREQUENTLY
Phew--that's enough--it will handle most simple books.
Revisions to Guidelines, FAQs and the DPC site code
Guideline Differences--There are a few differences between the new Guidelines and what we've used before, and a very few diffs from the DP-INT ones. Simon advises that he'll provide a summary of the differences. He's hoping for a possible issue date of mid April.
Combined Proofing and Formatting Guidelines--Simon has reiterated 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. Planned date for issuance is mid April.
The "combined guidelines" will be a very summarized version, not a complete document--but it's a huge task, which is the reason for the delay in issuance. Even DP-INT has no such animal--so we can't copy theirs. Once it is drafted, Simon will ask for review by experienced proofers and foofers to ensure that it is understandable--that is, not confusing or missing some extremely important rule.
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.
- Apparently De2164 is going to PM the remaining 4 volumes that have been prepped. However, there are others that need prepping and PMing, so there's lots to do. CPers, PMs, PPers are all needed.
- We've arranged to get "mint condition" copies of the full set and so will be able to get good scans of all the maps and illustrations as well as picking up missing pages (if any). Thank you to hugger1935 for the use of the books.
- Volumes 8, 11, 18 and 21 are in Post-Processing; Vol. 3 has completed PPing; Vol. 1 has been sent to PGC for posting.
- We need a PM or two to shepherd more through the rounds.
- 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. Some of the standards for PPing have been updated.
- 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. For those that are interested, the books are in the P3 waiting queue.
- Five volumes have been posted to PGC:
- Volume 2: The Mariner of St Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier,
- Volume 5: The Seigneurs of old Canada: a Chronicle of New World Feudalism,
- Volume 20: Adventurers of the Far North, A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas,
- Volume 27: The Winning of Popular Government: A chronicle of the Union of 1841, and
- Volume 29: The Day of Sir John MacDonald, A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Dominion.
ÜberProject #2: Jesuit Relations
Vol. 65: Lower Canada, Mississippi Valley, 1696-1702, our first, is currently in F1: Available. 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'll probably do the same for other languages as well.
Vol. 66: Illinois, Louisiana, Iroquois, Lower Canada, 1702-1712, our second, is in P3: Available. It is just like Vol. 65: strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages--lots of fun.
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.
There has been some recent renewed interest in the idea of doing 2 versions of the books: one an "historically accurate" version and the other a "more readable", modernized French language version. The posts have been pulled together in this thread. Comments are welcome.
And is everyone ready for Simon to prep the next volume?...
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....
There are only a couple of books that are available since many of the authors are still alive--ah, well, we'll get them eventually. :)
ÜberProject #4: Periodicals
Graham's Magazine is the first part of our ongoing periodicals ÜberProject. All the first year's volumes are either in process or completed. There are five issues currently undergoing proofing or formatting with three in P1: Waiting. Two issues are in PP; and two issues have been posted to PGC.
Year two will be coming in due course.
Simon also needs some volunteers for PPing these periodicals--if you are interested, send him a PM.
Our Young Folks, An illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls; Issued monthly; Publication Dates: January 1865 thru October 1873 when it merged with St. Nicholas.
Two issues are in P3: available, one in F2: available and one in prep.
Warmheart's wikipage for the Periodical can be found through this link: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Our_Young_Folks.
Scientific American--these are very early issues, too--from 1846. Simon hopes to get an issue up within the next week or so.
We've started a wiki page for it: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Periodicals/Scientific_American. I've also been told that Tizz has agreed to co-PM/PP it.
Remember, these aren't the only periodicals 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
ÜberProject #5: Works by Charles Dickens
Simple Simon and IonaV are Dickens fans. We know that there are many more out there. Although there are some of Dickens' works on the other PG sites, some of it is text only. We've got early editions of those books with illustrations as well as stories that have not yet been posted. As well, there are letters and essays and ...
- A Christmas Carol is now in post processing.
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood is currently in F1: Available.
- Two short stories for our anniversary blitz are posted to our wiki (http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Dickens_%22First_Anniversary%22_project): The Christmas Tree and What Christmas is as we get older. They will be posted to PG Canada with other Dickens' short stories.
More details and an ÜberProject wiki page to come.
We Grow Every Day
We are now up to 638 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.)
For those DPCers who have been "out of touch", our huge jump in members (130+ in just a couple of weeks) is "courtesy" of server problems at DP-Int. See the article at the top of the newsletter.
| New | |
|---|---|
| March 2009 | 14 |
| February 2009 | 136 |
| January 2009 | 14 |
| 2008 total | 235 |
| 2007 total | 239 |
| Total to date | 638 |
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.
The "team" numbers are the cumulative totals for each round for each member while they are members of a particular team. So that's why, the team pages go up whenever a team member's totals increase. Another reason to join a team or two....
Completed 30,000 pages in a round:
Completed 25,000 pages in a round:
- rolands in P3
- uwe-joachim in F2
- Team USA in P3
Completed 20,000 pages in a round:
Completed 15,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F2 NEW!!!
Completed 10,000 pages in a round:
- Team Canada in P1 and P2
- Team German in F2
Completed 5,000 pages in a round:
- Bibi in P3
- Daniel G in P1
- rcool in P1 and P2 NEW!!!
- snowseraph in P2
- supo88 in P2
- De2164 in F1
- Warmheart in F1
- yajeulb in F1
- hugger1935 in F1 and F2
- Team USA in P2
- Team Canada in F1
- DPing with Cats in P2 and F1
- Foofers' Corner in F1
Great work, people!!!
Proofing & Formatting Stats
Everyone has exceeded their March page goals. As well, P2 has passed 200%!!! WOW!!!...
Should we think about increasing the monthly targets?...
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| March goal | 3,100 | 3,100 | 2,325 | 3,100 | 2,325 |
| *March to date | 4,173 | 6,624 | 4,308 | 3,339 | 3,003 |
| March to date % | 134.61% | 213.69% | 185.29% | 107.71% | 129.16% |
*Numbers accurate to "press" time.
For more statistics and related links go to: Statistics Central.
Books In Process And/or Posted To PG Canada or PG-International
At press time, we had 150 Gold Star books posted to PGC or PG-Int (with 3 in PPV). Fantastic work, all.
There are currently 124 Silver Star projects in post processing and 116 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 currently have 22 teams; 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....
