March 28, 2008
From DPCanadaWiki
Issue #8--March 28, 2008
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
Tagline Entries
Well, we now have some entries for our potential tagline:
"Building a bridge from yesterday to tomorrow; One page at a time."; "DP: Recycling Dead Trees Into Living Text."; "DPC and PGC are preserving Canada's written works: The proof is in the reading."; "DPC's Beavers: Building e-books one bit at a bite."; "Distributed Proofreaders: because nothing deserves to be out of print."; "Distributed Proofreaders: turning a picture into a thousand words."
The last two were originally from DP-Int, but since people commented on them, I added them.
And our tagline finalist is: DP: Recycling Dead Trees Into Living Text. It was suggested by De2164; thanks DAvid. We'll probably tweak it a bit to either "DPC: Recycling Dead Trees Into Living Text." or "DP Canada: Recycling Dead Trees Into Living Text."; we'll decide that before the next issue where it will begin appearing below the title.
Editorial
We now have a tagline for the newsletter. Thanks to all who participated.
Announcements--We are pleased to announce the appointment of three people who have volunteered their expertise and services:
- stygiania - P3 Quals
- Gironina - Project Facilitator
- De2164 - Project Facilitator
We hope to have a further announcement next issue. For a list of the current DPC Site Operations Responsibilities, see the article below Simon Says....
Heartfelt thanks from Simple Simon and all at DPC to these new "Beavers".
Numbers of projects in each round--Do you ever look at and compare the numbers of projects in each of the rounds? Sometimes there's a pretty even spread, sometimes there are great discrepancies. P3 and F2 rounds tend to end up with lots of projects mainly because they are the rounds requiring the most detailed work: P3 proofers must carefully check all proofing and F2 formatters must carefully check all formatting as well as be the last line of "proofing" before a project goes to Post-Processing.
Right now there is an imbalance--there is practically nothing in F1 so we need P3 to finish more projects so there are more in F1 ... and P3 has been working very hard which you will see when you check their stats. If you are qualified to do P3 work, we would really appreciate your assistance in getting those projects proofed so that F1 has something to do. Yes, there are lots of projects in P2 and P1; but F1 cannot do anything until P3 does some more work....
If you qualified for P3 at DP-Int, but haven't yet got P3 privileges at DPC, send a pm to Simple Simon: he'll be more than happy to extend your privileges.
Revisions to the Proofing Guidelines--Those revisions are coming along; slowly but surely. Simple Simon advises that the "draft" of the Guidelines in Wiki format should be ready soon. He plans to open it up for comments and suggestions from both newbies and experienced DPCers via an invitation in the Documentation Forum at that time.
Storage Space--This has been resolved. Now you CPers and PMs can upload all the projects you want to.
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...
Now that we’ve got our production server safely upgraded (without any downtime, Hooray for coachmike!!), we can press on to load up all those projects you’ve been holding back on.
For those of you who have thought of contributing a book, but haven’t yet done so, this would be a great time to become involved in CPing. It’s not hard, and someone will help you through every step, until you get comfortable.
To do so: you just find a book you’d like to see go through DPC or locate a set of scans in one of the book archives. Then send me a copy by email (starlink@rogers.com) of the title and verson (reverse of title page) and/or other page(s) that gives publication and/or copyright information; the email and attachments is your application for a copyright clearance. I will get back to you be return email with the clearance number for each book.
Once that’s done, there’s scanning (unless it’s harvested scans), prepping, and OCRing to be done--but you can ask someone to do any or all of these for you, or to lead you through it.
If you need more info, see the Content Providers FAQ at http://www.pgdpcanada.net/c/faq/cp.php . It’s not completely up to date, but it’ll give some more ideas. Or contact me--I’ll steer you in the right direction.
While we’re at it, tell us what kind of books you’d like to see on DPC. Do you prefer to work on fiction or non, old or newer, big thick meaty books or slim little pamphlets, children's literture, flowery poetry or difficult technical manuals? Do you have a favourite book you’d like to see appear at PGC? Or a favourite author who somehow has been ignored? What are your favourite genres?
This is not a rhetorical question!!--I’m literally asking all of you to tell me what kind of books you like, what you would like to see as projects at DPC, or what you have in your possession that could be scanned for a project. Perhaps you’d lend them to another member if you don’t want to do the scanning yourself.
Do you like the trial run on periodicals under UberProject #4?
Was the “Jesuit Relations” of UberProject #2 too stuffy? I notice that, after an initial run of enthusiasm, the momentum has slowed down considerably. Shall we continue with the Jesuits, or not?
I have just completed the transfer of our first project from DP-INT, with the full cooperation of the PM (puppernutter) and the PP (me), and of course, the SAs at DP-INT. It wasn’t really difficult, and involved no messy manipulation of their database. It’s called “The Georgian Bay” and is all about my favourite part of Canada and its development in the early days of our country. It will start in P2, having completed P1 at DP-INT, within a couple of days--come on by for a visit. [Editor: IonaV advises that she worked on this book on DP-Int and it is a wonderful book.]
Now, I’m headed back to my work on the Proofing Guidelines, hopefully to be finished soon.
For those of you who are “seduced by the Dark Side”, that is proofers and PPers who enjoy doing indexes, you might check out: http://tal.forum2.org/injokes
DPC Site Operation Responsibilities
We're starting to build our DPC Administration group. So far we have:
- coachmike - founder, db-req, dphelp
- Simple Simon - founder, Site Admin (i.e., the big boss), db-req, Forum Admin, PPV coordinator
- rfrank - BEGIN coordinator, also oversees "Newcomers Only" and "Rapid Review" projects
- stygiania - P3 qualifications and Project Facilitator (so that she can do the P3 quals)
- Gironina - Project Facilitator
- De2164 - Project Facilitator
We're still looking for someone to handle F2 Qualifications though Simple Simon advises that that person needs to be a well-experienced PPVer.
Volunteers for other admin or assistant positions are always welcome. You can send Simple Simon an email at: http://pgdpcanada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=406 .
Also, any suggestions as to how members (individually or in general) could pick up part of the burden of running the site are also very welcome.
Project “adoptions”
Are you a CPer who has projects but no one to PM? Are you a PM (or potential PM) and nothing to PM? Well, look no further than the "Projects looking for a PM" thread in the Managing Projects forum.
Projects looking for a PM thread can be found here: http://pgdpcanada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=350 .... Several projects have already been made available, and more are coming. Typically, the project should be copyright-cleared, scans completed, and OCR work done. So, as a CPer, if you have something to offer, please leave a post. If you are a PM looking for a project,send a pm to the CPer or leave a post in the thread that you are interested.
ÜberProject #1: Chronicles of Canada
Lots has been going on since the last newsletter--we now have a small, but very busy group of people who are prepping the volumes for proofing and formatting. Don't worry, you won't be overwhelmed with the volumes; they have promised to only add a new volume every few weeks or so. Proofers and formatters are needed to work on other projects as well.
There are still 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. In fact, there are 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 may PP as well. 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
There has been good early response to the "test" periodical working its way through the rounds, so this will become our ÜberProject #4 starting sometime in April. Suggestions for favourite OLD periodicals are invited--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: 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'll announce the deadline for the logos in April.
If you do not know how to access dpscans:
- You'll need to use an FTP program.
- Address: ftp.pgdpcanada.net; Account: dpscans; Password: has been changed; pm either Simple Simon or Quill if you do not know it.
- You'll see a "home" directory/folder--double click that and you'll see "dpscans".
- Double click on dpscans and you'll see a listing of directories; scroll down to "DPC logos" and then drag and drop your image file(s) to that directory.
- You're done; so just disconnect from the ftp server.
If you do not already have an FTP program, you can try FileZilla (which a number of other DPers use since IE7 won't work): http://filezilla-project.org/download.php. Click on the version that you want (.exe or .zip). The .exe will give an immediate install. It's has a quite intuitive user interface; but if you've questions you can send either Simple Simon or Quill a pm for further help. Or if you're still not sure about doing the upload, you can send a pm to either Simple Simon or Quill and we'll arrange for getting the files from you and you'll still be anonymous.
We Grow Every Day
We are now up to 339 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 | |
|---|---|
| March 2008 | 21 |
| February 2008 | 23 |
| January 2008 | 58 |
| December 2007 | 142 |
| to Nov. 30, 2007 | 95 |
| Total to date | 339 |
Proofing & Formatting Stats
WOW!!! FANTASTIC!!! What else can we say?
We've 3½ days left to go in March and yet everyone has already exceeded their goals this month--most rounds by a very large margin. P3 is in the lead with 226%; F2 is next with 206%; then F1 with 197% followed by P2 at 188% and P1 at 165%. This is a close race--who will finish the month with the greatest percentage over their goals?
Great going, guys.
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| March goal | 3,100 | 3,100 | 2,325 | 3,100 | 2,325 |
| *March to date | 5,127 | 5,853 | 5,259 | 6,122 | 4,807 |
| March % | 165.39 % | 188.81 % | 226.19% | 197.48 % | 206.75 % |
*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 37 Gold Star books posted to PGC (with 2 in PPV). Fantastic work, all.
There are currently 33 Silver Star projects in post processing and 63 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 now have 16 teams. The newest user team is "Spanish"; welcome to you.
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....
