November 20, 2009
From DPCanadaWiki
Volume 2, Issue #51--November 20, 2009
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
F2 Parlour Launch
Much of what is done in formatting is not right or wrong, it is an art and skill. In proofreading there 1s[** is] much more clarity. To-day[** proper spelling in olde times] we will launch the F2 Parlour forum with the concept of getting a project from proofed => formatted => quality for the post processor. This will be a place for formatting questions and discussion with lively, polite conversation. Other Forums are better suited to recognize pages completed or goals reached. This one is about the details of formatting.
Like any fine Parlour, all guests are welcome, all discussion on topic is encouraged. Membership is available for no additional fee, :lol: although we treat all guests with the same fine service. We have a special warm spot for Post Processors and Formatters who have not yet qualified for F2. These are our customers now and our talent for the future.
Formatting is really all about preparing a document for the Post Processors, each Post Processor has a style of working. The result of the formatting round should be a document that is both true to the original and the least amount of work for the person and software that turns this pile of instructions into a visual treat for the ebook reader. Longer term, the discussion will be codified with words and examples and added to the WIKI to make it key word searchable. Examples that we wish were in the guidelines will be in the WIKI.
Please do come to the F2 Parlour. You'll find it under the Formatting section of Activities for Advanced Users: F2 Parlour.
Adair - Your Concierge
Simon Says...
Proofreading Guidelines:
Iona and I have finally released the latest (pretty final) draft of our DPC revised Proofreading Guidelines at http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/FAQ_Proofreading_Guidelines. The links on the old FAQ page, and on the Proofing Interface, link to this page. You may see a bit of "jumping around" because they go first to the old FAQ page, then get re-directed immediately to the wiki page. This will be fixed later. You are invited to review the Guidelines, and make any comments about errors, omissions and styling either to Iona or to me.
We have followed the DP-INT Guidelines quite closely as to content, with three major exceptions:
- we organized them in a different (we think quite logical) way
- the small list of matters we have deliberately chosen to "do differently" at DPC, such as ellipses and superscripts
- stronger emphasis on "match the scan",
A link has been placed on the page to a new page that will soon summarize the differences between our guidelines and those of DP-INT.
Would PMs who are including a link on their Project Pages to Proofreading Guidelines make sure the link points to the new ones. Perhaps someone who is good with Project Comments templates could create a standard template including this link.
Loading files to New Projects:
Several questions in the forums about difficulties using dpscans to load text and .png files into projects lead me to offer this procedure--it works for just about all FTP programs.
- prep your scans, do the OCR, and create your text files
- crank up your favourite FTP program, and point it at dpscans (new PMs who don't know the account name and password should contact a PF)
- create a new directory in your dpscans folder--right-click on the folder, paste the full project ID (including ProjectID plus the combination of numbers and letters that is the project name) in as the directory name, and press OK
- right-click the directory name, select "File permissions", change "Numeric value" to 777, click OK
- copy all of your text and .png files into the new directory
- select all the files
- right-click, select "File permissions", change "Numeric value" to 777, click OK
Now you can use the routine on the Project Page to load all the files into the project database.
Don't forget to delete the directory from dpscans after the project has successfully completed loading.
DPC's second Anniversary:
The second anniversary of our founding is coming up on December 1, and we'd like to do a few things to celebrate.
First, I'd like all of you to tell us what you feel our successes have been over the past year. And also, what are the things we could do better in the coming year.
We'll do a bit of a recap of the year in the next issue of the Newsletter, and make a few announcements.
Transliteration (of Greek text, for example):
Seems that we increasingly have a problem around Greek transliteration. PGC insists on an ISO-8859-1 text file, plus any other versions that we want to produce (UTF-8 text, HTML...).
But ISO-8859-1 cannot reproduce Greek characters. So the poor PPer is faced with either simply inserting [Greek] with no attempt to explain what the author intended, or provide a transliteration. A lot of work, for an already busy worker.
For the UTF-8 text version, and HTML, of course, we're OK--that is what our site was designed to produce. The proofers have been experimenting with various different techniques for "picking" Greek characters--and the PPers can insert the actual characters, if necessary. Several recent projects, still in the rounds are gradually developing our better understanding of the more esoteric points, like rough breathing marks, and so on.
So, your opinion, please. Should we go back to including during the rounds a transliteration of the Greek characters, to save the PPer some tricky work? The Greek Transliterator tool is still on the Proofing Interface.
Cheers,
Simon
Editorial
The Beaver Bulletin--Next issue will be our 52nd; we've been going for 2 years now--it doesn't seem to be that long, does it? So what do you think of our newsletter? Is there something new you'd like to see, something that could be changed, drop a post in the Newsletter forum ( http://pgdpcanada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=188&sid=dd67edc2453d472102bacc7b396ec6b4 ) or send a PM to Quill. Comments and any necessary responses will be included in the December 4 or December 18 issues. You can remain anonymous if you wish.
But we'd really like to know how you think we're doing and if there are any changes that you'd like to see.
Calling P1 Proofers--We need to get going on some of the projects to get them into the higher rounds. Maybe all proofers could commit to doing a few pages every week ... then we can always use more P2 and P3 proofing as well--those poor F1s don't have many projects to choose from.
Red Friday--Warmheart asked me to add this link about Red Fridays to the newsletter. It's regarding the growing support that Canadians are giving to our troops who are fighting for us in Afganistan and other countries. Are you wearing "red" today? Do you plan to do so in the future?
PLEASE NOTE: The "new" FAQs and non-English Guidelines, including the Formatting Guidelines, that you can access through the new FAQ Central page contain DP-Int content. These are in the process of being revised for DPC.
Proofreading and Formatting Guidelines--Simon and IonaV are STILL working on Version 2 for the Formatting Guidelines. There is a draft for the updated version of the Proofreading Guidelines now available (see Simon's article above).
Server and site issues--We've had our new server for about 3 months now and, naturally, some problems did crop up though several of our old problems did disappear. We've had a forum for posting problems and concerns: Code Update Aug 2009 - reports of possible issues thread. Simon promises to review of all reported problems and concerns; then he'll report back as to what has been or will be done about them.
Naturally, if further problems do crop up, you can still add them to the forum thread or send a PM to Simon.
Unfortunately, due to "real life" matters, there is a further delay in getting the new site code up and running. No firm date as yet. We'll keep you advised as we learn more.
Checklists--Several months ago, Simon was producing basic checklists for PPers--though he has taken a break while other matters occupied his time. Simon has created a wikipage (linked to the main DPC Wiki) for the Checklists for New PPers. He has included the checklists that he has done so far. You can see from the Table of Contents what he plans for future checklists.
Any and all comments and/or questions from PPers are requested and welcome. Anyone else can comment as well. Send any questions or comments to Simple Simon. He also advises that there could be some slight changes to what he has done in order to integrate his lists with our new FAQ wiki pages.
Of course, eventually, checklists for CPing and PMing will eventually be done.
ÜberProjects--see the updates below. For those that are interested, Simon has decided that he's going to post periodicals to PG-Int as well since the ones we are doing are all pre-1923. It will also give DPC work greater coverage.
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 if you choose. It doesn't have to be long: a sentence or two, a short paragraph or two, or more if you really like to "talk"; send a PM to Quill.
Revisions to Guidelines, FAQs and the DPC site code
Guideline Differences--Once we get our Proofreading and Formatting Guidelines updated to go along with our upcoming site code upgrade, we intend to produce a wikipage with the differences. We're working on the Guidelines updates at this time and we hope to produce the "differences" page shortly thereafter.
Combined Proofing and Formatting Guidelines-- The eventual "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, among other tasks that are keeping Simon very busy. 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.
New DPC site code--Due to "real life" butting in, there's been another delay. But that's life, isn't 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 and IonaV are doing the prep on the rest of the volumes. Sufficient PMs have volunteered--we just need PPers, but the volumes can be picked up from the PP pool when they have completed the rounds unless there is a volume that a PPer really wants to do--in that case let the PM know sooner rather than later.
- 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 10 is in P2: Available; Volume 7 is in P3: Available; Volume 31 is in F2: Available; Volumes 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, and 32 are available for or in Post-Processing. There are several in New Project being prepared for the P1: Waiting queue with a couple more yet to be prepped.
- 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 all in the P3 waiting queue.
- Nine volumes have been posted to PGC and/or PG-International:
- Volume 1: The Dawn of Canadian History, A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada,
- Volume 2: The Mariner of St Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier,
- Volume 3: The Founder of New France, A Chronicle of Champlain,
- Volume 5: The Seigneurs of old Canada: A Chronicle of New World Feudalism,
- Volume 8: The Great Fortress: A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760,
- Volune 18: The 'Adventures of England on Hudson Bay', A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North,
- Volume 20: Adventurers of the Far North, A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas,
- Volume 27: The Winning of Popular Government: A Ahronicle 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, is currently in F2: 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, is in F2: Available. It is just like Vol. 65: strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages--lots of fun.
Vol. 67: Lower Canada, Abenakis, Louisiana; 1716- 1727 is in P3: Available. Lots of "fun" with strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages.
Vol. 68: Lower Canada, Crees, Louisiana; 1720-1736 is in P1: Available. Again, lots of "fun" with strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages.
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....
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 one issue currently undergoing proofing or formatting and one in post-processing. Ten issues have been posted. The second year has started now with two in the proofing rounds and four waiting.
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.
Six issues are in PP, three issues are undergoing proofing or formatting. Warmheart also has two in P1: Waiting, and two of the first year are in prep. Vol. 1, issue 1 has been posted to Project Gutenberg Canada.
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. The first issue has now been posted. Simon has more being prepped for proofing.
We've started a wiki page for it: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Periodicals/Scientific_American.
The Maple Leaf--This is a Canadian juvenile periodical published between 1852 and 1854. Susan and IonaV are going to share the duties of PMing. Iona is handling the prep, Susan has downloaded the scans and will do the PPing. They are hoping to get it into the rounds within the next week or so.
A wikipage has been created: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/The_Maple_Leaf
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 ...
- Bleak House, the original version illustrated by "Phiz", is in prep.
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood is currently in F2: Available.
- A Christmas Carol, The Original Manuscript has been posted to Project Gutenberg.
- 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.
ÜberProject #6: John Graves Simcoe
John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and military leader of Canada, and one of the true Canadian "Fathers of Confederation". This is NOT dull history either.
Projects about or by Simcoe in proofing and/or formatting rounds: 1; P1 Waiting: 4; post-processing: 1.
Simon has more prepped or waiting to be prepped.
We Grow Every Day
We are now up to 767 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 | |
|---|---|
| November 2009 | 13 |
| October 2009 | 22 |
| 2009 Q3 | 35 |
| 2009 Q2 | 55 |
| 2009 Q1 | 168 |
| 2008 total | 235 |
| 2007 total | 239 |
| Total to date | 767 |
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 40,000 pages in a round:
- uwe-joachim in F2
Completed 35,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F2 NEW!!!
Completed 30,000 pages in a round:
- rolands in P3
- Team USA in P3
Completed 25,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
Completed 20,000 pages in a round:
- Team Canada in P1
Completed 15,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F1
- LOTE Flotes my Bote in F2
- Team Canada in P2
Completed 10,000 pages in a round:
- Bibi in P3
- De2164 in F1
- P3 Pros in P3
- Team Canada in F1
- Team German in F2
- Team USA in F2
Completed 5,000 pages in a round:
- Adair in F1 and F2 NEW!!!
- Antigony in F1 NEW!!!
- Daniel G in P1
- gmiller in P2
- hugger1935 in F1 and F2
- mcbax in P3
- Pippin in F1 NEW!!!
- rcool in P1 and P2
- snowseraph in P1 and P2
- stygiania in P3 and F2
- supo88 in P2
- Warmheart in P2 and F1
- yajeulb in F1
- DPing with Cats in P1, P2 and F1
- Foofers' Corner in P2
- Infomaniacs in P2 and P3
- P2 Expediters in P3 and F2
- P3 Pros in F2
- Team Canada in P3
- Team German in P3
- Team Smoothy (aka 'Smoothies') in P2
- Team UK in P1 and P2 NEW!!!
- Team USA in P2
And how many pages have been done in each of the rounds? Naturally, F2 will be at the bottom since they are the last round that gets the projects before PPing and P1 will be on top since they get to start all the projects. :grin: Another consideration is that P3 or F2 stats may be slightly smaller if the PM/PPer has skipped his/her/their project through either one or both of those rounds. So let's see where each round was at the end of October:
- P1 completed over 117,000 pages
- P2 completed over 105,000 pages
- P3 completed over 91,000 pages
- F1 completed over 93,000 pages
- F2 completed over 76,000 pages
Great work, people!!!
Proofing & Formatting Stats
We're almost 3/4 through November ... oh,... wow... F2 is w-a-a-a-y ahead this month--they're over 200% already!!! And P2, P3 and F1 have already reached and exceeded their November targets. Come on, P1 ; you can do it.
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| November goal | 3,300 | 3,300 | 3,000 | 3,300 | 3,000 |
| *November to date | 1,838 | 5,202 | 4,612 | 3,594 | 7,258 |
| November to date % | 55.39% | 157.64% | 153.73% | 108.91% | 241.93% |
*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 245 Gold Star books posted to PGC or PG-Int (with 4 in PPV). Fantastic work, all.
There are currently 219 Silver Star projects in post processing and 141 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 25 teams; more are always welcome. Our newest team is Ex-Pats; "the team for ex-pats and refugees"--honest, that's the description; maybe you could check it out.
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....
