h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some of you may know that I am a proofreader over at Gutenberg - or at Distributed Proofreaders, to be precise.

A year ago today, I signed up with them. They have a specific birthday thread where they celebrate everybody's PD birthday, plus all whose birthday it is are listed on the main page. That is nice.

I nearly forgot it was today, although I had been looking forward to it for a while. There are only eight others who signed up on this day. Two are a year old*, like me, one is three, the rest are five, six and eight years old.

* In DP years

I applied for a higher level the other week. In order to qualify for the application! I had to do a formatting test plus 50 pages of formatting (lowest level) plus a lot more proofreading in P2. The process is quite complicated and it takes months before you'll know whether you made it or not. Apparently there is only one person at present processing all the applications, and there is a lot of work involved. I'll probably only find out by the end of this year.
However, that doesn't mean I can't go on proofreading in my current level. Maybe I'll do some more formatting, too, and apply for a higher level there once have done the minimum of pages required.

They have quite a nice community, too, and so far I've been at one user meet here in Frankfurt. There is one planned either close to Frankfurt, or in Regensburg. Fortunately, there are various proofreaders living close to Frankfurt, so maybe somebody can give me a lift should we meet in Regensburg.

Anyway, here's and for all my h2g2 friends.

and a for you. That's good work you're doing, Bel.

All users and researchers appreciate this.

I was able to use Gutenberg books in my research when writing a US history course. I even found a precious and unknown-to-me book that illuminated a point the outliners wanted to make for the students. And because it was public domain, we could quote it extensively.

So you're helping educate the world here.

I'm proofing in three languages (not much in French, though).
The books are fascinating.

We all know why we volunteer here on h2g2: because we love the site and want to 'give back' a little. It is the same for DP. I so enjoy being able to download books for free, I decided I'd try to help prepare them and preserve them at the same time, because most are out of print).

>>why we volunteer here on h2g2: because we love the site and want to 'give back' a little

Because I love the world and want to give back a little.

That's a very good reason, Gnomon.

Is that the same Gutenberg as I have been using to get non (c) books to download onto my wife's Kindle? How very lovely of you to proofread all those books for us. It must have taken you all day.

It's taken me a year, Vestie. Tell your wife it was time well spent.

seriously, I've proofread 1321 pages and 'formatted' 85 in this year. I had quite a prolonged break in this year but have got back into it for a couple of months now.

It's an amazing project. I thought there was some computer program that did it all. Are the pages scanned and then passed on to proof readers to correct? Do you have a copy of the original for comparison?

congratulations Mrs proofreader

takes me all my time to read as I'm writing

Cheers, Prof.

The pages are scanned. Sometimes, we can use google scans, but often, it's people who scan the pages. Then they're prepared with OCR software, and you compare the OCR output with the image of the original page. This sin't as easy as it sounds, it depends on the quality of the original, the quality of the scan, and what the OCR software makes of it all. Most of the old German books are printed in gothic, and you have to be good at reading gothic to pick up the 'scannos'. It is of advantage if you know the language of the things you are proofreading, because if something is unclear, it helps if you know how it should be.
For example, the OCR scanned: Wenden (which is a tribe), but it should be 'Wänden' (walls). Both words exist, but only one is correct in the context.

<--- to keep you going

That's my clever sister, that is!

Bel - this is a great act of service you are doing for the world. I had no idea how this site got all the books in a readable state.

What a generous use of your time - I shall think of you when I use it.

Thanks all.

As long as others enjoy the results as much as I do (which was the reason why I signed up with them), that's great - I'll have my time well spent then.

Is the Gutenberg Project the one that also uses Captchas to try to identify poorly-printed words?

RF

Well done, Bel!

I can't say. I have never been involved in the scanning process, and I haven't a clue how exactly the books are prepared so they can be posted for proofreading. I *know* that a lot of work is necessary to prepare a book, though. The one who puts the project up has to create lists of words the dictionary should accept or reject, and, especially for the old German books, tell the dictionary which words it should always mark so you have a second look at them (u and n look very similar and are often confused by the OCR, as are s and f in the gothic font).

I think it is Google who use captchas to identify difficult-to-read words. My company certainly uses captchas provided by Google for identification of customers, and I've heard that for some of them, Google doesn't know what the correct reading is.

Hi Bel, congrats on your year and I also think it's a great thing you're doing! I've made use of Gutenberg books a few times.

I think most people did at some point. I had been using it for a long time (although not much) and then one day I saw the link to DP. I decided it would be better for my purse if I volunteered and not donated.