I'm new to the proofreading project, but was directed to this page in particular because I speak German and can (fairly) easily read the old-style Fraktur type … unlike the OCR software, which completely lost its mind here.
I have a specific question about the practice when a small part of the scan is illegible; specifically, on the right side at the bottom of the German text, there's one word that appears to just be missing. There's really only one thing that the word could be, from context, so I added the inferred word but put it in (parentheses). I trust someone can figure out the right thing to do when proofreading.
Bdmcmahon (talk) 00:11, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you for doing this. Fraktur is not a favourite typeface! I've checked the same page in an alternate scan and the blank is there as well. As a result, I think it best to simply omit the inferred word. We tend to fall on the side of reproducing exactly what's printed. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 00:50, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- @Beeswaxcandle, @Bdmcmahon:Oops. Sorry guys if I just blithely overwrote your efforts. I have been working through the designated images on the assumption that only the English translations in the appendix need to be transliterated. I only noticed your discussion in hindsight, so completely your call: happy to revert if you want your efforts restored. AuFCL (talk) 04:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- I made some attempt at recovering your work. However the transcluded result is now fairly awful (see Secrets_of_Crewe_House/Chapter_7#Img38), due to the front- and back- of the leaflets now rendering with completely different dimensions. Do you mind if I revert to my image-only version? AuFCL (talk) 05:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- The actual text for these "images" should be available somehow though. Would it work as alt-text? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:58, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- Is there some way to show both the text and the image for cases like this? That would be even more important on the next page (261), which has both maps and Fraktur text. I'm perfectly willing to do the text there, too, but would prefer to do it the right way … if I can figure out what that is. Bdmcmahon (talk) 06:13, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- Just as a test I applied Bdmcmahon's text to the image version (I did not strip formatting as I thought the length alone would be a killer.) To my utter shock the result is not as bad as I feared (although it will never be pretty.) Any suggestions as to whether there is any advantage in leaving the formatting in place, or is it better stripped out? AuFCL (talk) 09:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- The main use of alt-text is screen readers. The modern ones can interpret italics and bold for emphasis, but other than that it's just text. For me on FF 30.0 with Win7, it's just displaying as a block of text without paragraphing. The amount of text I can see depends on where on the image the mouse is hovering. This leads me to ponder the possibility of setting up hotspots for each paragraph to have the text for that paragraph appear. I can't remember how to do this, but I've seen it somewhere in WikiWorld. The amount effort to make it work is probably beyond the value. However, as Bdmcmahon implies (without knowing it), the next page would look good if it could be done this way. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 10:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- I think you mean mw:Extension:ImageMap? —Clockery Fairfeld (ƒ=ma) 12:58, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- The traditional application for alt-text may be screen readers, sure. But I'd guess that there is at least one or two readers out there who can manage basic German, but has trouble with Fraktur. So I would think that there would be some value in making the German text available in some (visually) readable form. After all, isn't that the point behind transcribing the original scans in English, too? Bdmcmahon (talk) 02:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
- The main use of alt-text is screen readers. The modern ones can interpret italics and bold for emphasis, but other than that it's just text. For me on FF 30.0 with Win7, it's just displaying as a block of text without paragraphing. The amount of text I can see depends on where on the image the mouse is hovering. This leads me to ponder the possibility of setting up hotspots for each paragraph to have the text for that paragraph appear. I can't remember how to do this, but I've seen it somewhere in WikiWorld. The amount effort to make it work is probably beyond the value. However, as Bdmcmahon implies (without knowing it), the next page would look good if it could be done this way. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 10:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- Just as a test I applied Bdmcmahon's text to the image version (I did not strip formatting as I thought the length alone would be a killer.) To my utter shock the result is not as bad as I feared (although it will never be pretty.) Any suggestions as to whether there is any advantage in leaving the formatting in place, or is it better stripped out? AuFCL (talk) 09:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- I made some attempt at recovering your work. However the transcluded result is now fairly awful (see Secrets_of_Crewe_House/Chapter_7#Img38), due to the front- and back- of the leaflets now rendering with completely different dimensions. Do you mind if I revert to my image-only version? AuFCL (talk) 05:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
- @Beeswaxcandle, @Bdmcmahon:Oops. Sorry guys if I just blithely overwrote your efforts. I have been working through the designated images on the assumption that only the English translations in the appendix need to be transliterated. I only noticed your discussion in hindsight, so completely your call: happy to revert if you want your efforts restored. AuFCL (talk) 04:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)