User talk:EncycloPetey/Archives/2011

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2011, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Current work from existing scanned texts?

Gday. The work that you are currently adding, is it from a scanned source? If it is at somewhere like http://www.archive.org, then we can look to get the scan and have it loaded at Commons, and be able to work off that as a .djvu, and have the advantage of being able to import the text layer from the file, and proofread it and transclude it. If it is, then please get back to me, and I will help set this up. billinghurst (talk) 14:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

No, unfortunately I am not working from a scanned source but from Gutenberg (as indicated by the templates). Work is slow because I want to read the text thoroughly as I go and add explanatory notes while the information is fresh in my mind. I know of no scanned copy of the text. However, If someone were to scan a First Folio copy of certain Shakespeare plays, I have a strong inclination to work on Henry V, Richard II, Macbeth, or Romeo and Juliet as my next WS project. I own a facsimile copy of the First Folio, but don't know the legal implications of scanning such a facsimile, and so hesitate to do that myself. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I do see http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22The%20History%20of%20Tom%20Jones%22 these are different? billinghurst sDrewth 05:14, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Which item? Different from what? You didn't provide enough context for me to know what you're talking about. I see an audio recording, an 1887 digitized copy (not the original 1749), and a number of other things on the page to which you linked. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

It is completely legal to copy a facsimile, so long as you exclude modern material, definitely including new notes, but probably not including purely mechanical things like line numbers.

Are you still working on "The History of Tom Jones"? If so, let me know if you would like to collaborate on this. --Gavin.collins (talk) 14:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am still working on that text, but I have started a new job that limits my Wiki-contribution time. I have been doing Tom Jones as an extended project, and hope to make another great push in a couple of weeks. Collaboration with another person would not be simple. I have tried collaboration before, and it resulted in slower progress than working alone. However, I can't speak firmly against collaboration without knowing what kind of collaboration you have in mind. If you have access to scanned pages of a 1749 copy of the novel, then I would be very much interested in collaborating. If you have some other idea in mind, you would need to express the nature of the proposed collaboration. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry to hear you believe collaboration would result in slower progress. I doubt that anyone has access to scanned pages of a 1749 copy, as the reproduction rights (with GNU Free Documentation License) would be valuable, and have to be bought from, say, the British Library, whilst the purchase of a first edition would probably cost in excess of $22,000. However, it might be possible to purchase a reprint of the 1st or 2nd edition, but identifing such a publication is not my area of expertise.

It is not clear from the Bibliographic Record as to which edition the Project Gutenberg version actually represents. Have you any idea yourself if it is a copy of the 1749 text or a later version? --Gavin.collins (talk) 12:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

No, unfortunately I do not know which editions was used, but there are enough clues in a careful reading of the text to make me believe it is an 18th or early 19th century version. I've been comparing against a modernized edition that I've been reading along with the text, and occasionally find archaic spellings and such that help to date the edition. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I have found an ordered what appears to be an old facsimile copy for rather cheap. It should arrive within a month or two according to the bookseller. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

[unindenting] My suggestion would be to tackle Fielding's 1751 novel Amelia, which has a Gutenberg text available, but (as you can see from the red link here and at Author:Henry Fielding) has not even been begun yet. It's on my list of "to-do" items after I finish Tom Jones, but if you tackle that one, then I won't have to worry about it.

Part of the problem of collaboration in uploading is the potential for inconsistency in style, coupled with the fact that everything has to be double-checked. If you upload large sections of text, I have no way of being certain they're from the same source or were copied correctly or formatted the same way without checking everything again. So, a dual project really doesn't speed things up unless there is a clear division of labor set up and collaborators who know each other's working methods. Since you don't seem to have done much on WikiSource yet, I can't form any opinion about your editing style to know how a collaboration would turn out.

I'd recommend starting with the same sort of approach I started with: pick a text that doesn't exist yet, and that you think you can handle, and go for it. I started with a missing Tennyson poem "Ode to Memory" before trying anything longer. There is just so many texts that haven't even been started that I'm constantly dismayed at what's missing. I want to see more plays, especially First Folio editions of Shakespeare, and some of those are "next" on my list. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I have trascribed the discussion to Talk:The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, where I have a further question I need you to answer. --Gavin.collins (talk) 15:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm

FWIW... a not-too-good scan on GoogleBooks - http://books.google.com/books?id=yigJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA3 — George Orwell III (talk) 01:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Most of my requests come when I find a work that is referenced or alluded in in Fielding's Tom Jones, which I am currently working on. I may be able to atend to a (relatively) short item like the "Letter" once that is finished, assuming that I can figure out a way to extract the b.g.c text for OCR. Do we have the means of utilizing their scanned pages for djvu? --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Tom Jones

I don't undersatnd the reason for move numerous pages that will only need to be moved back into the main namespace.

I don't see a problem, when it is finished you can move it back.

All but one of the pages that was up was itself complete, proofread, and so I don't see how they were "problematic".

The work appears to be half finished, not 'all but one page'. I found something problematic, if I recall correctly it was the mixed editions.

Only the latest book was not yet fully edited, and only the books not yet entered were truly incomplete.

If you were reading it, wouldn't you think that was a problem?

If we're start moving problematic texts out of the main namespace, then I suggest starting with all the Shakespeare plays, as none of them follow any source I've examined and appear to be unidentified modern editions from unspecified sources.

Indeed. The shabby transcription of one his texts was the subject of newspaper story. Some of those works are being repaired, using scans, the rest should be moved from main-space. It is better to have nothing than a text with dubious integrity.

By comparison, the "Tom Jones" text is identified as coming from Gutenberg and has been checked again another restored edition.

Mixed editions are problematic. A PG text is acceptable, so is typing in your 'restored edition', but they are different 'sources'.

Yes, it's incomplete, but it's only temporarily idle. I've been constently working on it for a very long time, and will continue again in about two weeks when I again have a block of time to do so.

I noticed, since 2007. You can continue to do so, how does the move affect that?

The work is rather intensive, so I can't usually get it done except when I have time off work.

If you follow the suggestion above to use a scan, you could accept the offer from the collaborator. The primary task is to make the complete and 'clean' text available, you might then think about making an annotated edition, if that is what you are doing. As it is, only you know what is going on and, as you explained above, collaboration is not possible.

It really would have been polite to post a query to me before dismantling the text. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't 'dismantle' anything. You know how to read an edit summary, I know you know how to use a wiki. The edit history is intact, it's not like I deleted your edits and refuse to have see them restored, or impulsively made questionable changes without a word to you ;) I moved it, move it back when it is useful to a reader, when it is complete. If you had nominated an edition, found a scan, you could take all the time you like by using the Page:namespace. If you proposed it as candidate for 'Proofread of the Month', then it would probably be done by now. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 03:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

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• While you are here: My SUL is not working at wiktionary: it was fine, then wasn't, then was again, but is now cactus. Is this a known issue there? Can please investigate why that is, and how it can be fixed. Thanks in advance. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 03:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)