This is a follow up to the previous newsletter release from Michael Hart requesting volunteers to help with error correction in PG text’s. As a response to Michael’s request a new page has been set up on the PG Wiki: ErrorCorrection.
PG is currently using a Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system for dealing with errata but the Wiki post also talks of the possibility of setting up a new Error Correction Team (ECT) that would handle all aspects of the process.
The ECT would take an errata ticket from the RT system, locate the lines in the file for correction, also using the Tinsley trio of checks: Gutcheck, Jeebies and Gutspell (as do our regular contributors), which pick up many additional errors beyond the errata reports. Once the ETC has finished they would pass this along to the Whitewashers, who would make their normal checks after which they would upload the file to the Gutenberg archive.
There are currently 1,100 open tickets in the system and the Wiki page suggests that if we can get 30-40 volunteers to do 1 hour a week, we could fix those in one year. Of course, if we can get more volunteers working more than one hour per week, then it would take only a handful of months!
One suggestion from the Wiki and on Chris Gray’s Blog, is to get the Distributed Proofreaders involved in the error correction process. I completely agree. There is already a huge community involved with the DP and I feel it would be perfect to move the correction process to their own established system.
Either way, it’s great to see progress on this subject