Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

JimDandy

(7,318 posts)
Mon Apr 15, 2013, 01:00 PM Apr 2013

Great effort by Volunteers of Distributed Proofreaders!

This is an update to poster,The_Straight_Story's, March 27th request for volunteers for this project.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Massive Volunteer Collective Proofreads 25,000 Public-Domain Books

Appreciating the massive, 100,000-person effort to steadfastly mind our literary commons

Rebecca J. Rosen
Apr 10 2013, 4:18 PM ET


Give these people a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, because they surely deserve one: As of today, 100,000 people around the world have taken part in a massive proofreading project to correct the electronic texts of 25,000 publicly available books on the Project Gutenberg site.

Project Gutenberg relies on computers to "read" scanned books and convert the print into e-book-ready texts. The problem with this is that when it comes to reading a scanned text, a computer's "eyes" are inferior to a human's. In the process, tons of small errors creep in -- and humans are the only machines we have for ferreting them out. This is where the Distributed Proofreaders project comes in.

...it's (a)...persnickety, thankless task the 100,000-odd volunteers of Distributed Proofreaders have taken care of over the last decade. As a result, 25,000 of Project Gutenberg's e-books aren't just free; they're free of small, computer-induced copy mistakes too.

So let their work not be thankless after all, and let us say thank you to everyone who spent their time taking care of our literary commons.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/massive-volunteer-collective-proofreads-25-000-public-domain-books/274876/

3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Great effort by Volunteers of Distributed Proofreaders! (Original Post) JimDandy Apr 2013 OP
I also give thanks to the volunteer readers on the internet archives site who create free audiobooks freshwest Apr 2013 #1
Great Work for many people who need the audiobooks.....nt Stuart G Apr 2013 #2
Excellent. K&R! n/t OneGrassRoot Apr 2013 #3
Latest Discussions»Culture Forums»Good News»Great effort by Volunteer...