Hi Members,
I know that I have been unable to copyedit much of the current version of Quarto. I am truly sorry about this. Unfortunately, I have been dealing with some rather serious medical problems.
I did read both Sj's and Anthere's remarks on the state of WQ/3 and their plans to announce publication this Monday. I, immediately, went to the site, in hopes that someone had done some of the copyediting/proofreading, which I have been unable to get to. Unfortunately, other than the removal of some material, I see neither copyediting nor proofreading done on the English version.
Therefore, there remain numerous proofreading errors and some copyediting errors. Further there are numerous references to events, etc. after March 31.
I really think you should reconsider whether publication at this time is appropriate. The Quarto, in a way, represents Wikimedia. To publish it full of errors does nothing to improve our image.
Further, I feel that no task should depend on the availability of one member. I did contact everyone, who signed up as a copyeditor. As far as I can tell, there are no other active English copyeditors. This is a bad situation.
I am including just a few errors, to give you an idea of the sort of problems that still exist in this edition.
Page 3 - Overview
With the collected money, we already purchased some technical equipment (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware) in 2005. Last orders were done in january (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_January_2005) and may (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_May_2005). Less purchases were done than expected early 2005 due to the numerous hosting proposals we received.
The donator of the first french squids donated three additional ones, soon to be hosted by Lost Oasis for free. In early april, the Wikimedia Foundation signed an agreement with Yahoo ! (see special report below).
Page 3 - Caches Installed near Paris
The caches work as follows: if they hold the requested page in their local memory, they serve it directly; otherwise, they forward the request to the main Florida servers, and memorizes the answer while passing it to the browser of the Wikipedia user.
The Paris servers, on the other hand, have much smaller rountrip times from the countries they serve.
I, sincerely, hope you will reconsider your decision. I think all contributing members, who speak English, should read the English version and express their opinions.
As Ever,
Ruth Ifcher
--
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Sj <2.718281828(a)gmail.com>
> A constellation of counterpoints.
>
> > First, Sj reported that we now really have a design team, taking care of the
> > images, cover and pdf version. I saw a couple of days ago an example of a
> > pdf version and I was really impressed; I can't wait :-) When do you
> > perceive the pdf will be available ? One week ? More ?
>
> My plan is to finish the English version by tomorrow (yes, so it can
> be announced on Monday!), and to have draft pdf pages for an octavo (a
> 16-pg layout) sometime next week.
> I have to talk to zanimum and schneelocke to make sure this is possible.
>
> > I'll dig up the last announcement made for Quarto2 and will put it in meta
> > pages for improvement. It would be great to announce at the same time the
> > mail system is now up and a PDF version will be available.
>
> Good. I think we can safely announce that we will release a pdf
> version of WQ3; that should be translated also. There are currently
> 66 people signed up to receive this mail.
>
> > I think this version was definitly easier than issue 1 and 2, so the way the
> pages are
> > cut/displayed might be the good solution.
>
> There seems to be general agreement here :-) And I also hope that
> people will feel more free to just add their content directly; or at
> least to create meta pages directly with complete articles. We have
> been encouraging that of all contributors to this past edition;
> I will more actively moderate the draft pages so that new contributors
> feel welcome.
>
> > Fifth, Sj, could it be possible that you put the working frame of version
> > number 4 as soon as possible.
>
> Yes, perhaps as soon as Monday. The draft page for WQ 4, for anyone
> who has lost it among the growing number of Quarto pages, is here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/Draft/future
>
> It will be moved to [[m:WQ/Draft]] once the current English edition is
> finalized.
> --
> +sj+
> _______________________________________________
> Quarto-l mailing list
> Quarto-l(a)mail.wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/quarto-l
Hi All,
I have no answer to Anthere's questions concerning what to do about Quarto/3. I am simply writing to clarify two statements I made in my email.
First, I let both Anthere and Sj, the Editor-in-Chief of Quarto, know that I had to stop copyediting Quarto/3, a while ago (probably around May 26,) due to medical problems. I have no desire to share the nature of these problems.
Second, the examples, which I cited from Quarto/3 were exactly that...examples. If it were simply a question of correcting a few sentences, of course, I would have done it. Unfortunately, these examples were a few of many, many, errors that remain in Quarto/3.
I hope this corrects the impression, which I seem to have given, that there were 2 or 3 remaining errors left in Quarto/3. And, that I chose ot point them out, rather than correcting them.
As Ever,
Ruth Ifcher
--
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com>
> Hi
>
> I think it would have been more efficient Rose, if you
> had directly copyedited the few points you mention
> here, rather than take the time to explain them here
> and we wait for someone to fix them.
>
> I frankly do not know what to do. We rely on volunteer
> work entirely. If people do not do something, there
> are only three options
>
> * We close our eyes and keep what is poorly done this
> way. We just sigh and move on. The consequences being
> mostly we appear like jerks, leaving typos,
> inconsistencies ...
>
> * We decide to stop the whole stuff, wait for no one
> to come and do the job and end up not publishing
> anything. The main consequence would here typically to
> hear again that the board communicate nothing of what
> it does, and act in a non transparent way. This is
> essentially what has been happening for the whole
> month. Editing has been finished for several weeks and
> we have been waiting in hope people help. No
> proofreading was done. At some point, that means
> either no one is ready to do the job, so what is the
> point waiting ? or that means the whole content is
> perfect.
>
> * We do the job ourselves, even if non english, even
> if proofreading is a job we know nothing about. Sorry,
> I will not do that. I do not have the time.
>
> I am perplex about what to do. I had *hoped* that this
> quarto could be published last month. It was delayed.
> I had hoped it could be published during board
> candidacies. It was delayed. I had hoped it could be
> published during elections. It was delayed. It makes
> little sense to publish things 6 months after they
> occured.
>
> Currently, the proofreading process is the one working
> the least. All steps are difficult, but this one is
> the most difficult one, because we wait for things to
> improve and nothing happens.
>
> I frankly do not know what to do. I just know I am all
> for the board giving more information to the community
> and making it available widely. But this requires help
> from many people. If information is never given before
> 6 months each time, I think we should give up hoping
> to give information this way entirely.
>
> I really hope someone can give me some insight on this
> matter.
>
>
> Ant
>
> --- rose.parks(a)att.net wrote:
>
> > Hi Members,
> >
> > I know that I have been unable to copyedit much
> > of the current version of Quarto. I am truly sorry
> > about this. Unfortunately, I have been dealing with
> > some rather serious medical problems.
> > I did read both Sj's and Anthere's remarks on
> > the state of WQ/3 and their plans to announce
> > publication this Monday. I, immediately, went to the
> > site, in hopes that someone had done some of the
> > copyediting/proofreading, which I have been unable
> > to get to. Unfortunately, other than the removal of
> > some material, I see neither copyediting nor
> > proofreading done on the English version.
> > Therefore, there remain numerous proofreading
> > errors and some copyediting errors. Further there
> > are numerous references to events, etc. after March
> > 31.
> >
> > I really think you should reconsider whether
> > publication at this time is appropriate. The Quarto,
> > in a way, represents Wikimedia. To publish it full
> > of errors does nothing to improve our image.
> > Further, I feel that no task should depend on
> > the availability of one member. I did contact
> > everyone, who signed up as a copyeditor. As far as I
> > can tell, there are no other active English
> > copyeditors. This is a bad situation.
> > I am including just a few errors, to give you
> > an idea of the sort of problems that still exist in
> > this edition.
> >
> > Page 3 - Overview
> > With the collected money, we already purchased some
> > technical equipment
> > (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware) in 2005.
> > Last orders were done in january
> >
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_January_2005)
> > and may
> >
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_May_2005).
> > Less purchases were done than expected early 2005
> > due to the numerous hosting proposals we received.
> >
> > The donator of the first french squids donated three
> > additional ones, soon to be hosted by Lost Oasis for
> > free. In early april, the Wikimedia Foundation
> > signed an agreement with Yahoo ! (see special report
> > below).
> >
> > Page 3 - Caches Installed near Paris
> >
> > The caches work as follows: if they hold the
> > requested page in their local memory, they serve it
> > directly; otherwise, they forward the request to the
> > main Florida servers, and memorizes the answer while
> > passing it to the browser of the Wikipedia user.
> >
> > The Paris servers, on the other hand, have much
> > smaller rountrip times from the countries they
> > serve.
> >
> > I, sincerely, hope you will reconsider your
> > decision. I think all contributing members, who
> > speak English, should read the English version and
> > express their opinions.
> >
> > As Ever,
> >
> > Ruth Ifcher
> >
> > --
Hello all,
A collection of points.
First, Sj reported that we now really have a design team, taking care of the images, cover and pdf version. I saw a couple of days ago an example of a pdf version and I was really impressed; I can't wait :-) When do you perceive the pdf will be available ? One week ? More ?
Second, I would like to know if the last people working on the version 3 think it will be okay to announce it officially (the english version) on monday (for the publication of the Sign Post) ? Is it possible to have the english version transferred on WikimediaFoundation site by monday or is it best to wait for another week ? Waiting another week will jump to next month, I think it would be great if it could be done by *this* monday. What do you think Sj ?
I'll dig up the last announcement made for Quarto2 and will put it in meta pages for improvement. It would be great to announce at the same time the mail system is now up and a PDF version will be available.
Third, depending on what was just written above, when could the email be sent ? (for the english version) Are they some things left to do so that the mail can be send ? How can we help ? Since I am on it, do we have an idea of how many people are now registered to receive that mail ? It might be worth mentionning somewhere.
Fourth, I started reworking pages on meta, so as to clarify the various departement in which people work. Roughly, I perceive 1) editing, 2) design, 3) translation, 4) distribution. I'll try to clarify the pages a bit more, in particular so that the editing process is easier. I think this version was definitly easier than issue 1 and 2, so the way the pages are cut/displayed might be the good solution. One thing I would like to though is that people feel more empowered to directly add a report, so as to reduce the work on others, with possibly unecessary steps. Opinions welcome
Fifth, Sj, could it be possible that you put the working frame of version number 4 as soon as possible. I think it is time we start looking for next issue content, and the easiest way is to know where to put things. I already ask two people for reports, Guaka, for the Mali experiment (he already started it); Clare-Marie White for the Rwanda issue on wikinews (also agreed). I'll try to drive Amikeco in if I can as well.
I'll see soon with Sj what we can get in the Foundation report. Meanwhile, you are all welcome to have ideas for the projects report, suggest names of people with a story to tell us...
Each version shows improvement. So, I am real glad :-) I felt particularly happy that Fruggo and others were finishing the Quarto 2 translation these days.
Ant
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