VMs: RE: Numbered transcription

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nick wrote:
> The line is the smallest unit of unambiguous agreement,
> not the smallest
> unit of meaning. Any of us could point to probably
> hundreds of cases where
> the case for and against a "word" division could be
> debated endlessly. And
> should a double-space between words be encoded the same
> as a single space?
> And so on.
>
> Surely the process here is of agreeing a container
> within which our diverse
> ideas and opinions can be held and compared against each other?

Nick,
I'd have to agree that the 'word' is not the easiest thing to sort
out sometimes, so numbering the 'word' may have very little use.
As it was pointed out, if someone wishes to display the
information in that manner, it's an easy thing to generate from a
database.  Still, word lengths and structures are studied in depth
by many, so trying to get the breaks as accurate as possible is a
common goal.

I've done some reading on the PHP idea, but I wonder about display
capabilities.  The font is in development stages, and won't be
releasable until the whole of the VMS is transcribed and discussed
in this setting.  As we've already tested, web-based fonts do not
work on all browsers, so that's pretty much out as well.  Simple
but effective is the goal here.

I guess at least temporarily I'm back to my old idea of a
passworded Word.doc.  The font can be imbedded in these documents,
so there's no need to load it manually, and since the font is not
yet a finished product, it can be set to remove itself when the
document is closed.  The finished product will of course be in
database and interlinear form, but the initial collaborative
effort includes cut-and-paste images from the VMS, so they should
be stored in a password directory and have a password on the
document itself.  Changes can be made to the document by those who
have the password, and the document returned by e-mail, since Word
has a neat function that can compare two documents and combine
revisions in its display, so the master can be analyzed and
updated as necessary.

I know we have a few out there who are still poking away on Wang
or Wordstar 1.0, and storing everything on 8 1/2" floppy disks or
8-track tape drives.  For them I can do little more in the line of
accomodation than express my sympathy.  For those without Word but
have a browser written in the last 5 years, Microsoft has a free
Word Viewer that will at least display these pages with the proper
password, and comments can be made via e-mail.

I can set up a form that makes you declare you're not going to go
pasting VMS images all over the net before allowing a download,
but the use of the images during the discussion stage is necessary
for visualization, speed and accuracy, a key feature of this
effort.  Any public display of these files would require
Beinecke's permission.  I am already in the process of compiling a
sample of the database to send to Beinecke with a request to use
the images in this manner, but these discussion pages are
temporary and not public as the database is intended to be, so
I'll sloth it off on these.

If this is suitable until we've come up with something much
better, this will fit the bill of 'more direct' proofing, and I
can get the first 120 pages or so on the site fairly quickly, in
single-page files for 14.4 snail modems.  (anybody remember the
BBS days when it took only 7 minutes to download a picture of
Cheryl Tiegs in 16 color CGA resolution, but took two weeks of
programming to get your modem protocol to work with the BBS?  I
long for the good old days! :-))

With 9 ballplayers on the field and 50,000 spectators, I don't
expect too much participation, but I do expect that initially
we'll have some 'healthy' debate about my opening glyph
identifications! :-)  Nothing's written in stone, and fortunately
for me and my shadow{ego}, even I question some of them.  But hey,
pepperoni's what it's all about.  Don't hit me with that
pepperoni-lite - it doesn't bruise enough to even say "ouch!".

GC