Talk:Select British Eloquence

Note to people who might like to help
Hi, all. This book is my first project for Wikisource, and since it's about 950 pages of very small print (from the preface: "each page contains the matter of three ordinary octavo pages in Pica type"), I'd much appreciate some help. BUT, the version on google books (found here) is the 1853 edition and contains errors (some very subtle, to do with dates, variations on phrasing transcriptions, etc) that are corrected in the 1865 edition, which I have hardcopy. Therefore, I'd like to request that you not use the google books version to "correct" the transcriptions already done. However, any new chapters that you would like to transcribe from google's version would be extremely welcome: I will note those that I haven't done personally (though it might be nice to tell me on my talk to make sure I don't miss them), and copyedit them relative to the 1865 edition.

It would be better if all wikipages of this book were consistent, so I'd ask that you follow the "conventions" that I've set up so far (which follow the standards on wikisource, inasmuch as I have understood them). A few speeches are already on wikisource. I think that there is an argument for them to be duplicated here, as the footnotes and explanations that Goodrich provides are valuable, but don't belong in the "canonical" version, also the header's "previous" and "next" links are useful, as this is de facto an anthology (which is, incidentally, also why I have linked the TOC on each page except the preface, where it is linked as the "previous" chapter automagically)... I suggest leaving these (e.g. Walpole's Speech against the legislative union of England and Scotland cf. Speech against the Union) empty for now, until a good solution can be found--this can wait, as there is so much work to do with the uncontroversial aspects of the transcription of the book. Many thanks, all! --Storkk 16:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

PS. I will be adding en.wikilinks very sparingly, except for in the preface. Adding links is a long, laborious process because "Lord FooBar" almost always refers to a large number of people. I propose adding links in the footnotes where possible, as they are really elucidations of Goodrich's elucidations. But that's just my opinion. --Storkk 16:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you have access to a scanner, you can upload the images. If the page scans are good quality images, the pages can then be automatically converted to text using OCR software, and we can all help fix the OCR and proofread the pages. John Vandenberg 00:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion. I do have a scanner, but unfortunately my copy is rather delicate, and I won't be putting it through the ordeal of scanning each page. OCR software tends to choke on this type of layout, also: two columns with uneven footnote heights in an old and un-OCR-friendly font. The Google books version is downloadable as a PDF (though it's 70ish MB), and is almost the same--the best solution I see is manual proofreading if anyone wants to use the 1853 version to help add pages. This is just my 2 cents, though (except that I'm not putting my copy through the scanner)--any thoughts are of course welcome. --Storkk 00:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if this link is semi-permanent or not, but this is the general format, and is what makes OCR unappealing. --Storkk 01:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No worries. It looks like there isn't much benefit in having the page scans. John Vandenberg 01:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)