Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

FAQ, comments and suggestions
kattekliek
Posts: 74
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 09:15
Location: The Netherlands

Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by kattekliek »

The title says it all ... Let's continue the discussion we had elsewhere :)

Viktor, you have already gained a lot of experience for the German language part. We should expand (technically, legally, socially) to include more +70 countries and their respective languages. Would it be a good idea to set up forum subsections for the main EU languages (we already have English and German; could add French and perhaps Spanish on short notice?), with native speakers managing these parts. In this way, the forum will also be interesting for people who are not confident in writing in English. Perhaps in the further future also smaller languages (like Dutch ;)) can be included, but this doesn't seem highest priority to me.

And then the goal of this community. I would think: to record and issue audio books of texts that are in the public domain in EU and other +70 countries - publication date from 1923. Everything published in 1922 or earlier can be done at librivox.org - located in US (and hence following US copyright regulations). It would not make sense to do things double, and they already have a very good infrastructure and a big catalogue of pre-1923 books.

Just my 2 €-cents to start with :)
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

Yes to add the French language! I'd be happy to help with that if someone tells me how :)
Nadine
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

Yes to the French part!
I'd be happy to help :)
Nadine
User avatar
Viktor
Posts: 602
Joined: Mon 4. Jul 2005, 01:24
Location: France

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Viktor »

Language subthreads: I thought about that... but I'd argue for copying the LV system. We agree that we only want to do works that cannot be in LV. To my surprise, all European readers seem to be happy with English over there. If we now have language subforums, we risk to attract folks who only speak their native language, and we'll have a hard time convincing them to do LV-compatible stuff over at LV.

I propose instead to keep English as the most common "working language", but for reading books, thread titles should contain the language, as in "[GERMAN] Joseph Roth, Radetzkymarsch". Within those threads people can, of course, communicate in their language. That way we can include non-English speakers without making them too dependent on this particular forum. Europe is a beautiful chaos of languages, the goal is to preserve its richness without fragmenting too much.

Now, for the catalogue of course, that one should be as multilingual as possible!

Community goal:
kattekliek wrote:I would think: to record and issue audio books of texts that are in the public domain in EU and other +70 countries - publication date from 1923. Everything published in 1922 or earlier can be done at librivox.org - located in US (and hence following US copyright regulations). It would not make sense to do things double, and they already have a very good infrastructure and a big catalogue of pre-1923 books.
That's nearly exactly what I entered as the "description" of the category "Coordination of recordings...", but that description does not seem to get displayed anywhere. Will fix that in the days to come.
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

We have been discussing subfora in different languages at LV too. Especially for the French (and Portuguese I think) a lot of people are scared away by English.
but starting in English is good too!

Sorry about the double post above, I did not see the post had to be approved before appearing, so I thought I had hit preview and not submit.
Nadine
Hokuspokus
Posts: 762
Joined: Mon 11. Aug 2008, 11:40
Location: Germany

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Hokuspokus »

Thank you so much, Viktor for your kind invitation!
I really like the let's read together part. Was it there before? :oops:

At the moment this forum has to parts. The upper part is where we'll do the LV work, the lower part is Viktor's old forum, also about recording books of free text, but not directly LV related. This is not the German translation of the upper part.

Regarding the LV part - this is English only at the moment, I would like to make some suggestions:
I'd really like to have subforums for other languages, not for the actual work but for information, suggestions, questions, ...
When we look at LV, English is the strongest language, followed by French, Dutch and German with about the same activity. That the number of German recordings in the catalog is so high, does not mean the Germans record so much more than the French and Dutch. It's because each single recording in the Sammlung kurzer deutscher Prosa (German Short Story Collection) counts 1 in the database. 31 collections with 10 or 15 recording = more than 300 plus. Dutch actually is one of the strongest languages.
So I think we should have subforums in every language we have a repayable person who is willing to look after.
French - Nadine (neckertb) and Viktor(?)
German - Hokuspokus and Viktor (?)
Dutch - kattekliek (would you like?)
Portuguese - Leni (?)

The actual working topics should be all in one subforum, tagged [LANGUAGE]. I don't think we need extra subforums for Short Works, Books and Drama. I guess we will have 3-5 active projects in each language. They would all fit in one "Readers Wanted" subforum.
Book Suggestions and Listeners & Editors Wanted should go to each language subforum.
If you like this suggestion, I *think* I can find my way through the machinery and make it.

Another thing I'd like to do different from LV is the work of the BC. I'd like to have the BC being the DPL for their project as a rule. There might be cases when the BC can't do that, or when the BC records some chapter himself. In these cases other PLers can be found.
The work flow is so much better when the BC does the PL. I always do that with my BC projects.
If we do it that way and as long as we don't have some sort of uploader, the readers could send their recordings by mail directly to the BC.
The BC could check tech specs, correct ID tags and other small issues, and when the project is complete, send it to the MC or even directly upload it to the final host, depending on how we will host the files. Maybe all the MC has to do, is generating some sort of catalog page.

As kattekliek suggested over at LV, it might be a good idea to make smaller files. The 64 kbps version automatically generated be Archive sounds reasonably good. But I wouldn't want to go smaller than that.

To bring our recordings to the attention of the listeners, we could add them to Open Library http://openlibrary.org/
Adding the online source there (if not already there) would help them to improve their data, too. It is not that complicated.
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

I forgot: where are we going to host the files?

And yes, me happy to stand for the French part. i translated most of the LV wikipages to French anyway :)
Nadine
Hokuspokus
Posts: 762
Joined: Mon 11. Aug 2008, 11:40
Location: Germany

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Hokuspokus »

Viktor wrote:Language subthreads: I thought about that... but I'd argue for copying the LV system. We agree that we only want to do works that cannot be in LV. To my surprise, all European readers seem to be happy with English over there. If we now have language subforums, we risk to attract folks who only speak their native language, and we'll have a hard time convincing them to do LV-compatible stuff over at LV.
I wouldn't see that as a risk but as a chance to attract people who are not comfortable with English. Once they have made their first steps in a native language atmosphere, they might be much more willing to find their way through the almost English LV forum. We have an ongoing discussion among the LV admins if we should have language subforums. So even LV is not that comfortable with the almost monolingual way we have now.
User avatar
Viktor
Posts: 602
Joined: Mon 4. Jul 2005, 01:24
Location: France

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Viktor »

Just a small note: I'm only able to post lengthy bits at lunchbreak and in the evenings. So you have to wait a bit for my answers ;)

I suggest we look for "reasonable" freehosters (http://dl.free.fr is one, they even allow "communities" of files) and I write a little "tracker wrapper" around them, to have stable links.

This forum has not been used that much and I'm no expert for phpBB3 (actually, I'm rather suspicious to most things PHP). If something doesn't work as you think it should, don't waste time with it, ask in a new thread or an e-mail !
Leni
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 01:43

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Leni »

Hi, all

I can easily help manage a Portuguese subforum area, if that's what's decided. I can help with Spanish as well, while there is no one around that speaks better Spanish than me. :oops: And after 14 years I am going back to studying French so maybe I can grow some confidence in myself and help there too in a couple of months. :mrgreen: If dii decides she would like to help over here, she could deal with Italian...

Agreed though that, if we have subforums in other languages, those should only be the "help" ones, and the "real work" ones should stay all together. Also agreed that, at least to start, we might not even need subforums for Short works, Books, Drama, but just one "Works in progress with open sections" and one "Fully subscribed works in progress" (where all the solos would automatically go).

Finally, I am not very sure about Hokus suggestion of the BC being the DPL. I usually do a lot of PLing in Portuguese in LV anyway, due to lack of people, but that generates two problems: a) that limits much more the amount of projects I can BC, if I will have to PL all of them; b) in solos, the BC is the soloist, we would surely want a different PLer, if possible. So, I think maybe we can point that out as ideal (mainly regarding the file tranferring), but not sure it will be always possible.
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

I agree with Leni about the PL/BC thing. The idea is appealing, but it might be difficult in practice...
Nadine
Hokuspokus
Posts: 762
Joined: Mon 11. Aug 2008, 11:40
Location: Germany

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Hokuspokus »

Well of course BC=PL wouldn't work with solos. I so much depend on dear Elli for my solos and I really hope she will have a look over her.
We can make it a recommendation, not a rule.
kattekliek
Posts: 74
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 09:15
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by kattekliek »

Re. the BC=PL thing: please bear in mind that there are PL'ers that don't (want or can) do anything else. At LV we have a very faithful PL'er listening to hours and hours of Dutch recordings; she doesn't record herself nor would she wish to be involved in all the tech stuff around. I think we should cherish these kind of volunteers, they take away lóts of work. And if the BC (of group projects) more or less by default would be also DPL, this would become harder.
kattekliek
Posts: 74
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 09:15
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by kattekliek »

Hokuspokus wrote:Regarding the LV part - this is English only at the moment, I would like to make some suggestions:
I'd really like to have subforums for other languages, not for the actual work but for information, suggestions, questions, ...
When we look at LV, English is the strongest language, followed by French, Dutch and German with about the same activity. That the number of German recordings in the catalog is so high, does not mean the Germans record so much more than the French and Dutch. It's because each single recording in the Sammlung kurzer deutscher Prosa (German Short Story Collection) counts 1 in the database. 31 collections with 10 or 15 recording = more than 300 plus. Dutch actually is one of the strongest languages.
So I think we should have subforums in every language we have a repayable person who is willing to look after.
Actually I think Dutch is one of the strong non-English languages at LV, a.o. because Dutch are relatively unafraid of English language forums (but also because we have some véry productive members). We even have some Dutch people recórding in English only :D Due to subtitles (and not dubbing) on TV we grow up with the language. Therefore I think that we can manage without a Dutch subforum at least for now. German, French and Spanish seem much more important to me; not only because they are bigger languages, but also because in all these countries TV-shows and movies are usually dubbed and everyday-knowledge of English tends to be less.
Dutch - kattekliek (would you like?)
Not by myself; perhaps if e.g. Bart or Anna (lezer) would join. But see above: I don't see a real need for it to start with. It can also be done in a later stage. But of course I am willing to - hopefully also with help of some fellow Dutch members - to translate/adapt Dutch manuals for the site, like we already have at LV too.
User avatar
Viktor
Posts: 602
Joined: Mon 4. Jul 2005, 01:24
Location: France

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Viktor »

Nadine, Leni, kattekliek, you're all admins now. Due to an unfortunate recent issue, may I ask you to use secure passwords? ;) Everybody is most welcome to use OpenID, but admins must have a local password in phpBB3 in order to access the "Administration Control Panel". Second, could one of you please verify that in that control panel you have access to the forums, but not to the database export ("Maintenance" -> "Database").

Hokuspokus, the "let's play together" subtitle only appeared after your remark in the LV forum ;)

Calling the advent of non-English speakers a "risk" was certainly a lapsus on my part. If you feel that language-specific subforums are a good idea, just go for it when there's a consensus! I only wanted to underline the importance of doing LV-compatible work on LV.

Finally, what's the priority order for technical stuff? About file hosting and stable links I wrote a novel in this thread.

Next, I imagine, comes the catalogue. On the one hand, I'll contact LV to take advantage of their experience. On the other hand, without knowing LV details yet, I aim to make the architecture both robust and open for experiments, with a clear database structure and a separation of database and interface. When then someone comes along and suggests a super-duper cool idea for an improved interface, I can give him read-only access to the database and let him realise his idea, without getting involved too much myself and without compromising on the current interface.

All software I write for this project will be Free and available for any improvement on Bitbucket or similar.

I never was BC and thus don't know the technical details there - surely there's a lot of other stuff to be created or copied. Whoever wants to join me in this technical corner is most welcome, of course! For UI details, we'll better open another thread. One thing at a time... :)
Leni
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 01:43

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Leni »

Maybe it's too early to think of this, but since I can't help much with the techie stuff, I am thinking of the project-stuff.

We will most-likely need a disclaimer, and some templates. We could of course copy some from Librivox, but I suggest we get the experience from there and try some clearer, plainer templates to avoid the confusions we get there from newbies. I am a bit busy these days organizing an event at college, which will take place next Monday and Tuesday. After that I might have the time to create the templates.

Now to the disclaimer... I am afraid of even starting it. :?
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

Thanks for the admin status, Viktor, and don't worry about the password, it took me a whole day to find a new but it is very strong :)

Regarding templates: I think having the tracknumber first would prevent a lot of mistakes, for instance:
01_hypatia_kingsley instead of hypatia_01_kingsley as we have been doing. Although I don't know if having files starting with 0 is a problem I'll admit.

I'll start thinking about a disclaimer and template in French. Do we do a Wiki thing or do we just post stickies?
Also, I'd suggest (in light of recent events) that we make a contact list so we can get in touch in case of problems.
How about creating a Google doc to which we can connect via pm, fill it up, save it to our own computers and delete it?
Nadine
User avatar
Viktor
Posts: 602
Joined: Mon 4. Jul 2005, 01:24
Location: France

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Viktor »

So you'd want a wiki? No problem! I have some experience with setting up MediaWiki, that's the software Wikipedia and the LV wiki run on. It's reliable but not very adapted for rights management - it's very good if everything is public. Of course, it's possible to force people to login before they can edit pages. But trying to create groups ("only users X,Y,Z are allowed to edit this page") might be a bit tricky.

When we want a "wiki" only for us admins, we might, as Leni suggested to me, open a new thread only for admins, and just always edit the first post of a thread. There won't be any versioning / rollback, and we might step on each others' feet. I'll see whether there exist phpBB3 extensions that help us in such cases.

Nadine, do I understand this right: There would be a Google doc whose address we communicate only through Private Messages? Sure, we can do that too. As long as I can have local backups, I'm fine with all things cloud.
neckertb
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri 27. May 2011, 10:47
Location: French in Denmark

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by neckertb »

Fine by me without wiki, I just wanted to ask what the plan was :)
And yes, you understood the Google Doc right. Just in case, you know. I'll set it up today.
Nadine
Hokuspokus
Posts: 762
Joined: Mon 11. Aug 2008, 11:40
Location: Germany

Re: Discussion of set-up/future legamus.eu

Post by Hokuspokus »

The google doc is fine with me.

But I think at one time we will need an Admin only subforum for confidential talk.
Post Reply