[tei-council] genetic draft -- responses to responses, pt. 1

[Brett Barney]

On 23 Aug 2011, at 07:21, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:

> On 23 Aug 2011, at 13:10, Lou Burnard wrote:
>
> >
> > 4. The graphics included should all have proper citation
> > information. Do we want so many? Can we find better (clearer) ones?
>
> I was going to comment on this. In the black and white printout I
> started reading,
> the pictures do not render well.
>
>  fig1: more contrast might help, but largely illegible
>  fig2: okish
>  fig3: much more contrast would help
>  fig4: very faint. does not convey much for the space used (one big
> crossing out)
>  fig5,6, 8: ok
>  fig9: too faint to see anything
>  fig10, 11:  illegible, can barely see the point being made
>
> Has someone checked the licensing of all these images, by the way?
> It would be sad to compromise the licensing of the Guidelines
> by including any images which are not 100% open.

I've reviewed the Whitman manuscript images and reprocessed the ones that
seemed would benefit. In the case of Fig. 4, I've located and processed a
couple of alternative images that might be better (clearer, perhaps more
compact). The zip package is available at
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/downloads/genetic_figures.zip

When I talked to him about the permissions issue, Ken (Price) agreed that
the two repositories from whom we received these images would likely be
happy to have them used in the Guidelines, so I'm drafting a query to the
appropriate people at each place; I'll pass along the responses I get.

> >> "Alternatively, if the transcription is intended to do no more than
> >> represent the physicality of the document itself . . . ."
> >
> > Several things about this phrase puzzle me. Why "no more than"? The
idea
> > that a transcription might represent physicality strikes me as at least
> > recondite--I'm not sure what to make of it without some unpacking.
Finally,
> > in "the document itself" "document" seems ambiguous and I'm not sure
what
> > "itself" is doing.
>
> I'm trying to draw distinction between the "documentary" and the
> "textual" views. You might have a transcription representing either
> view. Suggestions for improved wording appreciated!

Here's the best I could come up with at the moment: "Alternatively, if the
transcription is intended to represent the physical arrangement of the
__________ [text? inscribed marks? writing?]"

> > What I'm starting to worry about,
> > I think, is that maybe "surface" is being used for both physical
surfaces
> > and the ones created by the encoder.
>
> The encoder cannot create surfaces so this is definitely misleading.

To my mind, the whole way <surface> is discussed in chapter 11 conveys the
idea that it's an arbitrary space (constructed by the encoder). The
definition
pretty much says as much, I think: "<surface> defines a written surface in
terms of a rectangular coordinate space, optionally grouping one or more
graphic representations of that space, and rectangular zones of interest
within it." The distinction between surfaces that exist in reality and
those
that are constructed by the encoder would seem a key to the way <surface>
is used in regard to Fig. 2, the two-page spread. Without a virtual
conception
of surface, I have a hard time making sense out of a two-page spread that
constitutes a single surface. I could be missing some nuance, though.

> > For this particular definition,
> > though, I'm now thinking that it's probably not helpful (even if it is
> > possible) to raise the issue of when the surfaces were created. Why
does it
> > matter?
>
>
> How's this as a new definition:
>
> "<patch>  a part of a surface which was originally physically distinct
> but was combined with it at some time prior to some or all of the
> writing on the surface"

That seems OK, as long as it allows everything people think it should. The
specific case I have in mind is collage-type manuscripts. If I paste up a
document from, say, a draft written on the top 1/3 of an A4 sheet and a
textual snippet that I've written on a sticky note, does the fact that I
haven't written anything new mean that the sticky isn't a patch? If so, I
don't have a complaint; I'm just trying to clear up the intended scope of
the element.



Regards,
Brett