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Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

standardebooks.org

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Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#11

Post by hollerith »

xrd wrote: post #9

I'm really curious why a book ( https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-w-chesnutt/the-con... ) originally published in the US would need to include this: "This ebook is only thought to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. It may still be under copyright in other countries. If you’re not located in the United States, you must check your local laws to verify that the contents of this ebook are fre…

Just because it was first offered for sale in the US doesn't mean the owner cannot apply for copyright in other countries.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#12

Post by kkarakk »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7
mhxion wrote: post #4

> Other free ebooks don’t put much effort into professional-quality typography: they use "straight" quotes instead of “curly” quotes, they ignore details like em- and en-dashes, and they look more like early-90’s web pages instead of actual books. True. I hope you guys get proper funding and keep this project on. Contribute: https://standardebooks.org/contribute/ (I was thinking a Slack or Discord would be better tha…

Mailing lists are superior for async communications IMHO for endeavors such as this. Nothing needs to be addressed immediately (and as everyone is a volunteer, realistic expectations should be set for response latency; email helps that, Slack/Discord does not), and the mailing list archive is a natural log of conversations and decisions that are open and accessible (Free Slack only keeps 10k lines of conversation his…

Counterpoint: Old mailing list conversations are difficult to parse and encourage a "ignore it until the issue goes away" mentality if no one is enforcing a reply rate.

Mailing lists only really work for corporations imo

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#13

Post by toomuchtodo »

kkarakk wrote: post #12
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mailing lists are superior for async communications IMHO for endeavors such as this. Nothing needs to be addressed immediately (and as everyone is a volunteer, realistic expectations should be set for response latency; email helps that, Slack/Discord does not), and the mailing list archive is a natural log of conversations and decisions that are open and accessible (Free Slack only keeps 10k lines of conversation his…

Counterpoint: Old mailing list conversations are difficult to parse and encourage a "ignore it until the issue goes away" mentality if no one is enforcing a reply rate. Mailing lists only really work for corporations imo

We're talking open source/free/non-profits here. No reply rate should be enforced unless by project owners (their time, their project, their rules). Some issues should be ignored until they go away. I myself ignore issues from some folks who engage me in my role as an open source tooling maintainer, after I have exhausted my patience working with them and they are not receptive to polite discussion.

> Mailing lists only really work for corporations imo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_mailing_list

We've steered off topic though. Feel free to email me if you want to chat further on the topic.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#16

Post by sctb »

terminalhealth wrote: post #8
dang wrote: post #6

Discussed in 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14570035

Dang, could you lift vvillyd's rate limit as new user in case this still exists?

We removed it a little while ago, in fact. Thanks for the heads up! (Emailing hn@ycombinator.com is quicker and more reliable for next time.)

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#17

Post by paulcarroty »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7
mhxion wrote: post #4

> Other free ebooks don’t put much effort into professional-quality typography: they use "straight" quotes instead of “curly” quotes, they ignore details like em- and en-dashes, and they look more like early-90’s web pages instead of actual books. True. I hope you guys get proper funding and keep this project on. Contribute: https://standardebooks.org/contribute/ (I was thinking a Slack or Discord would be better tha…

Mailing lists are superior for async communications IMHO for endeavors such as this. Nothing needs to be addressed immediately (and as everyone is a volunteer, realistic expectations should be set for response latency; email helps that, Slack/Discord does not), and the mailing list archive is a natural log of conversations and decisions that are open and accessible (Free Slack only keeps 10k lines of conversation his…

Mailing lists was superior in 90's-00's, now when discourse/slack/discord/etc exists there's no reason to use ML except nostalgia. Parsing tons of new emails isn't easy.

Also I'm prefer to avoid Google services 'cause privacy issues.

Re: Standard Ebooks: Free public-domain ebooks, carefully produced

#18

Post by hombre_fatal »

paulcarroty wrote: post #17
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mailing lists are superior for async communications IMHO for endeavors such as this. Nothing needs to be addressed immediately (and as everyone is a volunteer, realistic expectations should be set for response latency; email helps that, Slack/Discord does not), and the mailing list archive is a natural log of conversations and decisions that are open and accessible (Free Slack only keeps 10k lines of conversation his…

Mailing lists was superior in 90's-00's, now when discourse/slack/discord/etc exists there's no reason to use ML except nostalgia. Parsing tons of new emails isn't easy. Also I'm prefer to avoid Google services 'cause privacy issues.

I like the combo of regular forum (Xenforo, Discourse, etc) and chat (Discord, Slack, etc). Unlike mailing lists, modern forums are actually usable, fun to use, and appealing. And chat provides a place for more conversational community-building.

For example, the Elm community has both. The Discourse forum is technical and business-only yet there's a clean record of these discussions. The Slack chat is where I hang out, get to know people, and participate in more relaxed chit chat about Elm, webdev, and building applications.

Elm used to just have a mailing list but it was obsoleted and shut down with the creation of the Slack group and Discourse forum which were far more popular.

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