Technology1 min read

Distributed Proofreaders

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The multi-stage creation pipeline submits every page to three proofreading rounds and two formatting passes before a post-processor compiles the final text. Contributors can participate without any minimum time commitments, though the system does not certify hours for court-ordered or government community service. In addition to textual review, volunteers have the option to manage projects, provide content, or assist with site development. A recent 30-day tracking period recorded 1,252 active users across the platform.

Key points

  • The Distributed Proofreaders Foundation relies entirely on public donations and volunteer…: The Distributed Proofreaders Foundation relies entirely on public donations and volunteer participation to convert public domain literature into digital formats.
  • Volunteer hours cannot be tracked or certified by the organization for official governmen…: Volunteer hours cannot be tracked or certified by the organization for official government or court-ordered community service programs.
  • Participants can contribute across various operations including project management, forum…: Participants can contribute across various operations including project management, forum discussions, site development, proofreading, and content submission.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

last changed Saturday, April 29, 2023

News

Please try our Walkthrough for a preview of the steps involved when proofreading on this site.

Site Concept

Distributed Proofreaders provides a web-based method to ease the conversion of Public Domain books into e-books. By dividing the workload into individual pages, many volunteers can work on a book at the same time, which significantly speeds up the creation process.

During proofreading, volunteers are presented with a scanned page image and the corresponding OCR text on a single web page. This allows the text to be easily compared to the image, proofread, and sent back to the site. A second volunteer is then presented with the first volunteer's work and the same page image, verifies and corrects the work as necessary, and submits it back to the site. The book then similarly progresses through a third proofreading round and two formatting rounds using the same web interface.

Once all the pages have completed these steps, a post-processor carefully assembles them into an e-book, optionally makes it available to interested parties for 'smooth reading', and…

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