Authors Need Help: Brainstorming Session

[rolanni]

OK, I don’t have much experience coordinating a project this big. My general approach, when confronted with an Enormous Project is to break it down into bite-sized pieces, but! I’m not a project manager and have none of that Foo.

Below, is what I’ve got — comments and advice welcome. I’ll also be looking for volunteers, but that’ll come later.

I’m soliciting ideas on how to implement in order to achieve the goal without loss of life, and without anyone having to bear an enormous burden of work.

The Goal:  A list, for each novel, of all the Liaden-and-other-Weird-Words that appear in that novel, AND a list of Liaden-and-other-Weird-Names that appear in that novel.

What the lists would look like:

1. Title of Book, Edition
a. Word One, Page Number
b. Word Two, Page Number
Lather, rinse, repeat

2. Title of Book, Edition
a. Name One, Page Number
b. Name One, Page Number
Lather, rinse, repeat

I’m guessing that there ought to multiple eyes on each novel, in order to make sure that the maximum number of Weird Words (henceforth WW) are captured. Some of the WW will be English words (we use a smattering of obsolete English words, Just Because), some of the WW will be Terran slang, Delgadan words, and the ever-popular etcetera.

For the names — I’m guessing another buncha eyes for each book, so that the maximum number are captured.

Question: Planet and ship names — Different lists? Or folded into the Names List?

Also needed, someone or someplace to receive, and coordinate, the lists.

Ultimately, the lists will be used by Lee and Miller for Something Really Cool, and will play an important role in the Web Pronunciation Guide Project.

There is some time limitation on getting this together, but at the moment, the deadline is squishy.

So! What’s the best way to set this up?

EDITED TO ADD: Please nobody build anything yet. We're still in brainstorming mode. I appreciate everyone's input.


Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[zola.livejournal.com]

I personally suggest this gets done programatically to make sure it's done in an orderly way.

Do a list of the books and a page count on each, that's your first database entry. (Ghost Ship, paperback, X pages, Ghost Ship, hardcover, X pages).

Take that and generate a list of links for each book, one link per page.

Phase 1--the users go to the links and click and get a form, and they put in the word "None" or write a comma separated list of the words and hit submit.

As pages are examined, we show ONLY pages that haven't yet been checked, so we insure that every page has been read by someone.

When there are no links left on any books, we go into Phase 2. Again, you see the list, but this time when you click the link, it shows you what was put in the first time. You click "yes, this is correct" or "no, this is incorrect". If it's incorrect, the link will show up on another page needing review. If it's correct, once two or three people verify the page is correct, the link is finished.

Once all links are checked and the ones that need reviewing get reviewed, we just ask the database to generate the list, and it can go into a spreadsheet or a word doc or whatever.

This would be about six hours of programming, it is, believe it or not, a fairly simple job and would let the maximum number of people help. And I have time this weekend... :D