Map Of London

Greetings all,

I am really enjoying my time with MoEML so far. While working through the BIBL1 and PERS1 files I have noticed a few things that we will need to be thinking about in the near (and distant) future. The following is a log of my tasks so far, including notes about what we may need to think about looking forward.

My first task was to delete the dates and names of contributors who have added files to BIBL1 in the past. JJ decided that there was no longer any need for this info. Working in this file, I noticed numerous formatting inconsistencies (arising from different people adding different info at different times with different MLA conventions). I look forward to amending these errors in the coming weeks.

My second task was to ensure that all links in PERS1 were updated. The ODNB had made some changes to their website and so most of our links were broken. Again, I noticed many formatting/style inconsistencies that I am eager to amend in the coming weeks.

My third task was to add the medium (i.e. Print, Web) to each BIBL1 entry. This is a newer MLA convention and has not been used consistently since the website launched. While adding these, I made some changes to the more easily-spottable inconsistencies. This got me pretty excited about a large-scale tidy-up! I am hoping to have this "spring cleaning," as I am calling it, finished by mid-June.

Since I will be spring cleaning for the next few weeks, JJ has assigned me the task of creating an updated style guide for the website. This will ensure that everyone adding information to these files continues to follow a correct and consistent format. I cannot stress enough the importance of consistent formatting for even the most trivial matters like using an en-dash instead of a hyphen between a person's life dates. If we are to continue to assert MoEML as a serious academic publication, we cannot allow formatting errors to persist. I (think I) have attached a draft of the style guide (which is also available in the svn file "documentation," in case the file addition backfired) and I would love to hear your input. It is not yet completely implemented, but please begin referring to it when inputting information. If you have any questions about formatting, please don't hesitate to contact me.

I think that's all for now. Thanks to JJ and MH for all of their guidance so far.

CB

Martin's Comments on the simple_template in an email to Janelle on 2012-05-15:

The template looks fine. The only thing I noticed that I'd reconsider is the use of the <segmentation> element. I'm not quite sure how that got into our documents in the first place:

"segmentation<>> describes the principles according to which the text has been segmented, for example into sentences, tone-units, graphemic strata, etc. [2.3.3 The Editorial Practices Declaration 15.3.2 Declarable Elements]"

We don't really have much to say about that; segmentation isn't a major issue for us, especially in the born-digital documents such as Location files.

I think what we should probably have is:

• One file on the site where we detail all of our transcription and encoding practices for the original documents such as Stow;
• Another file on the site where we detail our markup practices for the born-digital/modern content;
• Something like this in the encodingDesc of every other file:

<encodingDesc>

<p>

See <ref target="mol:modernEncoding">modernEncoding.xml</ref> for full details of transcription and encoding used in this document.

</p>

</encodingDesc>

We do have to produce those files first, though. We should start with the original document encoding practices, which we need to lay out in some detail before the work on Stow begins in earnest.