I have signed up. The most valuable part of Textkit is clearly the people, not the texts themselves, especially nowadays with the success of GoogleBooks. Anything to build up the community is a good thing.
I don’t know how much time I’ll have, but I think a desideratum for Classics on the internet these days is a solid explanation of Latin meter. Perhaps I can make some contribution in that direction.
100% the books anymore serve as a content hook to introduce people to the community, but I can’t really compete with GoogleBooks. Also too in their blended search results, they’ll rank that result first - so a bit locked out there. I would too if I were Google because our books are actually hidden from the search engines behind the download prompt.
I am planning to post the full raw files of our books full and free. It would be fun to see what others can do with images.
But your point about the community is very true - that’s the value.
with the help of a few installed drupal modules we have a user point system. It’s not 100% yet in functionality or display, but how it works is like this:
For common actions such as posting a new blog entry, posting comments, moderating, a Texkitter can earn points. Points are both a fun way to show others who’s active in the community but they can also be used to automate the granting of additional rights.
The modules are working pretty good except in one area. I want us to be able to Thumbs Up and Thumbs down posts and comments. If you get a Thumbs down it will subtract 1 point. Thumbs up/down is really effective at ensuring quality posts and comments.
I plan to use points to allow Textkitters self moderate posts. There’s a couple dozen or so forum members here now who I feel are very capable of zapping a spammy post, so taking advantage of point system is a way to enable those rights - plus show that you’re a big time Textkitter.
I plan to someone convert forum participation to points. Not sure of the exact formula but it’ll be a combination of forum posts and account history.
I don’t know if it’s supposed to be this way, but it looks like the entire “textkitters’ blog” page is showing up with .
Also, is there a way to determine what text of your blog posts displays before something clicks ‘read more’?
You add the code:
<!--break-->
at the point you want it to stop and give the ‘read more’ link.
all of the layout issues are still left undone. I plan to begin work on this over the weekend when it’s quite. It’s so difficult to do design and layout work without content, so the posts have been very helpful for me.
There’s an option to pull in the teaser text I believe. I just didn’t know if anyone wanted to full around with that. I like the post just cutting off with " …" after so many words. But the field is there. Let me see about permissios on it.
Done! I’m thrilled to get this stuff onto textkit, since that’s where it all started anyway. I separated the Latin and Greek into separate posts, and I actually have the ones with keys as separate as well (posted a few days ago), but the lists are still really long as is. The lists look great, despite their long size though. I decided to call the ancient Greek list “Pharrchive,” which I think is a nice companion to G’Oogle.
If you don’t find the long lists to be too obnoxious, I can add a few more, including the definitive list of loebs that can be downloaded (the “downLOEBables”) but right now my fingers are tired from all that typing!
Hi edonnelly,
You have a really great collection of PDFs going up under the new site. I would like to hear your thoughts and others about blending outside PDFS and Textkit’s PDFs within the navigational structure.
I think for the visitor, it’s not important where the PDF is or who created it. If we bring outside PDFS in, we could then give them book descriptions and open them up for textkitter commentary.
I have elevated your publishing rights, you are now in a new group I created last night called, Textkit PDF blog. Go to the create blog >> then at the bottom >> create Textkit book. This content type will allow you to publish to a special format. The pages you create won’t yet be visible anywhere. Create one or two, if you want, and play around with it.
thanks,
jeff
How long is the turn around on blogs usually? I posted one last night, but it doesn’t seem to be there yet.
Someone with suitable administrative rights has to notice a waiting post. I’ve just set your blog post free. 
Small issue: after updating my profile on the new textkit, the site complained about the URL I specified (although it was accepted at the time I created my account and although it is a valid URL):
“The value provided for URL is not a valid URL.”
I just checked, and my site is up and running.
thanks - i’ll check this out.
Sounds great. I just got back from Disney (ugh!) so it will be a day or two before I’m back caught up in my life, but I’ll definitely get it going.
Any news on the new textkit?
I’ve registered. I have little idea what you can do with Drupal, but I could just have some time to see what I can contribute.
One treat for the Greekists…
In addition to transferring the Pharr grammar over to the Drupal book format, every few days I add a chapter from the Alexander Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes). The chapters are generally pretty small, so the work is already broken into neat little sections for transcription.
The Greek is easier than most classical works we deal with, though there are some strange bits of vocab from time to time.
Many thanks and nice work, Annis.
Regards
Gonzalo
P.S.: I was wondering if you might convert these plain text files into a single PDF file and upload it to the book section. I was considering doing it by myself but I have not your permission nor I think it would be good, since it´s your own work. For me, it´s easier reading from a single -printed- piece. I have been trying to learn to type faster Polytonic Greek and I am incapable, so let me know if there is a good manual or a sort of keyboard converter and I´ll surely help. Thanks again.
Hmm. By default, everything I do is under some open license (well, ignoring contract work ), but perhaps I should add some note clarifying that.
I do intend to make a PDF of this, but only after I’ve finished the transcription. I’m sure there are typos in the text now, and I’m hoping if people read the thing they’ll notice some of them and let me know.
Thanks for your response.
Regards,
Gonzalo