Antiquist at DRHA 2008
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Leif Isaksen
Sep 20, 2008, 2:32:58 PM9/20/08
to anti...@googlegroups.com
Hi all
I gave a talk about Antiquist at Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts 2008 in Cambridge last week. In case anyone's interested, I've thrown a copy of the powerpoint and abstract on my pubs page (http://leifuss.wordpress.com/publications). It looks a little thin without my pithy insights, wit and erudition to accompany it ;-) , but there's a few talking points in there. Two things seemed particularly worthy of comment:
1) the number of posts on the list has remained fairly constant, but the number of authors per thread has declined. i.e there are more topics, but they are frequently 'announcements' (or similar). Obviously the average number of authors isn't much more helpful than the average temperature of a hospital's patients, but it's interesting, nonetheless.
2) Since we stopped proactively getting people to join (back in March '07) there seems to have been a natural level of newcomers/month: about 4 or 5 (although I get the feeling that more and more of us are from outside the UK these days - another healthy sign). On the other hand, about 25% opt not to receive emails, and 25% just get a digest (do any of you latter ever read it? It would be interesting to know). More positively, if there can be said to be about 90-odd regulars, it turns out that 68 of us have initiated a thread at some point, so assuming a few more of us have responded but never initiated, then most of us have contributed at some point or another. yay!
Anyway, just some musings - feel free to comment on or off list.
best,
L.
PS Unfortunately Mac powerpoint won't embed fonts so the elegant one we use for Antiquist, Trajan Pro (yes, it does sound like a type of kondom), will probably be in cruddy TNR on your screen. Sorry :-(
PPS And thanks to the Digital Classicist gang who let me squeeze into their session at the last minute - it was good to see you all.
I gave a talk about Antiquist at Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts 2008 in Cambridge last week. In case anyone's interested, I've thrown a copy of the powerpoint and abstract on my pubs page (http://leifuss.wordpress.com/publications). It looks a little thin without my pithy insights, wit and erudition to accompany it ;-) , but there's a few talking points in there. Two things seemed particularly worthy of comment:
1) the number of posts on the list has remained fairly constant, but the number of authors per thread has declined. i.e there are more topics, but they are frequently 'announcements' (or similar). Obviously the average number of authors isn't much more helpful than the average temperature of a hospital's patients, but it's interesting, nonetheless.
2) Since we stopped proactively getting people to join (back in March '07) there seems to have been a natural level of newcomers/month: about 4 or 5 (although I get the feeling that more and more of us are from outside the UK these days - another healthy sign). On the other hand, about 25% opt not to receive emails, and 25% just get a digest (do any of you latter ever read it? It would be interesting to know). More positively, if there can be said to be about 90-odd regulars, it turns out that 68 of us have initiated a thread at some point, so assuming a few more of us have responded but never initiated, then most of us have contributed at some point or another. yay!
Anyway, just some musings - feel free to comment on or off list.
best,
L.
PS Unfortunately Mac powerpoint won't embed fonts so the elegant one we use for Antiquist, Trajan Pro (yes, it does sound like a type of kondom), will probably be in cruddy TNR on your screen. Sorry :-(
PPS And thanks to the Digital Classicist gang who let me squeeze into their session at the last minute - it was good to see you all.
Chris Puttick
Sep 21, 2008, 7:28:55 AM9/21/08
to anti...@googlegroups.com
2008/9/20 Leif Isaksen <lei...@googlemail.com>:
> Hi all
>
> I gave a talk about Antiquist at Digital Resources in the Humanities and
> Arts 2008 in Cambridge last week. In case anyone's interested, I've thrown a
> copy of the powerpoint and abstract on my pubs page
> (http://leifuss.wordpress.com/publications). It looks a little thin without
> my pithy insights, wit and erudition to accompany it ;-) , but there's a few
> talking points in there. Two things seemed particularly worthy of comment:
<snip>
> Hi all
>
> I gave a talk about Antiquist at Digital Resources in the Humanities and
> Arts 2008 in Cambridge last week. In case anyone's interested, I've thrown a
> copy of the powerpoint and abstract on my pubs page
> (http://leifuss.wordpress.com/publications). It looks a little thin without
> my pithy insights, wit and erudition to accompany it ;-) , but there's a few
> talking points in there. Two things seemed particularly worthy of comment:
> PS Unfortunately Mac powerpoint won't embed fonts so the elegant one we use
> for Antiquist, Trajan Pro (yes, it does sound like a type of kondom), will
> probably be in cruddy TNR on your screen. Sorry :-(
> PPS And thanks to the Digital Classicist gang who let me squeeze into their
> session at the last minute - it was good to see you all.
>
I may have mentioned the importance of using standards before. PDF/A
version of your file would be better, if for some reason you can't
produce a ODP; PDF/A would also embed your font. OTOH do you have
rights to distribute that font? Maybe you should check your fonts if
distribution and preservation are of interest. Which they surely
are...
Open is not optional in heritage IT, it is mandatory.
--
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Hugh
Sep 22, 2008, 4:30:13 AM9/22/08
to Antiquist
Leif,
As a digest reader I thought I'd speak up. First off I'm amazed how
many people end up with avalanches of emails from all sorts of
different mailing lists because they don't realise this is an option.
This is particularly the case with Jisc mail, largely I suspect do to
it's confusing interface, not a problem with GoogleGroups. I do end
up reading about 80-90% of the posts that come through even if just
the headlines. I wouldn't be subscribed if I got every email/response
that came through as I doubt I'd be able to get any work done. I'm
surprised the no email lot are roughly the same percentage as the
digest.
Hugh
As a digest reader I thought I'd speak up. First off I'm amazed how
many people end up with avalanches of emails from all sorts of
different mailing lists because they don't realise this is an option.
This is particularly the case with Jisc mail, largely I suspect do to
it's confusing interface, not a problem with GoogleGroups. I do end
up reading about 80-90% of the posts that come through even if just
the headlines. I wouldn't be subscribed if I got every email/response
that came through as I doubt I'd be able to get any work done. I'm
surprised the no email lot are roughly the same percentage as the
digest.
Hugh
Leif Isaksen
Sep 29, 2008, 7:54:37 AM9/29/08
to anti...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Chris, Hugh
Chris - you are of course right in principle. I tried PDFing though and it didn't like my use of image-swapping on the same slide (it overlays them). As for OpenOffice - I'm happy to use it for almost anything, but the bitter light of experience has left me taking as few risks as possible with slideshows, thus PPT. It may be flawed on any number of levels, but it's still 50% more likely not to give me headaches 30 mins before I have to present. Once it comes installed in 80+% of conference presentation PCs I'll rethink that decision, but showing a broken slideshow or spending the first 5 mins trying to make it work is no advertisement for Open Source (or me for that matter!), even as a 'principalled stand'. Best option is probably to use SlideShare I guess.
Hugh - thanks for that feedback. There's a lot to be said for getting the digest version, especially if it makes the difference between following the discussions and not following them! I guess we shld concentrate on bringing back the 25% who don't get them at all...
L.
Chris - you are of course right in principle. I tried PDFing though and it didn't like my use of image-swapping on the same slide (it overlays them). As for OpenOffice - I'm happy to use it for almost anything, but the bitter light of experience has left me taking as few risks as possible with slideshows, thus PPT. It may be flawed on any number of levels, but it's still 50% more likely not to give me headaches 30 mins before I have to present. Once it comes installed in 80+% of conference presentation PCs I'll rethink that decision, but showing a broken slideshow or spending the first 5 mins trying to make it work is no advertisement for Open Source (or me for that matter!), even as a 'principalled stand'. Best option is probably to use SlideShare I guess.
Hugh - thanks for that feedback. There's a lot to be said for getting the digest version, especially if it makes the difference between following the discussions and not following them! I guess we shld concentrate on bringing back the 25% who don't get them at all...
L.
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