The Canary Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine

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Brian

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Jun 4, 2023, 11:59:37 AM6/4/23
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I would like to produce the next Vance novel next.


(This book is very similar in format to the previous one, so the actual
review should be simpler this time.)

Alex Cabal

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Jun 4, 2023, 3:10:44 PM6/4/23
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OK! Robin can you manage this with Lukas reviewing?
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Robin Whittleton

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Jun 4, 2023, 4:01:24 PM6/4/23
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Yep, no problem.

> On 4 Jun 2023, at 21:10, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:
>
> OK! Robin can you manage this with Lukas reviewing?
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Lukas Bystricky

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Jun 4, 2023, 4:08:20 PM6/4/23
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Brian

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Jun 4, 2023, 4:24:56 PM6/4/23
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How do we format names of musicals and revues? According to SEMOS
8.2.11, quotes are not appropriate. That seems to indicate italics,
but there is very little in the SE vocab tree for performances. The
closest thing seems to be "se:name.music.opera", which is obviously
not right.

Similarly, what about symphonies? My only sense from reading SEMOS is
that a symphony would be bare (i.e. neither quotes nor italics), but a
single movement from a symphony would be in quotes. Is this correct?

Alex Cabal

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Jun 4, 2023, 9:08:35 PM6/4/23
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You can just use `se.music` as a catchall that is not more specific.

Long works that can stand alone get italics. Symphonies typically
qualify. A good rule of thumb is to check what Wikipedia does, as most
of the time it seems to have the same rules for quotes and italics that
we do.
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Brian

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Jun 4, 2023, 10:41:39 PM6/4/23
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Long works that can stand alone get italics. Symphonies typically
qualify. A good rule of thumb is to check what Wikipedia does, as most
of the time it seems to have the same rules for quotes and italics that
we do.

Okay. Wikipedia appears to follow a rule of no quotes or italics on
names like "Symphony No. 6" or "the F-major Symphony", but to use
italics when it has an actual name, e.g. "the _Pastorale Symphony_".
I guess that variance is what was throwing me.

Brian

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Jun 5, 2023, 1:12:55 AM6/5/23
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Okay, learning my lesson from last time, I'm putting forth cover
ideas right away.

A crucial scene in the novel involves the detective organizing a poker
game between himself and the suspects. Surprisingly, I've found that
in many oil paintings of card games, the players are either not in
period-appropriate costume or are dogs. But I eventually hit upon this
one by John Collier, in which the clothes are a good match:

    https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$c13131&seq=27

Attached image shows the crop that I eventually settled on.

collier.jpg

Robin Whittleton

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Jun 5, 2023, 2:16:03 AM6/5/23
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Looks good! How big is the source image? It looks a little artefacty on my laptop, but it’s possibly the compression you used in prepping the mock.

-Robin

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<collier.jpg>

Brian

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Jun 5, 2023, 12:00:12 PM6/5/23
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Looks good! How big is the source image? It looks a little artefacty on my laptop, but it’s possibly the compression you used in prepping the mock.

Some of that may be just the mockup -- but yes, I'm having trouble
finding a good image for it. The best I have needs to be doubled in
size to make 2100-pixel height. I'm still looking, though.

Vince

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Jun 5, 2023, 12:17:28 PM6/5/23
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Here’s the biggest one I could find (1024x708) run through Gigapixel. 

Brian

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Jun 5, 2023, 12:43:16 PM6/5/23
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Thanks Vince; this one looks much better.

Brian

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Jun 5, 2023, 1:31:33 PM6/5/23
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The title of this book is The “Canary” Murder Case -- note the quote
marks. However, almost all sources have it as The Canary Murder Case,
no quotes. I even did it in this thread.

Would it make sense to add The Canary Murder Case as a short title?
(I imagine most software would automatically equate the two, but
"most" doesn't necessarily mean "all the ones that matter".)

Vince

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Jun 5, 2023, 6:29:12 PM6/5/23
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I would say the real question is whether to drop the quotes, period. It’s not published that way today (Amazon has all of the series), which is consistent with what Wiki says (“most subsequent editions omit them”).

Brian

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Jun 6, 2023, 6:55:47 AM6/6/23
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I would say the real question is whether to drop the quotes, period. It’s not published that way today (Amazon has all of the series), which is consistent with what Wiki says (“most subsequent editions omit them”).

If both versions appear on published books, then that would argue that
they should both be in the metadata, with one being an alternate
title. (My inclination would be to have as the main title whichever
version appeared on the book that's currently in the public domain.
But I feel like that decision is above my level.)

Alex Cabal

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Jun 6, 2023, 12:04:26 PM6/6/23
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I think quotes is probably not enough to warrant a new title in the
metadata. The alternate title is meant to facilitate searches, and most
search systems ignore quotes and other punctuation. The metadata is not
meant to be an encyclopedic definition of the book and its history.
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Brian

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Jun 21, 2023, 12:15:50 AM6/21/23
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It seems that SE uses "bridgehead" to refer to two different objects.
One is the list of clauses providing a precis of the chapter, such as
in "Three Men in a Boat", and the other is a single clause that serves
to set the context of the chapter, such as in "Dracula". The CSS for
these, however, is clearly meant for the first type, and serves the
second type poorly. In particular, the width limit and the forced
justification of the lines leaves my bridgeheads formatted as in the
attached screenshot.

Would it be possible to call this label something other than a
bridgehead, so that it could be formatted more appropriately?

ss.png

Alex Cabal

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Jun 21, 2023, 12:19:32 AM6/21/23
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No, that's what it is. It's the unfortunate nature of variable width
screens that sometimes the justification isn't going to work out. If
your screen was slightly wider or slightly narrower it would look fine.
That's the case with a lot of CSS in general.
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Vince

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Jun 21, 2023, 12:42:00 AM6/21/23
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I think they’re the same object, but regardless, it quite often doesn’t serve the former well, either. I’ve had numerous instances of the kind of display you have here with what you’re calling the first type. The testing I’ve done over time would indicate that, for the kind of devices people typically read on these days, a larger percentage (75%? 80%?) would reduce the problem, but not eliminate it.

Brian

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Jun 21, 2023, 12:58:01 AM6/21/23
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No, that's what it is. It's the unfortunate nature of variable width
screens that sometimes the justification isn't going to work out. If 
your screen was slightly wider or slightly narrower it would look fine.
That's the case with a lot of CSS in general.

But even on a narrower screen I would expect it to be centered, not
justified. Like with the attached image, in case I'm not being clear.
There's little advantage to using justification on a single short
sentence fragment.

ss.png

Brian

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Jun 22, 2023, 12:27:22 PM6/22/23
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This book is ready for review (Lukas reviewing).

Lukas Bystricky

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Jun 22, 2023, 4:13:53 PM6/22/23
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Very good work! Nice job with the SVGs, and great attention to detail. Just a couple very minor issues I've added to your GitHub. 

One other thing is that I don't think we got an official ruling on the quotes in the title. Alex, do you have a preference? 

Alex Cabal

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Jun 22, 2023, 4:26:09 PM6/22/23
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Quotes can be removed from the title
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Brian

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Jun 23, 2023, 1:14:34 AM6/23/23
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Quotes can be removed from the title

Just to be clear; is that "can" actually a "should"?

My understanding was that, absent a compelling reason to do so, I
should leave the title as it was published (at least in the version
that's in the public domain).

Alex Cabal

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Jun 23, 2023, 12:06:21 PM6/23/23
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Just remove them. As you mention modern editions remove them, and
they're scare quotes that we would have removed from the text body in
our own process anyway.
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Brian

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Jun 23, 2023, 1:30:28 PM6/23/23
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Just for the record: it was Vince, not me, who asserted that modern
editions remove the quotes. (And the quotes indicate a nickname,
rather than irony per se.)

Lukas, I believe I've rooted out all of the old titles.

Lukas Bystricky

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Jun 23, 2023, 1:59:11 PM6/23/23
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That looks good. Alright, I think this is ready for you Alex. 

Alex Cabal

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Jun 23, 2023, 3:02:33 PM6/23/23
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Alex Cabal

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Jun 23, 2023, 3:03:05 PM6/23/23
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OK, great work Brian, especially on the SVGs as Lukas noted. I've gone
ahead and released it, thanks!

On 6/22/23 11:27 AM, Brian wrote:
> This book is ready for review (Lukas reviewing).
>
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