Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Fine! So start with the abstract in that format, and include the
rest of the paper, as scanned, as if it were graphics. Problem solved! Next?
Brian
Brian, unfortunately, didn't get it, why his "solution" was utterly
inadequate.
He got it as soon as I explained. I gave him the list of 7 reasons
and he immediately agreed.
People who have not worked with web pages, technical documentation,
machine translation, braille readers and whatnot are not likely to
know this stuff. I have been involved with such things for a long
time, and I have distributed millions of papers, so I know what's
needed. It is technical minutia, but done right it can enhance the
web page and help the readers.
Given that it appears that, for at least some of the papers,
searchable text PDF already exists (I pointed to the archive on
newenergytimes.com), the essential barrier would be lack of explicit
permission to host those papers in that format.
An alternative would have been for the text to be converted to a
file as he proposed, and then for Schwartz would approve it. It
seems Schwarz did suggest this was acceptable, but ... who was to do
the substantial work?
No. Swartz adamantly -- nay VOCIFEROUSLY -- opposed the use of text
Acrobat. He insisted that his papers be uploaded in image Acrobat
only. I have no earthly idea why he makes this demand. I don't recall
that he ever gave a reason. You would have to ask him.
Jed could do it, if he were inclined.
I offered. He refused. "Refused" hardly describes it. He went
ballistic and told me there would be dire consequences if I lifted a
finger to convert his papers to this format! God only knows why.
Frankly, I don't care why.
His opposition to this format is even more mind-boggling in view of
the fact that he uploaded his own papers in text HTML. This whole
exchange now seems even more inexplicable and ludicrous.
- Jed
