Citing Websites

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Stuff deleted. See the post by Tex2002ans

Millions of other people purchase and read non-EPUB ebooks, and millions of people read in non-RMSDK/ADE readers. You can't just try to force JSWolf's personal preferences down everyone else's throats.

More broad, format-neutral citation is superior, because it works across all the different formats (Hardcover, Large Print, PDF, HTML, EPUB, MOBI, XYZ, [...]).

I would not force JSWorlf's personal preferences on anybody. However, the ADE system has wide support. The only other system that has wide support is page numbers which can be supported in PDF, some ePub 2, AZW and fully on ePub 3. But of course the paper book could be changed so that doesn't really work either. In the world of specifications where I used to live we wrote everything with chapter numbers, section numbers, and subsection numbers for example 1.2.3 and may even 1.2.3.4 The name followed the number on the same line. This provided a reasonable identification but I would try and use that in a fiction book. However, generally speaking most authors don't revisit a book the way you said with no reason except to just change things that result in the same presentation.

Dale

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

<massive snippage>

Millions of other people purchase and read non-EPUB ebooks, and millions of people read in non-RMSDK/ADE readers. You can't just try to force JSWolf's personal preferences down everyone else's throats.

Pssssst: don't tell Wolfie!

Hitch

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

But of course the paper book could be changed so that doesn't really work either.

I forget where I discussed this (probably the Amazon Page Numbers topic), but physical editions don't get tweaked too often, they only get updated when a sufficient amount of major revisions come along, and/or they have methods to keep the page/line-breaks EXACTLY the same (kerning, tracking, etc.).

Print typically only has to deal with 1-3 versions (Hardcover, Softcover, Large Print).

With Print, they also only care about the LOOKS of the final output, who cares about the underlying mess.

With ebooks, the underlying code matters, and it is easy to fix any typos/mistakes. As you can see above, the amount of minor variants can quickly balloon out of control.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

However, generally speaking most authors don't revisit a book the way you said with no reason except to just change things that result in the same presentation.

Sure, I could see where a lot of self-published authors won't be going back through to touch up older books (although as Hitch mentioned, a lot of the work at her shop is redoing older conversions, and a majority of her clients = self-published).

But these ebooks will have to be updated eventually, especially when different/better formats/devices come in the future. (For example, tiny thumbnail-sized images may have been considered "okay" many years ago, but that just won't fly any more on high-def Kindles. So a 2017 reader may return the old ebook to Amazon, citing formatting/usability issues.)

And on the publisher side of things, I would still say many are going through and redoing a lot of their backlog. See article in Post #24 discussing backlog of a BPH. I suspect the same thing is occurring at mid- + small- + academic-publishers as well.

That article resonated with my experiences exactly, and I am just a single one-man conversion show, working in my little niche of books. :P

Accessibility

A lot more Libraries+Publishers are making that a higher priority, and are trying to go back through their old books and bringing them up to date. Example, "Creating a Roadmap for Accessibility" speech given at ebookcraft 2017.

I would recommend watching a lot of the other speeches from that conference.

The Digital Reader wrote an article about it when it happened. I also wrote summaries of my thoughts on each speech via PM to a few friends... if anyone is interested in that, let me know.

EPUB2->EPUB3 Transition

I suspect backlogs will also slowly update from EPUB2->EPUB3, where a lot of semantics will be wrapped around things like footnotes:

EPUB2:

Spoiler:

<p>This is sample text.<a href="#fn1" id="ft1">[1]</a></p>

[...]

<p><a href="#ft1" id="fn1">[1]</a> This is a sample footnote.</p>

EPUB3:

Spoiler:

<p>This is sample text.<a epub:type="noteref" href="#fn1">[1]</a></p>

[...]

<aside epub:type="footnote" id="fn1">
   <p>This is a sample footnote.</p>
</aside>

(28 character difference * # footnotes = a lot of bytes)

InDesign->EPUB

I haven't even brought this behemoth up yet...

A ginormous amount of books are produced using InDesign, and we all know the spaghetti code from an InDesign EPUB.

Side Note: I shudder to even think about all the hideous spans. In this post, I showed an example of HTML of a single paragraph from InDesign going from 891 characters -> 440 characters (manually cleaned).

A publisher might decide to go back to their InDesign file and push the "EPUB3 button" instead.

Maybe later InDesigns will output cleaner code, maybe the designer can push some buttons and tell InDesign not to output as much crap, but I bet your bottom the final size of the raw HTML will be vastly different... throwing off the Byte Methods.

And who knows how much HTML+CSS differences there would be between an output from InDesign CS5 -> InDesign CC 2015 -> InDesign CC 2018. That would be something interesting to test.

Side Note: Just today, I read an article on the updates in InDesign CC 2018:

Export HTML Improvements

If you’ve ever tried to export HTML from InDesign, you’ve probably noticed that it loves to add class and id tags to almost every paragraph and object—it can be very overwhelming and a pain to clean up. Fortunately, a new item in the Advanced panel of the HTML Export dialog box—labeled Don’t Include Classes in HTML—allows you to exclude all these extraneous materials. It removes the class and id attributes present in the tag, and even many redundant div tags present in the HTML, to create clean-looking HTML and remove unnecessary grouping of content.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Pssssst: don't tell Wolfie!

We all know:

• Kobos are the only valid ereader.
• ADE is the only page numbers.
• EPUB2 is the only ebook format. (EPUB3 can go shove it.)
• Clean code is the only valid code.
• All unused CSS classes need to be thrown away.
• JSWolf's Charis SIL variant is the only font you should embed!
• iPad =/= iBooks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

EPUB2->EPUB3 Transition

I suspect backlogs will also slowly update from EPUB2->EPUB3, where a lot of semantics will be wrapped around things like footnotes:

EPUB2:

Spoiler:

<p>This is sample text.<a href="#fn1" id="ft1">[1]</a></p>

[...]

<p><a href="#ft1" id="fn1">[1]</a> This is a sample footnote.</p>

EPUB3:

Spoiler:

<p>This is sample text.<a epub:type="noteref" href="#fn1">[1]</a></p>

[...]

<aside epub:type="footnote" id="fn1">
   <p>This is a sample footnote.</p>
</aside>

(28 character difference * # footnotes = a lot of bytes)

I don't see that sort of change happening because it will break a lot of eBooks. They will stop working. Most software to read ePub is not compliant with your ePub 3 example. And a lot of people have older devices where the software is never going to be updated to handle your ePub 3 sample. Take for example, Apple, there are a lot of Apple devices where the version of iOS will never be updated and if any Reading app's updates are not compatible with that older version iOS, then the users will not have any new features. Also, there are a lot of old Readers out there still in use where that ePub 3 sample will fail. And that includes Kindles. Most Kindle eBooks start out as ePub for the source and that ePub 3 sample is going to cause a lot of problems on Kindles.

That's the problem with ePub 3. It has to play nice with older software and thus, trying to use code like the sample isn't playing nice. So it's not going to happen. You won't find eBooks with the ePub 2 coding being converted to the ePub 3 type coding. You would find if that did happen that many people would complain when the eBook failed to work.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Pssssst: don't tell Wolfie!

Hitch

I'm going to say this, but I am correct. I am correct about ePub's page numbering.

One thing that's not been mentioned is searching. If you quote from an ePub and then that ePub is changed by the publisher and the quote is no longer on the page you cited, the quoted text can be searched for. That goes for any ePub reader that doesn't use ADE page numbers. So using ADE page numbers will satisfy the citation. Just because th publisher or author updated the eBook is not t a problem for the person citing an older version (which may have been the currt version at the time of the citation).

As for modifying the eBook so the page numbers are not correct, just don't do so. Don't use Calibre to side load. Don't strip the DRM (if there is any). Just load it so it's as it came and you will have the correct page numbers for that eBook.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So it's not going to happen. You won't find eBooks with the ePub 2 coding being converted to the ePub 3 type coding. You would find if that did happen that many people would complain when the eBook failed to work.

Take a look at the ebookcraft speeches. It is happening.

Also, it doesn't have to be anything serious like footnote asides, it can be as simple as adding <article> <section>. A book with tens/hundreds of little chapters, and the byte differences can add up.

And then again, what are publishers to do when the next standard comes out?

Hold the presses! JSWolf says EPUB2 is the only way to purchase (not from iStores) and read ebooks (not in iBooks + not in Amazon)!

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm going to say this, but I am correct. I am correct about ePub's page numbering.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you quote from an ePub and then that ePub is changed by the publisher and the quote is no longer on the page you cited, the quoted text can be searched for. That goes for any ePub reader that doesn't use ADE page numbers. So using ADE page numbers will satisfy the citation.

Absolutely wrong. Let me just substitute in equivalent words:

If you quote from a MOBI and then that MOBI is changed by the publisher and the quote is no longer on the page you cited, the quoted text can be searched for. That goes for any MOBI reader that doesn't use Amazon Location #s. So using Amazon Location #s will satisfy the citation.

This is what a MOBI-loving-JSWolf could say. And it is as equally valid as your current argument.

I would say this is more accurate:

If you quote from an ebook and then that ebook is changed by the publisher and the quote is no longer where you cited, the quoted text can be searched for. That goes for any e-reader. So using a standard ebook citation (very similar to web citations) will satisfy the citation.

You don't have people clamoring to demand web citations be dependent on which browser you use, or a specific vendor's algorithm.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

As for modifying the eBook so the page numbers are not correct, just don't do so. Don't use Calibre to side load. Don't strip the DRM (if there is any). Just load it so it's as it came and you will have the correct page numbers for that eBook.

It does and will happen.

Code in the backend can and will change (just look at that InDesign CC 2018 change I mentioned above, could easily cut the code cruft by more than half!). I could easily see a publisher saying "We've found 10 typos fixed since the first printing in 2012. Let's update the Print+Ebook in InDesign 2018.".

And again, answer me this:

How does JSWolf cite LIT books? Or any non-EPUB books? "Buy the EPUB" isn't a valid answer.

Side Note: Just for giggles, I took the latest InDesign->EPUB book I worked on:

(Physical pages in the PDF was 602.)
EPUB from InDesign CC 2015: 591 ADE Pages
EPUB After Manual Cleaning: 569 ADE Pages

I suspect using InDesign CC 2018's new tools, the newly generated EPUB would be anywhere between those two points.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

(Physical pages in the PDF was 602.)
EPUB from InDesign CC 2015: 591 ADE Pages
EPUB After Manual Cleaning: 569 ADE Pages

I suspect using InDesign CC 2018's new tools, the newly generated EPUB would be anywhere between those two points.

Even PDF is usually wrong if you use the PDF page number. It starts at a different page than the printed book and is thus offset from the correct number.

Dale

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

I forget where I discussed this (probably the Amazon Page Numbers topic), but physical editions don't get tweaked too often, they only get updated when a sufficient amount of major revisions come along, and/or they have methods to keep the page/line-breaks EXACTLY the same (kerning, tracking, etc.).

Print typically only has to deal with 1-3 versions (Hardcover, Softcover, Large Print).

And any citer worth his Chicago Manual will give the publisher, edition if any, and year of publication, so the interested reader can find the cited material on the indicated page.

Alas, I for one self-publisher find myself revising the print edition more often than formerly in order to keep it in sync with the ebook. And I don't change the metadata or the ISBN, though I do change the year of publication on the title page and in the book description. So I am not helping things.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

And then again, what are publishers to do when the next standard comes out?

Hold the presses! JSWolf says EPUB2 is the only way to purchase (not from iStores) and read ebooks (not in iBooks + not in Amazon)!

The thing you miss is that the reading software is not keeping up. There isn't one eInk Reader out there that fully handles ePub 3. That's a lot of people who won't be able to read a book that makes extensive use of an ePub in ePub 3. Get the software and hardware up to handling ePub 3 fully and I'llsay go for it. But because most isn't ready, then I disagree with going for it.

Absolutely wrong. Let me just substitute in equivalent words:
[INDENT]
If you quote from a MOBI and then that MOBI is changed by the publisher and the quote is no longer on the page you cited, the quoted text can be searched for. That goes for any MOBI reader that doesn't use Amazon Location #s. So using Amazon Location #s will satisfy the citation.

We aren't talking using any Kindle format. We are talking using ePub with ADE page numbers which do work and are accurate.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We are talking using ePub with ADE page numbers which do work and are accurate.

Sorry Jon, but you're mistaken about the accuracy of ADE page numbers. As has been explained before in this thread, edits to a book, even small ones, affect ADE page numbers.

For instance, when I build a book, it is easiest for my workflow to have large html files with many chapters/poems in the early stages. But at a certain point I split them into one file for each chapter/poem. The ADE page count rises considerably in the process (by hundreds of pages in a collection of many poems).

Big edits, big changes, yes, but the point is that edits do change the numbering; small edits might only make small changes to the page numbers, but even small changes will render the numbering inaccurate.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Sorry Jon, but you're mistaken about the accuracy of ADE page numbers. As has been explained before in this thread, edits to a book, even small ones, affect ADE page numbers.

For instance, when I build a book, it is easiest for my workflow to have large html files with many chapters/poems in the early stages. But at a certain point I split them into one file for each chapter/poem. The ADE page count rises considerably in the process (by hundreds of pages in a collection of many poems).

Big edits, big changes, yes, but the point is that edits do change the numbering; small edits might only make small changes to the page numbers, but even small changes will render the numbering inaccurate.

I don't mind admitting that that's weird. You'd think that the way that the "pages" are calculated, in ADE, woudl not change that much, by the simple expedient of splitting the pages, (files), unless HTML characters--and not simply text characters--are being counted, e.g., what's in the head.

I don't disagree with you, DubbShuff; not at all. But it is a bit weird, even though I've seen it myself, doing the same thing.

(It would be easier if the IDPF would come up with something, anything, that would make citing more consistent, but as we've all discussed here, before, on any number of topics--so what? Even if they did, what's to say that anyone would follow it? We could probably count on Apple not to; B&N, who knows--arguably, they're getting out of the biz, and then..well.)

Hitch

[doubleshuffle]

I think the reason is that a new html file always means a new ADE page, no matter how little text in the file. You can make a book with 500 ADE pages by putting in 500 files with one word in each.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

I think the reason is that a new html file always means a new ADE page, no matter how little text in the file. You can make a book with 500 ADE pages by putting in 500 files with one word in each.

And of course this is exactly true of a paper book as well. I guess we can't use any references to paper books either, or maybe we should make eBooks harder to change so they won't be changed so often.

Dale

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

And of course this is exactly true of a paper book as well. I guess we can't use any references to paper books either, or maybe we should make eBooks harder to change so they won't be changed so often.

Dale

Well, I agree the problem is that e-books are so easy to modify. In case of the paper book I can quote the exact edition and everything is fine. E-boks could really use an exact location system. I've been thinking of numbering the paragraphs; that in connection with proper accounting for versions (like most - all? - uploaders to the MR library do with the version numbers) could make e-books perfectly quotable.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Well, I agree the problem is that e-books are so easy to modify. In case of the paper book I can quote the exact edition and everything is fine. E-boks could really use an exact location system. I've been thinking of numbering the paragraphs; that in connection with proper accounting for versions (like most - all? - uploaders to the MR library do with the version numbers) could make e-books perfectly quotable.

Numbering of paragraphs will work and are done with specifications as I mentioned above. The major example is, of course, the Bible which manages to work well for many languages, and versions even without specifying version numbers. The idea is to hold on to the paragraph numbers so they don't change with versions. In specifications this works by referencing two or three level numbers. In the Bible the numbers are maintained even if the edition leaves out some of the verses and extra new verses are tagged onto existing verse numbers most of the time or identified with a footnote. In general only academic or business works like papers and specifications are referenced with the level of detail.

Dale