[sword-devel] Module Errors (was: Taming Wild Threads)

[Matthew Talbert]

> General historic policy at CrossWire is: we will not be an authoritative
> source repository.

Of course, Crosswire does maintain the source to the KJV, the NASB,
and perhaps a few others, correct? I do not wish to argue about it,
but I wonder if the policy still makes sense. If something is in the
public domain, it would seem to me that it would be better to just
make the changes and resubmit, rather than waiting on potentially
unreliable upstream sources. Of course, I am not suggesting to do this
with copyrighted resources, unless the copyright holder would
explicitly allow this.

> if it is a conversion error, then post here.  If no one picks up the
> pumpkin to recreate the module from source, fixing the conversion error,
> then see the sword-tools SVN repository-- which contains most of our
> scripts which we use to convert modules-- fix the problem and recreate
> the source.
>
> I know this isn't the nice:
>
>        Submit your problem in the module error reporting tool at...
>        Remember your ticket number if you need to contact us again.
>        Your issue should be resolved by next business day.
>
> The fact of the matter is that we do have a module error reporting tool.
>
> http://crosswire.org/bugs/browse/MOD

I should have been aware of this but wasn't. Thanks for pointing it out.

> You are welcome to use it for both reporting conversion problems and for
> seeing where you can help fix those problems.  But the fact of the
> matter is that we have wmany more people willing to report than willing
> to help correctly fix.
>
>        -Troy.
>
>

I believe personally that the problem with people willing to report
versus correct could be helped with a tool that would allow casual
users to make changes themselves. I have proposed this before along
with an (admittedly very incomplete) implementation. Of course there
are errors that can't be fixed so simply. And of course, it would make
Crosswire a source repository which according to policy it won't be. I
would just like to say again that having poor quality modules (which
to me are modules that are old, use archaic language, are not properly
cross-linked, have simple spelling or grammatical issues) reflect
badly on the whole project. Somebody somewhere is going to fill in
this gap in the project (Karl's repository fills some of this need),
and it seems to be that it would be better if it were an official
Crosswire thing rather than something else. Again, I don't want to
argue about it, and I realize that it would be a policy change, but it
seems to be necessary to me.

Matthew