 | | | Subject: Revising the Update Procedure
Posted Feb 8, 2012 by  Gnomon does it all by himself
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 | | One of the (many) problems with the old h2g2 (the BBC-run one) was that there was one entry for each topic, but it wasn't easy to update the entry. You basically had to be up to sub-editor standard in your GuideML and English grammar and punctuation before the Eds would allow you to update an entry. They didn't want to spare sub-editors to work on updates when they could be doing the "real work" of adding entries to the Guide.
This meant that gradually over time, the entries got older and older and nobody could be bothered doing the work to correct them. And the nitpicking that the Eds insisted on for updates was done in Peer Review, which gave everybody the impression that people should do nitpicking in Peer Review. People got scared away from Peer Review and submitted less normal entries as well.
We've decided to change the process for updates - updates will be picked by scouts, the same as any other entry, and they'll be sub-edited if necessary, the same as any other entry. And updates will also get a picture added to them, the same as any new entry, if they don't already have one.
I'm still playing around with the details of exactly how it will happen.
But for the moment, what people need to know is that:
1. You don't have to be a brilliant writer to update an entry.
2. People reviewing things in Peer Review do not need to point out trivial mistakes. The only mistakes that need to be pointed out are the ones where the meaning is not possible to determine without asking the author.
Of course, one of the problems we will have with updates is that the front page has a section on the right hand side: Recently Updated. Due to various bugs in h2g2, we can't change that, so it will still show the last things that were updated by the BBC until we stop using DNA and all switch to Pliny (the new name for the bug-free Barlesque).
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