h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This seems to be receiving positive support elsewhere.

A definite, democratic strategy to support first-class writing on h2g2. Voted in by either the community as a whole, or maybe by the Volunteers alone, the Entry Of The Month gets Front Page status for a week, and perhaps a badge for one's PS. Let's face it: who among us wouldn't feel a little weak at the knees at knowing they'd written one of the truly elite h2g2 Entries?

We've tried something like this in the past, but 'Have You Missed' was unreliable and occasionally inexplicable. Why not have a good, community-oriented vote once a month on the entries that have drawn a good line between factual content and entertainment.

My initial idea was for the Editors to draw up a shortlist of (say) 5 entries, and for it to be voted upon by those volunteers most involved with the Edited Guide: the Subs and Scouts. I think a whole-community vote would be a grand idea, but am a little bit worried about it being open to corruption and/or favouritism.

B

>>Why not have a good, community-oriented vote once a month on the entries that have drawn a good line between factual content and entertainment.<<

This is a wondeful idea.

I'd go for the community vote. It would foster more connection between the EG and the community. (I also think a volunteers only vote would , at this point, be another small smack in the face for the general community where alot of people are already feeling that the community is not being well looked after).

I agree there could be problems with favouritism - but if the wider community was encouraged to be involved there might be a wider variety of people voting. Maybe it could be trialled?

This is so bizarre, only this morning, for the first time in months, I had a look at the 'Have You Missed' (Alphabetical) page A882713 - which I last updated 2 days shy of 2 years ago



Like kea, I suspect a community-wide vote would foster enthusiasm for AND awareness of the EG

I also agree that the alternative has the potential for, if not quite a 'smack in the face', then at least an unnecessary risk of 'elitism' being perceived by newbies and some of us old(er) timers alike

I have read - a few times in recent months - that the volunteers most involved with the Edited Guide are the Subs and Scouts... which, although accurate, strikes me as akin to a self-fulling prophecy

There are 1000s of us and, apart from the italics, we're all volunteers - even if we don't have a shiny badge

Anyhoo...

I think you're idea is sound B

Fab idea B!

I like the idea as well

great idea; will always even as a 'commuhity wide vote' edge towards if not elete then being a 'certain group' who'd be more likely to vote; I.E., those who haunt PR/read the guide more, as opposied to those on more the 'conversation sside' of thangs but just by the vertue of having the community voteing for it, might edge more of us towards PR/guide entrys as opposed to the conversation thread side of thangs do I get two votes as I'm king?

I thought the monarch wasn't allowed to vote.

B

Hey! the king can do what he bluddy well wants!

Regardless of what 2legs thinks, do the Powers That Be have an opinion on this?

B

I think it's a great idea.

A few thoughts:

I think it'd be a bit tricky to vote on in advance of the entry hitting the Front Page, as it's likely entries will shuffle around and one might get bumped back into the following month. It'd be better to vote on entries that have already been up on the Front Page in that month, so that everyone's had a chance to see it, either on the Front Page or via the Month page. Votes shouldn't just be posting 'Entry of the Month! to a page either, but should involve a level of discussion - what makes this entry so great? Why is it the best one this month? - with a focus on positive comments rather than negative ones against other entries.

It'd possibly have to work without a guarantee of in-house involvement. I know we give the impression that we just sit around all day drinking tea, but in truth we don't have enough hours in the day to do our current workload.

If people post to the bottom of the entry to say what they like about it, then maybe that would show which are the most popular entries. Volunteers could count the votes, work out which entry is 'Entry of the Month' and then invite everyone to hold a party on that page (remembering to invite those Researchers who contributed to the entry ).

We'd definitely like to see more comments on entries each day. That's one aspect that seems to have dropped off a bit. We used to email around the best comments and conversations to each other every day, when the team was bigger, and it might be something The Post could take up - linking to the most entertaining, insightful or just plain fun conversations on Edited Entries.

I'd certainly be happy to co-ordinate something like this in conjunction with the Post, but I'd be a lot happier if it had good official backing (in the form of a badge perhaps?), granting that you can't afford to spend a lot of time on it.

B

<< If people post to the bottom of the entry to say what they like about it, then maybe that would show which are the most popular entries. Volunteers could count the votes,...>>

Having been a counter of votes (on HYM) I can see that such a system might be a logistical headache - seeing as though there are usually 60 new EG entries per month... and maybe more than one thread per A-page will be started

How about, as per the old HYM, a dedicated (and prominently publicised) EotM page, where we're 'encouraged' to start threads with titles like [EotM: A123 The Title of the Entry]

This is actually a very, very good idea. The general opinion at F19585?thread=3289561 is that people have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of Entries when they've taken the opportunity to read them. Since the focus of hootoo is the EG, I'm all for anything that will help to promote it.

Sure, there's quite a bit that needs to be hammered out in terms of the way the voting will work, but I think if we have the Ed's support and the willingness of a few volunteers to oversee the operation there's no reason why this should not happen.

I'm going to think some more on this and hopefully come back with some suggestions. Will discussions remain here at present with a relatively small audience or will they be moved to a more prominent area where more of the community can supply feedback?

Brilliant idea though - I'd love to see this one given the legs it deserves.

Re: voting. It would be good to have comment justifying the votes but we all know what voting threads get like. I'm sure I've seen polls on other parts of bbc.co.uk so why can't we just have a page with the same code?

(I know I'm probably displaying my IT ignorance here)

Indeed (the first bit, not the last bit). Every messageboard on the Net has got a poll, so it shouldn't be beyond JL's capabilities to include one.

B

There are polls on other bbc sites, certainly at Celebdaq where they have one a week to vote on/off celebrities, so it should be technically feasable.

I have my reservations that hootoo will be allocated the development time/resources at this stage though, so I think we will need to think of a way the voting could work within the current dna framework.

Maybe a volunteer could set up something offsite? It would be a shame to not keep it in house though.

I think six7s's idea is the best one, because it's simple and manageable - dedicated A-page with all the month just gone's Entries listed on it; instructions at the bottom ('Please start a thread beginning 'Vote for ...' if you want to nominate one of these Entries, please add your name to the thread if it already exists' etc.).

Voting for, say, two weeks; after which point, someone - presumably a Scout - goes round and counts up the votes (wouldn't take that long unless every single Entry gets voted for) and reports back.

HooToo (and DNA) isn't really set up for voting. Surely it can't be too difficult to slap a poll-type code in on a HooToo page, even if the page redirects to a regular 'bbc.co.uk' page. The only problem I can see is adding the entry titles to the poll every month, but I'm sure a volunteers could do that.

Is HooToo really such an irrelevance to the BBC that they wouldn't spend time sorting out a poll?

BTW, I did specifically mean the BBC, not out italics.