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

Hey Ben,

Just dropping by to see how the Underguide proposal is progressing and if there's anything I can do to help y'all.

No hurry, milady

Ashley

Ooooh, I don't know - I know nothing in fact! Tell you what - check out Subcom's summary (A943670) and this thread (F110334?thread=244350), and post there if you like.

My guess is the most useful would be if you could take a look at GTB's suggestions for the AWW page (A953354), and at Waz's and my drafts for the volunteers' pages (A957404, A957431, and A957323) and ask questions or even add comments to the threads on them.

Glad you asked eh?

Things have slowed down a little. There is more going on in AWW, but some visible Italicised interest in the processes and the other background work would be good.

We have a lot of top-level agreement about our aims and about processes, with the odd researcher saying 'why bother?' or 'but anarchy is better'. Those debates are incredibly useful, because they mean we have to consider our reasons really carefully and present them well.

Where we are getting stuck is the nitty gritty of the details of the processes, and some comments from you saying 'we do it like this in the official schemes because .....' etc would help without committing y'all to approving things.

The biggest biggest biggest difference y'all could make would be if you would be willing to include a link to an Edited UG entry on the front page every day, and if y'all put some criteria behind that. Ie - tell us we do need guidelines, tell us we need to pick and sub a pool of 30 or 50 entries as a cushion to start with, tell us that that means that we need to be picking and subbing 6 entries a week. We then have a goal to aim for, and information about how to achieve it. And you can word it so that there is no stated commitment to do anything other than consider it.

A good strong dose of reality, with some hints about what would work for you, would be great. If you say 'in order to be considered, any scheme will need (x) and (y) and (z)' then it is up to us whether we think we can do that or not.

But some visible interest from you, Sam, Anna and / or Jimster would be good.

At the moment we don't know what to do with the entries we 'pick'. I am not sure if anyone is even sending them to the Post. This is a risky situation, because without any clear destination, picking entries becomes pretty much an exercise in mutual intellectual masturbation.

I am going to point the others in the direction of this thread.



Ben

Right - I've printed these out and will get back with some feedback.



Ashley

Great! Isn't it intesting how the most wired of us still have to print stuff out to read it?

Thanks, Ashely.

B

I'm of the older school I'm afraid - it's far easier to notate on paper.

And me! It's more comfortable too. The Belief Project was held up for a week while my printer sulked.

B

*waves*

Back at ya...

Now I am in far too late, so I'm off home with a KitKat chunky to sustain me on my walk home.

Goodnight gentle Researchers, goodnight.

Ashley

I can access machines with Adobe Acrobat (full, not just the reader) installed - so I print to PDF file and highlight and scribble on that insetad. It's more practical for me to store my printouts on a central server than to carry them with me - I'm ace at losing things!

Firstly let me say that I am very impressed with the progress you are all making - in the pages I have read I have seen some very solid stones upon which a great scheme can be built. This feedback is from the whole team who lend their support to the project.

I've posted my comments here because I want to keep it all in one place... and this has to be my longest posting ever methinks




*** Underguide Scheme - Plan D ***

>>> 1. Scout invites author of entry to submit it to AWW for consideration in the Underguide.

You've mentioned on other pages that Researchers can add their own entries to the review forum, so it would be worthwhile to mention that here.

>>> 2. Entry collects feedback in AWW for one week.

I take it this is for a minimum of one week, again the longer it is in there the better. You may also want to consider putting a ceiling on the time an entry is allowed in the review forum otherwise you may end up with a clogged up forum. You will also want to consider a procedure of how to remove unsuitable entries as there will be some. A nominations procedure similar to the scouts (were an entry is nominated and seconded) works quite well.

>>> Italics approve or edit entry.

I don't think italics would ever edit the entries, but that doesn't stop them from being an official part of the site. It is not because we don't want to, it is a matter of time and resources. I have outlined a plan below of italic help.

>>> 7. Queue for Front Page, link to entry appears on bottom of Front Page, immortality.

You'll need to decide how many entries you are going to provide a week before you get a queue going. We promise 25 Edited Guide Entries a week which enables us to structure the copyflow in a way that is manageable. By structuring the flow, you can see the flaws and see where improvements can be made (ie artwork etc). I'd suggest starting with one a week and then build it up.


>>> An "Underguide editors" id could be shared by UG volunteers to mark all selected entries. The personal space would form a center for communications about the Underguide.

This forms a fundamental part of my outline below. A caveat about shared personas: make sure that only a few researchers have access to it for matters of editorial control. UG volunteers will come and go, arguments will arise etc so best to keep this persona in the hands of a few die-hards.


>>> a) Promote entries that fall outside the scope of the Edited Guide by giving them a link at the bottom of the front page.

Why the bottom of the Front Page? The UG will form a part of the Read step of the Guide so can appear under the '5 New Entries for...' section. We can also incorporate a section of blurb for the UG on the 'Read More' page (A462485) - this is where I recommend we start publicising the UG and then move the entries to the Front Page when the scheme proves its worth.

>>> b) Integration of the Underguide scheme into the official h2g2 system, managed by Italics, if they like the idea.

UG entries could have their own section within the categorisation system, this would have to be done by the italics and distinguishes UG entries from normal guide entries.

I will outline this point further below, but there is a way this can be done. It's not a promise, just highlighting a potential path.



*** Draft of New APR page ***

>>> Welcome to Alternative Peer Review

Find a brand new name - you are trying to create a new section of the Guide, so personally I think it would be good to create a new ID.

>>> ... you may find it a bit more anarchic here.

Personally I wouldn't use the term anarchic - you will need a structure of some description and people's interpretation of anarchy changes incredibly. You can still have a creativity within a structure - by implying anarchy you suggest that people can submit whatever they like, which is not necessarily the case.

>>> ... but as far as style and content, anything goes. Opinions, rants, ramblings, first-person accounts, poems, really well-told jokes, fictional fact, factual fiction, euphonious nonsense... all of these and more will find their home in the UnderGuide.

Is this entirely true? There will be some entries that will not be suitable, you may need to mention length of entries, swearing (the on-going debate ) and also the kind of entries you are not looking for (trust me the amount of entries we used to have saying 'Boredom - I started to write an entry but I got bored' or 'Earth - it's mostly harmless' got beyond a joke and almost made me homicidal )


>>> Notes on Commenting

As some of your content will be poetry/fiction, it might be worth adding a note that some sensitivity is required - fiction is so personal that a critique rather than a criticism may be more appropriate.



*** A Proposal from this Humble Italic ***

The following is only a suggestion on how we can incorporate italic time into the scheme alongside our other duties and give the UG the attention it deserves and some form of 'official' status.

Here goes...

* Create a persona for the UG editors. This *has* to be in the hands of a few trusted Researchers and not to the masses for reasons of manageability.

* We make this persona a Sub-editor and a Scout (thus giving the badges)

* We retitle the AWW and your volunteers 'scout' entries from there. Entries will have to be clearly titled that they are from the Underguide for us in-house. Once they have picked the entries, they tell the UG editor and the UG editor recommends it (this is why a structure of copyflow is vital for you and us). We would only accept entries for the UG scouted by the UG Editors and those which are clearly marked. We only have one set of inhouse tools so these entries have to be clearly marked and controlled, otherwise it is pandemonium. There is a danger they will get mixed up with the EG entries. We recommend starting out with one entry a week so we can all get used to the system and see how it pans out.

* The scouted entries come in house, we cast an eye on them (entries still have to maintain general editorial standards) and we 'accept' them for the UG. It is at this point that a copy is made.

* We allocate the entries to the UG editors

* You guys farm them out to whoever (you can credit sub-eds in the same way we do Community artists by us the Entry edited by.... (no link) tag.

* Alert us when the entry is ready to go live with some appropriate blurb (two sentences say)

* Bingo, you're done.

It would be very useful for us if you create an equivalent of the 'Coming Up' page so we are all aware of what the status and publishing date of each entry.

The obvious flaw in this system is the status of the copy... I'll mull that over.

I cannot stress enough the fact that we cannot afford to have the internal tools confused between the two sets of entries. The UG Editors will be pivotal in this and should copyflow prove unreliable, then we would have to take the UG off the Read/FP.

Let me know what you think.

Ashley

This all seems very sensible to me - I'll read up in more detail this afternoon!

*dancing with discrete and antipatory joy*
*rolling up her sleeves, because the real work starts now!*

Ben

Wow ! Hello Ashley, and thankyou- I don't know about anyone else but this a lot more than I expected. Your proposal takes the Underguide into the structure of h2g2 which I wasn't expecting could happen for some while. I'll say it again - wow! This needs music! "http://www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/mole/FiftyMillionFrenchmen.ram" (courtesy of tonsil revenge). Waz

Suddenly I'm excited about all this again.

Here's a few quick comments.

Plan D is slightly outdated. When I put it together (frankensteined from all the good stuff Ben and GTB had done first), I was afraid that any requests for changes to the site or the peer review system would be asking too much. Also I wasn't sure if you'd want to do final edits on Underguide entries, or if you'd only want to check them for meeting House Rules, so I left it open as "Italics approve or edit entry."

Whether to enforce one week minimum in AWW was a question we were still debating. Is that how it's done with Peer Review and the Edited Guide?

Putting Underguide link at the bottom of the front page is just a visual joke, positioning it *under* everything else. But getting a higher place on the page would be worth losing the joke.

"UG entries could have their own section within the categorisation system, this would have to be done by the italics and distinguishes UG entries from normal guide entries."

Excellent. I was afraid that would be on the long-term wish list.

Retitling AWW: GTB or whoever suggested "Alternative Peer Review" thought it would give credibility, show that it serves a function similar to Peer Review. Would you prefer a title that doesn't repeat the phrase "peer review"?

Regarding "style and content," there are a couple different attempts at Underguide guidelines floating around. Time to smooth out the wrinkles and settle on one.

Thanks for your feedback, and please thank the rest of the team who contributed!

Alternative Review I think would be all right. You don't need the word 'peer'in it.

something I am worried about if where entries will be picked up. It seems as if the entres in AWW is the ones that would be selected, however, if that was not someone's intention, someone may be annoyed to find it became part of the underguide, especialy if it got moved there from peer review. wouldn't it be better to have a otally new review forum with its intentions and point clearly laid out, and keep AWW as a workshop?

spook

"if that was not someone's intention, someone may be annoyed to find it became part of the underguide, especialy if it got moved there from peer review"

"wouldn't it be better to have a otally new review forum with its intentions and point clearly laid out, and keep AWW as a workshop"

Good points, spook, both of them.

Have you checked out GTB's proposed re-write of the AWW page? A953354 This will make it fairly clear to people arriving there where it is they have arrived. Ashley has been complimentary about it, (praised it with faint damns, in fact!) and it is reasonable to assume that something along those lines will appear there instead of the text that is there currently.

In AWW we do put a reasonable amount of effort into finding out if people are still using the site, and making sure that they are aware of the discussions in AWW, posting directly in their user-space if they are not subscribed to the AWW thread, for example. This will be less of a problem as more current work is put into AWW, and we are dealing with fewer Elvises.

Also - if the Italics are using the in-house tools for the Underguide entries, then the author will be emailed when the entry is formally picked, and again when it goes on the front page.

I am not sure what is going to happen with the Writing Workshop. My assumption is that it will feed both PR and APR (now AWW). In other words there will be a single place for works in progress, and separate forums for review and selection. This makes sense to me, but I have no idea if other people are assuming what I am assuming.

What does everyone else think?

B

Is A967115 kind of like what you were thinking of, Ashley?

I just knocked this together, and haven't even proofread it yet, because I have to sleep now.

If it contradicts anything that's been decided or proposed elsewhere, that's probably just backlog I haven't seen; please let me know.


GTB


Actually, just scrolling up and re-reading Ashley's bit, I see there's a thing or two I've left out. I'll fix it tomorrow. Having the entries clearly marked is important, as are blurb-writing and doing a special UG ComingUp page. Wouldn't they automatically end up on the regular ComingUp though?