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

What an adventure! I submitted an article for peer review and subscribed to the forum so I could see what others were writing. There are some very talented people writing some very good material. I have been educated and entertained by much of what I've seen. I hoist a glass and propose a toast to all you writers out there!

As for the peers, thank you to all of those who have elected to provide insightful, thoughtful, and constructive feedback to the authors.

There appear to be some, however, who delight in attacking the authors, denegrating them or their work, and being just plain rude. I was fortunate enough not to have that done to me but I was unfortunate enough to see many examples of such boorish behavior.

In the tradition of the original Guide, there should be room for fun, humor, irreverance, and even a little spite now and then. The last thing we need are a bunch of self appointed "fun police".

Your remarks in the 'Earth' PR thread F3272590"?thread=1854702 are a good half parsec wide of the mark, and completely unwarranted and OTT. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to respond to Gnomon's post F3272590

Please see my response on that thread.

Thank you.

Your reply is entirely appropriate and well put but it does show the perils of wading in on something that you might not have much experience of and making assumptions based on a misapprehension.

Gnomon is one of the most respected and least-rude Researchers on this website. I know him well enough to realise that his post 3 in that thread was meant in good humour, not tart sarcasm. It seems that you have some experience of PR, but perhaps not enough to know this about Gnomon (who I also know from many other parts of h2).

It's very difficult indeed on a website/email list/messageboard/newsgroup to word things in a completely neutral manner and it's therefore incumbent on both the writer and the reader to allow some leeway. The writer has to realise that whatever they say, it might be misinterpreted; the reader has to understand that their interpretation might not be what the writer meant, and should therefore seek clarification before going off on a rant.

I don't know why, but that almost never seems to happen, and it's been that way ever since I first started using internet communication almost 10 years ago. I have to deduce that it's *always* been that way ever since the first newsgroups and email lists came into being. I'm constantly wondering why the internet is such a hostile and confrontational place.

I only recently started looking at H2G2 PR since I only recently came across the guide website. As a fan of the books for quite a few years, this looked like an interesting place to spend some time. I started looking at PR because I wanted to see what folks were writing and submitting. I found some very well written articles and some that were not so well written. This is both the joy and the danger of having such an open forum.

There are folks putting a lot of effort into making constructive PR suggestions and the articles benefit from that effort. There are also those who seem to be trying to build themselves up by putting others down (a concept I find a particularly odd in a somewhat anonymous forum). I saw more examples of that yesterday by some folks who claimed to be scientists upset by what they perceived as scientific errors in an article (I will refrain from saying "mad scientists").

My previous PR experices have been as an author and reviewer of scientific and technical journals and as an author, reviewer, and editor of legal journals. In those other forums (some would say fora), a certain level of courtesy and civility is expected and required. Part of the difference is that you use your real name and the communities are small enough that you are very likely to meet the person in real life. As such, the exchanges usually (but not always) remain professional and courteous, even for the most hotly debated issues.