The old 'Submit' button was the starting point of a submissions process which meant that entries joined the end of a long queue, in-house editors got round to looking at entries eventually, and weeks later Researchers were either told that their entry had been accepted, or that it had been rejected.

We soon realised that with this arrangement the emphasis was all wrong. 'Aha,' we thought, 'a peer review system would be a much better idea', and this is why:

• All entries are part of the Guide and an 'us and them' elitism isn't the kind of vibe that we're comfortable with here at h2g2.

• Rejecting people isn't kind, but encouraging them to improve their entries is.

• We didn't like the idea that Researchers had to wait so long to hear from us.

• A peer review system is democratic, empowering the community and giving you the chance to have your say.

• The old submission process was simply not scalable. As the number of registered Researchers increases, the number of entries submitted would be bound to rise. Under the old queue system, we'd then have to employ a proportionate number of in-house editors to deal with this increasing workload, and that's not feasible - the investors wouldn't hear of it, which is fair enough, really.

The New System: Peer Review

As new versions of the site are released, you'll see a number of shiny, new gadgets fall into place which will help you direct us to the best entries you've found on the site. To kick us off we've come up with a simple, but honest, method for you to point us in the right direction: simply go to the the Peer Review Page and leave us a message, telling us the title and entry number (A123456 number) of the entry you'd like to recommend, along with the reasons why you think it's worthy of consideration for the Edited Guide. You can tell us about your own entries, or those of your friends, or those entries you've simply come across during your wanderings through the wonderful world of h2g2.

These recommended entries will be passed on to the Scouts, the site's online explorers, whose job it is to uncover the hidden jewels of h2g2. The Scouts pass on entries that are genuinely excellent to the Sub-editors, another group of volunteers who put the finishing touches to entries before they go into the Edited Guide.

So what will happen to what's left of the queue? Well, we're going to continue to work our way through those entries, because we're going to keep our promise to look at all entries submitted using the old method. Simultaneously, we will be going through the current queue and monitoring the threads on the Peer Review Page.

So welcome to the all new, democratic Peer Review system. We hope you like it.