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

I'm really not sure about this editing process...

Here's my original before editing: http://www.h2g2.com/A454871
Note the not-messed-up ASCII art...has anyone actually read this once it's been 'edited' and before it's gone up on the front page? It doesn't look like the editor has finished - there's also a couple of errors in the text.

Actually, I can't see any difference between the ASCII art in your version and in the edited one. They look identical to me. I wonder why we are seeing different things.

I understand your concern about the editing, HenryS. But please try to remember that your entry was edited by a person with feelings who volunteered his time to help you get your entry on h2g2's front page. You are right to ask for a resolution, but I feel you should be polite and understanding about it. After all, nobody's perfect.

Just explain exactly what 'errors' you see, and how they could be corrected. And the h2g2 staffers will more than likely fix everything post haste.

I don't know exactly what happened here, but I've fixed it (I think). All edited text goes through a number of processes and gets shifted from one browser to another and occasionally things get missed and mistakes happen. Hope our speedy response restores your faith a little

All the best,

Sam

Wow, all seems to be fixed. Apologies, I think I was a little hasty before. My (unconscious) faith in the computers to not foul up surpassed my faith in the people to not foul up. (Hmm, probably an article in there). Imperfect communication is (I think) one of the biggest causes of aggro in the world, and I fell for it there. Sorry

Just one bit that looks odd: "just be lucky and find you can do them the same style."
...needs an 'Or' in front of it. And I'm a little surprised that the editing didn't remove the 'Henry Segerman' and 'uewJ363S hJu3H' from the first ambigram (and the 'cryptic' reference in the next line) - theyre certainly not necessary to the ambigram, and certainly less impersonal than without.

Entries are allowed to be personal and to reflect the style of the original writer - and in this case I think it improves the entry...

Hello!
Apologies for the Entry being messed up a bit with the ASCII art, I'm not sure how that happened.
And Lucinda's right, the reason I didn't change it was because I believe that while you are writing for "The Guide" the work is still your own and should reflect your own writing-style. Also I liked the Ambigram

Ok...I'm not really complaining

Does anyone know if there's a way to get fixed width fonts into forum messages? Occasionally I'd like to do a bit of ascii art (eg ambigrams), and so far I've been referring to guide entries with it in, but it'd be far more convenient to just stick it in the message.

Thank you
As far as I know there is no way of formatting text in forums.

nope - h2g2 decided to keep it simple, and most importantly, *fast*

I wish it was fast more often!

Simple yes, but in the wrong font for ascii art *shrug* (surely this needs a smiley?). Ah well, its not as bad as MS outlook for ascii art - theres always the guide entries if needed.

This is entirely to do with fixed-width fonts, the idea that every character takes up the same amount of space as every other one. So a v fills the same amount of space as a w only when this is true does ASCII art work. You could, of course, set your browser to over-ride all font settings and force it to view in a F-W Font.

Well yeah, I could do that, but it wouldn't be much use if I'm trying to draw a pic for someone else

Also I have a suspicion that it might do some weird stuff to the text, eg removing multiple spaces [URL removed by moderator]That's fine if youre writing sentences, nobody cares if a double space is replaced by one, but its disaster for ascii art.

yep - it gets rid of multiple spaces and spaces at the beginning of a line... I've had problems with both on occasion...