Note [9 July 2003]: This process page is antiquated, and only kept around for historical purposes. Click here for the current version.

Definitions

• UG Persona: An h2g2 account, with its own login information and U-number, used for Scouting and Subbing UG entries. This persona would have Scout and SubEditor badges to facilitate the processing of entries.
  

• Core Member: One of a small number of researchers who have demonstrated committment to the UnderGuide scheme. Core Members have access to the login details for the UG Persona. Core Members are also Miners

• Miner: A Miner is a UG volunteer. Unless a Miner is also a core member, they do not have access to the UG Persona. Miners can act as Scouts and/or Subs for the UnderGuide. The way they can do this without accessing the UG Persona is detailed in this entry.
  

• Offsite Group: A group, hosted at MSN or some other server, where voting occurs. Members of the group will include all Core Members and Miners, and also at least one Italic. If there are different levels of membership, then Miners will have the basic level, and at least one Core Member and at least one Italic will have 'manager' or whatever higher level there is.
  

Scouting

Scouting will take place through a process of voting by Miners at the Offsite Group.

Suppose a Miner sees an entry, that has been in APR for at least one week, which they think is a good candidate for inclusion in the UnderGuide. Their first step is to go to the Offsite Group and see whether it has already been nominated. If not, they begin a thread to nominate it. The opening post in this thread counts as one 'yes' vote. The title of the thread should be the A-number and title of the entry. The first post should include any reasons the Miner cares to leave.

Once an entry is nominated, other Miners may cast votes in its thread as well. Miners each are allotted X votes per week, which may be cast as 'yes' votes (including nominations), or as 'no' votes, or as any combination of the two, the total votes per week not exceeding X. Casting fewer than X votes is.... what? Acceptable, not cool, grounds for immediate flaying, downright saintly in a beat-poetry/pro-golf kind of way? Discuss.

When a Miner casts a 'yes' vote, they may, if no one already has, make it a 'yes+subbing' vote. This vote indicates that, not only do they agree that it should be included in the UnderGuide, but that they'd also be willing to Subedit it.

When an entry has received three MORE 'yes' votes than 'no' votes, including one 'yes+subbing' vote, it has been officially picked by the Miners. At this point, one of the Core Members takes note of this fact, logs on as the UG Persona, and Scouts the entry, officially.

Subbing

After the UG Persona has Scouted an entry, it goes to the Towers for approval, because that's how the tools work. The Towers can then allocate the entry back to the UG Persona for Subbing rights. This means that a copy is made of the entry, a Recommended Copy, with a new A-number.

Whoever cast the 'yes+subbing' vote is told where to find the Recommended Copy of the entry. They go there, access the 'test123456' version of the page, and copy the entry into their own subbing copy, which they create, and over which they have sole editing rights. Working on this subbing copy, the subbing Miner discusses any changes they choose to make with the author, always deferring to author preference in questions of style, word choice, spelling... basically everything except for approved GuideML and any issue relating to the House Rules. This should be done in a standardized way, perhaps in a thread attached to the subbing copy, or to the original, or wherever. Discuss?

After the subbing process is complete, a Core Member reviews the subbed copy and the discussion thread, ascertains that everything is in order, and copies the GuideML from the subbing copy into the Recommended Copy, over which only the UG Persona has editing rights. The Subeditor is credited at this stage in a manner similar to the way Community Artists are credited - an acknowledgement within the entry itslef, maybe at the bottom.

The now-polished Recommended Copy is returned to the Towers by the UG Persona, using the standard subbing tools. Once received, its status goes from 'Recommended' to 'Pending', and it goes into the Front Page queue.

Any Questions?