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

I think the real problem with Peer Review (at least in this case) is that it doesn't lend itself to sweeping changes, which is what the early history stuff on this entry needed.

I mean no disrespect to you, Hussassan, but how old are you and how much experience do you actually have? Because from the C64 perspective (which as a devotee I tried to defend as much as possible) you don't really seem to know what's going on.

As a solution, may I suggest that some of us get together and do our own collaborative article? I mean, between Jimster, Silverfish, Hoovooloo and myself, we should be able to put together something. A potted history of computer gaming up to the release of the Mega Drive (and the start of these Console Wars) would seem to be just the job in this case.

That would be a great idea, Auberius. I doubt I'd be able to contribute much; as I said earlier, my sphere of knowledge is the PlayStation era, so this entry serves that time well enough. But a companion piece on the birth of consoles would be superb. Look forward to reading it.



Jims

"I'm particularly suprised at xyroth putting his name to this..." said hoovooloo.

however, as he later looked up the peer review thread, he will notice that I only made a couple of minor comments. also, I was not aware that it had been picked, as my visits of late have been a bit patchy.

" I only made a couple of minor comments."

Well, yeah, that was kinda my point. Didn't you *notice* the stuff I pointed out? Or didn't you think accuracy in that part was important? Don't, please, tell me you didn't know your stuff on that area, 'cos I won't believe you. Or were you intending to come back at a later point and start in on the really serious errors, having "softened them up" with a few minor ones to begin with? In which case, (a) why didn't you come back? (b) if you knew your visits were patchy why take that approach, and (c) just goes to show that this was rushed through PR in unseemly haste, like I said.



H.

I know my stuff generally about modern consoles, and about computers since the ZX80 and the NASCOM, but the early consoles are a little before my time.

after all, I was born in 1969, so although I have learned a lot it is not surprising that there are holes in the stuff that happened before I left school.

as to commenting, I thouroughly expected it to remain in peer review for a while longer while some of the points raised by others were addressed (as well as my point about balance).

it went from congratulations, you've been picked to the editors choice in 2 days. that is a bit fast even for me to be able to get in there and moan about.

Pretty much precisely my point. Read the PR thread, too, Sam was practically demanding it was picked (not a criticism of Sam, personally, I'm assuming there were reasons for the rush)

H.

If I could just point out, that I had that entry on my space for at least three weeks. Two days from congratulations to editor's choice is a very large exaggeration.

I'm baffled where this 'two days' thing has come from. The entry was in Peer Review for almost three months, which shows that in no way was it 'rushed through Peer Review'. Only when the main commentators in the thread agreed that the entry was ready did we accept it. From there, it was, as Super Shiny Sarah points out, more than three weeks later that the entry appeared on the Front Page.

Throughout its time in Peer Review, Hussassan was receptive to comments and realistically, the only major problem was the fact that the Magnavox had been left out - something that was fixed after the discussions in this thread. Everything else was acknowledged (although we freely admit there was some specialist knowledge required in interpreting soem of the comments, which thankfully Hoovooloo was able to provide - after it had gone live).

Again, by replacing the old editorial queue with the Peer Review forum, we empowered the community to enable change. An entry is therefore only ever as good as the feedback you give it Peer Review. While this entry did get some splendid feedback - which in turn led to it enjoying perhaps a longer than usual incubation period - we cannot stress enough the importance of contributing to the Peer Review process.

Having said that, the many ways that a Researcher can continue to contribute to an entry after it goes 'live' means that there's never any need to despair should things not be picked up during the Editorial process.

Jims

well, I appear to be wrong about the 2 days thing, mainly due to the invisibility of the what's comming up process.


It definately was not on my space until it appeared on the front page (which was where I appear to have got the 2 days from).

Also, after the congratulations post there was almost no comment in the peer review thread, resulting it that thread dropping off my radar.

If it was possible to subscribe to "what's comming up", and have new threads announced, then it would make such error checking a semi-automated process. people like me would subscribe to it, and when a thread pops up on that forum, extra effort would be made to make sure that any errors were reported quickly.

as it is, you first have to notice the congratulations message (not necessarily easy in a low-activity thread), or if you miss that, happen to check the what's comming up page in time, and if you miss that, happen to spot it on the front page, or the new this month page.

all of these are labour intensive steps, meaning that they often get missed out on if you happen to have a lot of conversations which you are subscribed to (i wasn't online last night, and have 350 threads to go through).

sorry to keep pushing this point, but it is more important than the editors seemed to think a few days ago.

But if these tasks are things you're interested in, you can bookmark the pages (in most browsers at least). Not really 'labour intensive', so much a requiring a little effort on the part of anyone who wants this feature.

We're honestly not being dismissive here out of hand, it's just that these pages are not like the 'normal' ones you can already subscribe to. To enable subscription to them would either mean converting the page to normal status, which means it would have to be updated by hand, or else require some recoding, which is something we can't do at the drop of a hat (in fact, we can't do at all, we have to put it to the DNA team). In terms of priorities I'm afraid it would by necessity remain very low on the list in comparison to other coding requirements, both on h2g2 and on other DNA sites. The objections we're presenting to you on this are likely to be the very same ones we'd be presented when putting in the request.

As Abi said in another thread, we can certainly put in on the list, but it's only fair to warn you it would probably stay on the list for some time. I'm just trying to find practical solutions to the problem which, as you rightly point out, does affect the issue we're discussing here to some extent.

Jims

I would just like to point one small thing out. The true author of this article has chosen to completely and utterly ignore this thread.

And?

Firstly, this thread was not addressed to the author, it was addressed to the people with the power to actually make the changes necessary to make this entry factually accurate, i.e. the Italics.

Secondly, it's not the author's fault that his inaccurate entry passed through the checking process and got the Front Page as Editors' Choice with the inaccuracies intact. That is down to the process, for which the author is not in any way responsible.

So why shouldn't he ignore this thread? It's not really got anything to do with him, unless he feels like commenting on the process...

H.

I wasn't assigning any judgement, I was just pointing something out.


On a completely unrelated note, Hoovooloo, I think you've done an excellent job in this thread upholding high standards for h2g2. I've got an article currently awaiting approval. I did quite a bit of research, but if you'd like to check it out for any glaring errors, I'd be grateful. I'd rather find them now before it gets picked. It's A1017695.

Flattery will get you nowhere you weren't already five weeks ago...

F119327?thread=261112

H.

Yes, but it's done with tweaking now.

One thing about it, that article did spend little time in peer review. (little more than a week I believe). I feel fairly confident about my facts, but as we should all know, doing research on the internet, one always runs the risk of one's sources being in error. Never hurts to have more eyes give an article a scanning before it's released.

BTW, are there any articles or convos you haven't read Hoovooloo?

Yes.

H.

I hate to turn up with a can of petrol, but I really couldn't drift past this one without commentating.

I'm one of the researchers round here who tends to drift in and out these days - I might not have time to contribute regularly but I try to read the five edited entries every day, even if I can't justify clicking the link for any reason than idle curiosity. While this has led me to many entries I close fairly quickly - it's also led me to learn things I'd never think to show an interest in.

So when I do come across an entry I'm really interested in, it is extremely disappointing to find what is actually very shallow coverage of an industry that, when it comes to boardroom skullduggery and intrigue, can only count professional sport as a worthy peer.

Hooloovoo has highlighted the outright factual errors - and I did feel the early response to this was overly defensive by the editorial team. Sorry guys, the editorial stamp is seen by your readership as a seal of approval and demands accuracy, even if you want to plead the fifth. Criticising a contibutor for pointing out factual errors is a show of staggering hubris for any editor. Especially seeing as they haven't actually proof-read it properly.....("The New Era", para 4, first sentence. Interesting choice of vocabulary).

Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot I enjoyed in this article but it seems an increasingly odd choice to be picked up in its current form by the editorial team. I can't believe a site that has been as pioneering as any on the web can be so blase about the recent history of its own industry. "Console Wars of the Second Generation". Despite the fact we're on the fifth generation of hardware releases since it all began. Is this some revionist attempt to simplify history for the masses? There are certainly some interesting interpretations of the market and the behaviour of various players. Examples?

"Sega's attempts at overtaking Nintendo were not a success".
- Not a very objective assessment of the Megadrive's market share in the US and Europe - it certainly had Nintendo worried.

"Though the Saturn and N64 did have a few flaws such as taking a bit longer to develop and sticking with expensive, 'uncool' cartridges (N64)".
- A bit longer to develop? Surely you mean the software took longer to develop?
- Cartridges uncool? Whoever wrote this seems to be a marketing student - but missing their own point that the success of PlayStation was that they brought a new demographic into the market. You could have sold these new consumers software etched into potatoes and, as long as the system worked, they would have been happy. Nintendo hurt themselves by staying with cartridges, yes, not because they were "uncool" but because they were (marginally, given the ridiculous mark-ups on disc-based software) more expensive for consumers and unattractive for third-party developers (who ended up being driven away by Nintendo as they tried to protect a format that gave them more control and a bigger share of the profits.)

"Two new breeds of gamer"
- Surely a look at the existing market, the gamers that already existed, would be helpful here?

"Things were looking better on the Nintendo front......it had made a lot of money from its handheld game console, the Game Boy.....making it rather easy to fund its next console, the GameCube."
- Sorry for bringing this up, but isn't it a rather misleading statement? GC's development had nothing to do with GameBoy's profitability (for over more than a decade....) or that of Pokemon. Companies like Nintendo tend to take a much longer-term view of the industry than thinking "Hey! Bottom line's good this year, let's build a new toy!", wouldn't you say?

I'm sorry, maybe I expect too much these days, but I've come to trust what I read on the front page and the whole "not our fault" response to errors in this entry has made me wonder what "facts" I've taken as
gospel in the guide but should now perhaps doubt.

I guess the most helpful thing I can say (and I'm trying not to sound like some moaning pedant) is that maybe a distinction needs to be drawn between entries that are factual and those that are based around the experiences and advice of other researchers. Obviously examples of the latter are hugely subjective and everyone's offering has its own worth. But surely any page that both claims to be factual and happens to be a good enough read to catch the Editor's eye needs to be properly scrutinised? I realise potted histories are going to involve some generalisations and a lot of airbrushing (NEC anyone?) but perhaps, if they're going to sacrifice fact and detail for the sake of the narrative, they should be written in a less authoritative tone....

Just to say - and I apologise if this comes across as 'defensive', but the entry was in Peer Review for three months, not a week. Where *were* you guys?

If you want to write an entry about the *origins* of Console gaming though, feel free. In the meantime, your contributions in this COnversation continue to enrich the entry.

"Where *were* you guys?"

Just to say - and I apologise if this comes across as offensive, but then you DID ask - you already know where *I* was: avoiding Peer Review because I was p**sed off after numerous incidents with the general poor quality of the process of selecting and editing entries and the lax attitude to accuracy.

I hope this answers your question.

H.

You missed the Sega CD when you were talking about sega stuff too.