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

I was reading parts of the article and came across this:

"Brashly choosing war instead of considering more peaceful solutions destroys healthcare facilities and creates poverty, crowding, starvation and sanitation breakdown – all of them favourable conditions for spread of microorganisms. "

Doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the article. I appreciate the sentiment, but BBCi is pitching a fit over "war/anit-war" discussions and I just wanted to bring this statement into the light a little.

Here's my point: lots of things in addition to war cause "poverty, crowding, starvation and sanitation breakdown" so to be balanced I would suggest a subtle rewording. Certainly the discussion of war a a contributor to disease proliferation has a place in this article. I just wonder if the way you stated it is the right place. . .

Humbly,
Friar

ps. regarding Uni ideas, have you searched for any existing articles amd contacted authors yet?

try:
A898473 Legionnaires' Disease - Frequently Asked Questions
A882371 Legionnaires' Disease - a History of its Discovery Edited
A378498 Legionnaires' Disease Edited
A872769 Legionnaires’ Disease: A Case of Modern Technology Turned Against Mankind
A819966 AIDS HIV - the Disease, Transmission, Treatment and Tests
A237089 Prion Disease
A784046 Malaria

of course, this is only a start and some of these are viruses or parasites, but still. . .

LOL friar, i *wrote* those legionnaires' disease articles! (well, the 1st, 2nd and 4th, anyway) actually, i've embarked on a campaign to promote microbes (A1001854)... it's also a recruitment program for this project on emerging and re-emerging diseases that i'd like to start.

i see what you mean about the war and disease thing, though. i'll try and re-word the thing... come back in a little while and tell me what you think. thanks for drawing my attention to it!

Ha!

I noticed that Far-, after I linked to the articles.

I guess it's nice having people "quote" YOU to YOU!
They're great articles, btw. . .I'm trying to remember if I saw them in PR or just on the front page.

I like that you're recruiting for writers. You should perhaps think of this as a long-term project. I'm writing a comprehensive article on the city of Chicago, and working with psychocandy, we've so-far created almost 10 articles. Still, I'd like to see at least twice that many before I'm ready to do anything editorial with it.

It's taken us almost 8 months to get this far, but I'm in no hurry. Every few weeks (months!) I'll sit down and write 1000 words on a museum, or a sporting team, or a celebrity or something. It's fun to do, it's of course in the Guide, and I don't have to worry about making huge editorial moves while I'm still writing about other things!

Good luck!

Friar

ps. Are you going to remove this work from PR for now and submit later? Or do you want to keep it in PR?

i think that i'll keep it where it is, if nobody minds, since it doesn't quite fit in with the ideas for my microbiology project (i'm planning to stick to specifics with the project - stuff like the mechanism of infection, types of disease etc). i think the reason i wrote 'blame it on the microbes' in the first place was to argue about the importance of microbes in our world... i think i would like this replacement article as a stand-alone... although i have no idea how to shorten it, short of splitting it up...

btw...what in *space* is pschocandy??? does it have anthing to do with hallucinogens?

Psychocandy would be a who and not a what.

And guess what? In the biology class I teach, I've assigned them all research papers on good bacteria. And I'll probably post them here when they're done -- so you'll have some more entries for your campaign, farlander.

Mikey

ooh yay... thanks! did you get them to sign up for h2g2 as well? and, speaking of which, do you have any microbiology articles for the campaign library?

whoops, we're going off-tangent again...

Hi Far!

Fascinating!

I did notice a few little things.


"... have been here for millions of earth before the first multicellular creature..."

millions of Earth years?


"nor would blue cheese and Roquefort would not have their pungent smell.."

Double negative.

Awu.

aiee

that's what comes of not proof-reading your own article properly... thanks for spotting the mistakes!

This is another brilliant article, Farlander

Nevertheless, here's my ...

- At the beginning of the article, "protozoa" should perhaps be changed to "protoctists" if described the Kingdom.

- "And of course, most of us – and not just hobbits – love mushrooms" - I'm not sure if the hobbit reference adds to the article

- "However, we should be grateful that he was ..." - perhaps you should mention at the end of this sentence that penicillin wouldn't have been discovered by him if he had 'tossed the plate into the wastebasket in cold fury'! Not everyone reading the article would know this and not all would follow the link to the entry about him.

- "The donor of the enzyme that makes this photocopying possible" - photocopying should be 'photocopying' as it is not the literal action being carried out.

- "Googles of them thrive on our skin" - in the sense of 10^100, it's 'googols', unlike the search engine! I also don't think it's quite that many bacteria - 'millions' or 'billions' would be more accurate, IIRC.

- colonizing > colonising; catalyze > catalyse

- "Most of us just tend to think of it as **** water." - maybe a slightly more eloquent description would be appropriate? After all, **** is on the banned words list...

Well done
RhoMuNuQ

>> in the sense of 10^100, it's 'googols', unlike the search engine! I also don't think it's quite that many bacteria - 'millions' or 'billions' would be more accurate, IIRC.

Very much more correctly... the number of protons in the universe has been estimated to be 10^87, which would make 10^100 bacteria an unlikely number indeed.

oops.... i'd always thought of a googol as 10^10... guess my myopic eyes missed a zero somewhere... - shakes head in dismay -

anyway, rho, thanks once again for proof-reading my article (although i would have to say that the only way of solving my american-instead-of-british spelling problem would be to get hold of a *british* edition of microsoft word, because that bly thing keeps on re-spelling my words without my noticing them).

the bits about the hobbits and s water were just bits of twisted humour that slipped through my filter... i must confess that i'd never heard of the 'banned words' list (having barged headfirst into h2g2 without so much as reading the rules etc), but now that i have, i've taken the word out. thanks. if you think the hobbits reference is unsuitable in the article, let me know, and i'll take it out.

have fixed the bit about fleming and the molecular "photocopier".

you been to A1001854 yet? (ooh, i am shameless)

You can set MS Word to British English, even just temporarily -- I do it all the time for Guide entries, especially when I'm subbing something. Here's how...

Under Tools, go to Language. Click on "set language". Pick "English (U.K.)" as your choice.


Mikey

oh! ok thanks... (i once did that for word '97, and it switched all my keys around let's hope xp doesn't)

No problem

I'm not too sure about the Hobbit reference - you could leave it for now and see what the sub does when this entry is picked. Incidentally, the current banned word list is at A871805, just for reference.

Your shameless self-plug worked - I'm on my way there just now


RhoMuNuQ

just looked through the banned word list... oh lordy, i am so *dead*. my favourite word is on the list then again, i usually substitute the middle part with a , so...

Phew!

Okay, a Scout has recommended this for the Edited Guide, and I'm inclined to accept it because it's an impressive bit of research here.

However... it's blimmin' HUGE! I see you've put in some tags in, but the divides seem to be a little uneven. We're almost certainly going to split this massive entry up, but are you happy for the breaks to be as you've marked them, or could you suggest where you think natural breaks occur for you?

Cheers,

Jimster

Well done, Farlander!

It's only about 6000 words...

RhoMuNuQ

nice work far-!

well, i think there are only two ruler lines dividing the article into

1. the good side of microbes
2. the bad side of microbes
3. an argument on whether or not microbes are at fault

if it's going to be split up that way, i guess i'm ok with it, although i suppose i would have to work with the sub-ed a little to write short intros and conclusions for each one (which i've done before, so it's ok). so, er, yeah, i think that's fine.

(yes, i know the article is long. it's amazing it actually *fit* into the text box!)

thanks friar, thanks rho for helping me sandpaper the stuff. rho, maybe i should credit you next time as my proof-reader?

It would actually be better if you did the intros / conclusions before we accept it, to be honest. As this has already been in Peer Review for the requisite amount of time, you can make changes to this directly and we'll turn it into two entries after it's been accepted. If you mark the point where the second entry begins, it'll make things easier too.

(In other words, just a teensy bit more work on this and I'll press the accept button)

Jims