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

Well that wouldn't be impossible 'cos theoretically only ourselves can edit our own home pages, so the user pages could be editable from the 'edit page' button and that could bring up the list of all of the pages that user has written / submitted and they could be hidden from everyone else simply by removing the 'editor' reference that pops up on the right hand side of user pages.
Personally, I quite like the idea of attribution. We could discover the next Douglas Adams or, more likely, Tom Wolfe / Hunter S.Thompson on a site like this. What do you think?

Sometimes two perspectives on a subject may be well written, informative and entertaining. It may not always be practical to splice them together without losing the charm of the original. So I wonder whether there are circumstances were more than one article on the same subject will be accepted.

Uh, was that me? I thought I'd made some rather different policy points to the usual blurb.

Anyway, I'm going to re-word the editorial policy pages this week. As always, they won't be carved in stone, but the might help to clear up confusion.

And yes, we have accepted articles that we probably shouldn't have, and wouldn't necessarily accept now (and vice versa). That's because, until now, there's been no specific editorial policy. I can only apologise.

Mark

One thing on our tachnical wishlist is sectioning: in the scrambled egg example (sorry to harp on, it's just the one at the top of my mind) we have three sections - ingredients, where to eat it and trivia - and they will eventually be physically sectioned in some way.

Given this technology, multiple submissions can be edited together into sections (where appropriate) to give varying views on a topic. Bear with us while we get the technical side worked out, but in the meantime we'll probably manually sectionise, like in scrambled eggs.

Does this sound like a sensible approach?

That sounds similar to the way I set up a page called OH-GNATS and gave four links to forums in which to give a different point of view - I have not pushed to hard yet.

Zachs brainchild has taken over my thoughts. As Zach knows, I have been working a little behind the scenes here, with a little push from him I shall come in and put my two pennies worth as time allows. vegiman

It's just frustrating to see articles that are exactly opposite of what was specified...

I did look at the new guidelines, and they make a lot more sense than the other ones did...especially the whole opening bit

Earlier in this forum Jim Lynn asked for suggestions on how to impliment a points system.

Perhaps he would consider calling it a Rating system. By having a button in the goo highlighted (YOUR RATING)

Rating an article from 1 to 10 - Once the article reaches a certain Rating it will be placed in the lap of an editor (or perhaps sub editor see the forum 'Use Forums for Research' at: http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?thread=10870&forum=14215 )

The index.cgi could encorporate the top rated articles (MORE WORK FOR THE OVER WORKED Jim Lynn)

This would not guarantee acceptance, but at least it would give the Editors a batting order. It could be better than the seemingly random selection now in place.

As for a page not getting noticed. I feel it is upto the writer to encourage other researchers to read their page, otherwise they will have to wait for their page to be viewed systematically. As we already know this can take time. It's up to them if they feel they have written a masterpiece, TO GET NOTICED.

I totally agree,
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Spiritualized http://www.h2g2.com/A110683
Football http://www.h2g2.com/A76349
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Just in case you missed it,
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Spiritualized http://www.h2g2.com/A110683
Football http://www.h2g2.com/A76349
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In fact,
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Spiritualized http://www.h2g2.com/A110683
Football http://www.h2g2.com/A76349
---

Yeh OK

I'll have a look later I'm of to bed now.

You got The Point.
vegimna:

The more I think about the critic idea the more my brain just goes into several different tangents.

First I think we should wait for Mark to straighten out the Don't Panic pages, because the parts about what the editing staff actually wants will dictate what direction critiques will go.

We could just start now arbitrarily, but when something is 'etched in stone' so to speak, we'd have to go back and start over. Then again we'll probably be doing that anyway.

Then there's the rating system, which could be several months away. We could start critiquing now, but when that kicks in we'll be facing another Starting Over Dillema. Or maybe we'll get lucky and the rating system will be set up in such a way as to make manual Field Critic concepts obsolete.

I also don't know how to run it. Which direction? Perhaps Vegiman has some suggestions in this area, or perhaps others? I don't work for TDV, so I can't officially pull out a sword and knight people as Field Critics. However, I also don't think just anyone should be given the right to call themselves Field Critics. Perhaps the editors should specifically ask people if they want to do it, or there should be some way to know whether a person critiquing your submission is just a mischievious goober or someone who's honestly taking the position seriously.

I mean all you need to be a Field Researcher is a name and an email address. Should that be all you need to be a Field Critic, or should there be some other criteria? Should you have to have successfully gotten something you wrote into an official guide entry? I've written a buttload of stuff but so far the only thing that's been accepted is a recipe for an alcoholic beverage. Certaintly not enough for me to strut around claiming to be an authority on all this! Yet here I am doing that. Somebody shoot me.

Bang Bang

Lucky there Zach, the gun only fires blanks.
an old saying "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it"

Many researchers have already taken it on themselves to be critics. Although as you once pointed out would happen. Praise is being dished out and constructive criticism is not forthcoming.

As you said to me once 'We cannot put aside constructive criticism just because it may bruise a few ego's'. Perhaps some have tried and don't want to bruise any ego's or be able to criticise constructively without feeling they are not up to the job.

It needs a person hard in charactor or at least guided in the right direction. I am sure rather than say something they feel they are not qualified to do so - ending up saying nothing.

If this critique plan is to go ahead. A few heads will have to be knocked together. Perhaps they will come up with a solution. Maybe the solution is already staring us in the face, and is already to be found in one of the forums.

Perhaps you could gather some interested parties on h2g2 club and thrash it out.

vegiman

The club is one place to hammer it out, but we can also hammer it out here. Any interested parties can come in every couple days and add their two cents. I welcome the editors as well.

Anyone can claim to be a critic, but I think only certain individuals should be acknowledged as Field Critics who are all on the same page when it comes to critiquing. I don't know if I should set up a separate Yahoo Club for this, or if a separate page here at h2g2.com would be sufficient. It might need to be a closed club. An exclusive thing.

However, that would be just to hash out the details. Because critiquing should eventually be just as easy as posting a guide entry.

Or maybe we should hash it out here, in public. In a forum where anyone can participate. If one or more individuals come in to disrupt things beyond our ability to properly use this forum to communicate, then we could move somewhere else. I don't want this to turn into an elitist clique. Field Critique should be something that anyone can volunteer to do.

Still, what do we do if someone CLAIMS to be a Field Critic, and then abuses or mischieviously weakens the work so many others are doing. Also, how do we avoid wasted effort, or improper critiquing that has to be redone later?

Perhaps the only way to know HOW best to do it is just to start doing it. That there's no way to learn how to do things right until things are first done wrong.

Maybe we should just jump in with both feet and the heck with it.

http://www.h2g2.com/P118397

Lemme know what ya think. =)

My TWO PENNUTH
At:
http://www.h2g2.com/P120565
vegiman