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

I agree with Mikey here

An adjusted introduction and title would make a lot of difference.

I'm sure it would make a fine entry if you changed the title to the area that this entry is about

It's a tricky one. Frumious Bandersnatch wrote a perfectly good entry the first time round, and the mysterious threatening 'Editorial Policy' department deleted it from the guide.

If the title is similarly upfront about what it contains, this one may meet the same fate.

My point is that if the title is *not* upfront about what it containts, the folks at Editorial Policy are actually all the more likely to be peeved, since one of their things is keeping people from coming upon naughtiness unawares. It's a "buyer beware" kind of thing.

But where is the "naughtiness" of which you speak?

In this entry as currently formulated, is can only be in the reader's mind. I've assiduously expunged any direct, explicit reference to anything "naughty".

And any change to the title would only give the reader ideas, and heaven forbid h2g2 should ever be guilty of giving anyone an idea...

FB

Of course until Editorial Policy reply with specific objections it will be difficult to second guess what will be passed.

A clear accurate unobjectionable title - is that the *only* problem?

Isn't that what it had when it first appeared on the front page?

"Making Amateur Video of the Procreative Act - a light-hearted look at the Pros and Cons"
"Sex ... and videotape - some of the hazards of filming at home"
just suggestions - can anyone do better (and would it make a difference)?

Pimms

Of course you're right, so in a spirit of goodwill and a wish to minimise possible offence, I'm avoiding ANY mention of "sex" or "the procreative act".

Until, as you say, Editorial Policy choose to begin communicating with their customers (six days on and they have yet to respond in any way at all...), I must needs read their minds.

It didn't take long...

FB

Is this entry really so unworthy of comment?

FB

Possibly the problem is that the entry *is* good to go, as far as researchers are concerned - I mean it has been recommended and been published once already.

I would be happy to recommend it for a second appearance , but in the absence of EP feedback would this achieve anything? I find it difficult to suggest improvements without some concrete objections to counter.

Pimms Lettuce

If you want trivial changes: try and make the full stops consistent either before or after footnotes (particularly look at 2 and 4) - however I don't think Editorial Policy is a LOONie, other things possibly, but not a member of the League Of Obsessive Nitpickers

"Is this entry really so unworthy of comment?"

No, but given it succeeded in getting into the EG last time there can't be many more comments to make. Perhaps everyone should repeat as many of their former posts from the previous PR thread as possible.

It's not my sort of thing at all (no camcorder for a start) but far from breaking any house rules the article went out of its way to encourage people to behave in a responsible and caring manner. In my opinion the first one should never have been deleted once it had been passed by the editors. No laws had changed in the intervening time.

They aren't suggesting that you write a different entry, they're saying that the content and the title don't match. Such that someone looking for an entry in the edited guide on how to use a camcorder, would type in camcorder, and see your entry. He or she would click on it hoping to learn just what to do with their brand new video camera, and be very mislead as to what they were going to read. Personally I suggest you change the title, if very slightly, so people now your entry doesn't cover all forms of camcorder usage.
-The Professor

wow, missed the second page of the forum, so that last post will seem out of place.

Am assuming the original title was 'A Gentleman's Guide to the Use of the Camcorder' and that this is what all the fuss is about - that this title could be misleading? (sorry, there seem to be a few threads going on about this and I am easily confused).

Misleading to whom? The title smacks of irony just with the use of the words 'Gentleman's Guide'. Anyone who would click on this title expecting a serious article would have to be a bit thick. And anyhow, the article is not in anyway offensive. And so . . .?

Well, that's all. Quite enjoyed the article myself. Good luck with sorting this stuff out.

azahar

If someone gave you a book that said "A Gentleman's Guide to the Use of a Camcorder" though you may find the title amusing, isn't entirely truthful. I'm merely saying someone who was actually looking for advice on camcorder use would be disapointed at being misled, as this article isn't a gentleman's guid to camcorder use.
-The Professor

And I am merely saying that *anything* called a 'Gentleman's Guide' to anything that was seriously meant has not been published for many years - years before camcorders even existed. If I were seriously looking for camcorder advice and came across that title I would immediately assume that someone was taking the mickey. But then again, I have a sense of humour (at least, most of the time). And assuming I was dense enough to read to the end of the article before realising I'd been 'mislead' - what then? End of the world? I don't think so.

azahar

Yes, it's pretty obviously a joke of some sort and it's not the only "misleading" one in the EG (sometimes of the reverse sort) and the other ones have not been censored/changed because of this as far as I know.

The most important/helpful thing would be for the editors to come clean about why they failed to have the courage of their initial convictions and what precisely the objections to the previous article were. They don't necessarily have to reveal the source to do this or even do it in public. A more detailed and less cryptic email would do it. Though I believe they should state the reasons in public in order to clear up this confusion and prevent it happening again. Having secret rules is stupid. How can anyone be expected to follow them without the aforementioned telepathy (which seems to have let FB/HVL down in this case).

Azahar wrote: "Misleading to whom? The title smacks of irony just with the use of the words 'Gentleman's Guide'. Anyone who would click on this title expecting a serious article would have to be a bit thick."

You don't seem to be quite getting the point. The people who would *get* the bit about 'Gentleman's Guide' aren't the people whom the BBC are worried about accidentally stumbling across an entry like this and then being shocked when it wasn't what they were expecting.

There are definitely people on h2g2 who would be upset by reading an entry on "how to make home porn" (and despite all apathetic protestations to the contrary, we all know that's exactly what it is) -- and it should be rather obvious that those people will overlap rather heavily with the people who won't "get" the title.

All of which would seem to support the argument that the original, non-bowdlerised text and less coy title, would be actually LESS likely to offend than the current version.

With the current version, all "offensive" content has been removed, but the subject still is what it is, and remains at least as valid a subject for discussion as, say, testicle cuffs. However, the coyness required in the title allows people to stumble upon it unawares, so long as they're so dense as to miss the heavy irony intended by the use of the word "gentleman" (plenty of readers here ARE precisely that dense, so let's not kid ourselves). So by requiring a less offensive version, Editorial Policy have actually achieved a situation where people are actually MORE likely to be offended, and have reason to complain.

With the original, it did what it said on the tin. Anyone reading it knew what they were in for, and could choose not to read further.

With this, you don't know what you're getting until you read it. And despite that, there's nothing in it you could point to and say "This must be deleted because THAT word/sentence/paragraph is unacceptably obscene/profane/whatever".

Round of applause to the people at Editorial Policy, I must say. THREE WEEKS it's been so far, and not a peep out of any of them. Management training courtesy of the advertising department of the SCC, I think...

FB

"not a peep out of any of them"

You expected better? I'd call that a triumph of optimism over experience.

So what happens when this is recommended again? - I don't say 'if'

Pimms Lettuce