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

Very different. There are some good things. Since Petunia, we have new smileys, the UpdateForum and a few other goodies, but the bad things are numerous for me. Off the top of my head...

Less entries on the front page, longer wait in the queue, longer time in PR, less scout picks...

We lost Ashley, and consequently, the UG lost its advising italic that had nursed us since the beginning. Jimster's doing a good job in place of Ashley, but Ashley knew the history of the UG and all that. Was with us from the beginning.

We lost the community team, and so posts referred to the community team take a while... if they're dealt with at all.

Feature suggestions, bug sightings and Editorial feedback has decreased significantly, I think out of respect for the lack of time the italics have. Just Pre-Petunia, Editorial Feedback was one of the busier places in the morning (I think only on one or two occasions could Gnomon not find an error to point out) and now it's getting dusty.

Many of the Help pages are out of date.

Recruitment isn't continuous - just whenever they feel like it. We lose a lot of new volunteers that way, I think.

I've actually detected more and more people calling the eds 'eds' instead of italics. I'm not sure why, but it strikes me as a bad thing.

It was called Petunia, and not 'Pooh' as I suggested.

Humm I see your points, and they're all right. I'm going very roughly on how the site feels for me - and something about it feels different. I also feel that the community are organising themselves to deal with the situations as they arise and the issues will probably be dealt with by the community eventuaully.

Updating the help pages for instance is a job that could be done by a few researchers with Jims co-operation, in the way that researchers are writting a front page for the EG themselves.

I still don't feel like the italics are as able to update and create pages. What's most amazing is the number of occasions when I hear 'No, the italics are probably too busy to do this'.

(I actually wrote a draft of the EG Front Page, just haven't polished it enough to post it onsite. )

I remember when Petunia was announced, some people thought that 2 entries a day would increase the quality. At the time, I didn't see how this would work, but now I'm seeing that there is a good amount of quality.

Do you think the higher amount of quality in PR is because of Petunia only allowing the acceptance fo higher quality entries or a natural evolution for the site? It seems like it's the same writers who write 90% of the stuff going out of PR, so I'm inclined to think the latter.

Humm I've not thought of that, but I can think of a couple of new writers off the top of my head that have contributed.

Thanks to the UG scouts have more time, which means that nearly everything gets commented on - so writters do get encouragement.

The existance of the UG has made a fantastic difference to PR it means we don't have to go along with endless verisons of 'this is great, but not for the EG' because good but offbeat stuff gets submitted to the AWW.

We have got a good few new keen writers I can think of..

Well I've just had a rummage through PR and when you sort by reverse U number I came across 20 entries by people with 6xxxxx U numbers - two of which are pretty pickable.

Not fantastic, but not bad at all.

I can too, but not as many as I'd like to see...

We're not doing as much in the AWW as we should really. As a miner, you should be in there now!

Afraid that easier commenting wasn't one of the goals of the UG, but I know and am glad it helps...

That's better than I'd have thought... Hm.

Well I am keeping a fingure on the pulse of the AWW - and making the occassional comment, I just still find it a little difficult, for instance my commenting in PR is very much of the

Good but to get into the EG you'll need to change the GML to be in all capitals - or suchlike.

So I'm trying to be sensitive, and getting to the stage where I can suggest improvements.

Pbuh?

I am not even nearly qualified to comment on most of the entries I comment or have commented on in the AWW. I don't think it matters, if all you're doing is giving some positive feedback or bumping it to the top.

It's important that you comment. Commenting in depth is good, but not essential Good that you're working towards suggesting improvements. I'm still stuck in the phase of working towards suggesting improvements...

Yes well that's probably all I'm doing at the moment. Scouting is a very different skill isn't it, there's a definate set of guidelines and point to be aimed for.

The major difference I have between scouting and mining is that I find scouting a responsibility, and satisfying, but mining is fun.

The comments are generally just different ways of saying 'this is good'. I should write a list of them... I think I've used hundreds.