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

Entry: H2G2 vs. Wikipedia - A2910007
Author: blackcatpath - U826521

This entry -- that mirrors a real Guide entry I no longer remember the exact details of -- could be the most important Guide Entry ever. Your help is needed!

You’ve got yourself mixed up here- “I believe an equivalent description of H2G2 vs. Wikipedia could be the most important entry in the H2G2, because it would clearly define how H2G2 is not a repeat of Wikipedia but will be its own unique entity with a well-defined purpose”

h2g2’s been working since the late nineties. Wikipedia’s been around since 2001. We’re definitely not a repeat.

“Unless, H2G2 is meant to just mirror Wikipedia”

I think we’re mostly content to ignore the place. I don’t trust it’s content, nor do I enjoy not being allowed to have fun.

“I believe an equivalent description of H2G2 vs. Wikipedia could be the most important entry in the H2G2”

Well I believe that the most important entry on h2g2 is either A972290 or A583300

(by the way, I have a newish entry on the Smurfs at A2898219)

“I challenge the best minds of H2G2 to take on this all-important task!!!!!!!!”

That’s definitely not me. So that’s all I have to say about that. As someone wise, like Gnomon U151503 or Jimster U292. He's kind of like our Papa Smurf.

BTW if you look up something and can't find it yourselve you can always write it. That is the joy of hootoo.

DD
100 entries and still going strong.

(DD0 I almost wrote you as a wise one alondside Jims and Gnomon... but I couldn't find you under the Ds in my Friends list )

tut tut!

It's your own fault, putting that St in front of your natural name.
I'm no saint. I know that.

Aha! Is that the reason.

Yes, it just happens to be.

Oh, come on guys - the only reason I stayed subscribed to this thread was in the hope of following some really heated discussions - but what do I get instead? A quite serious case of OTD, I tell you!

If you'd like, we could debate who's the wisest of them all in a sauna.

I'm afraid you'll get no heated debate from me on this subject. I like h2g2 better 'cos it's more fun. And that's all there is to it.

Well, that doesn't exactly come as a surprise, does it?

I was rather hoping that path would contribute with the 'heat'!

I, for one, find myself agreeing with this entry. This guide, whatever DNA's intent, is not and should not be simply encyclopaedic.

Much like the moss-covered, three-handled, family gredunza my favorite old Aunt Millie left me, it's ours to do with as we will. We needn't even amend the Magna Carta or the Constitution! All we need do is write what we would have hoped to find on a subject.

Guidelines are fine, but shackles should not be tolerated.

Here's to EG entries that do more than just recite basic info, ingredients, and trivia!

Strictly factual guide entries will always have a place here, but let's commit ourselves to being more creative than that!!

(although I have seen entries that suggested good places to get drunk!)

I posted something in (what I thought was) the Conversation Forum for this entry, but I guess it really belongs here, so I'll adapt the content. Thanks, Jodan, for helping orient me! (I spend most of my time on Wikipedia so I'm not very familiar with the h2g2 setup.)

Yes, blackcatpath caught part of the difference by suggesting that h2g2 may be more functional. (It's not a completely sharp line, though. An encyclopedia entry on the Bugblaster would certainly note that a person with a towel wrapped around his or her eyes is safe from attack. Information doesn't become unencyclopedic just because it happens to be useful. And h2g2 has plenty of stuff that's fascinating but utterly useless.) Wikipedia's consideration of the differences between the sites -- found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_for_h2g2_Researchers -- agrees that an encyclopedia isn't in the business of suggesting great restaurants.

Another important point is that h2g2 is more personal and idiosyncratic. An example given in the Wikipedia article is the Edited Guide Entry "A Dominatrix and Her 'Dog'", A545159. Wikipedia says that it's "great h2g2 content but would be out of place here."

The major difference is in the mode of collaboration. On h2g2, a Researcher writes an entry, others respond in the Conversation, and the Researcher decides whether to make any changes. As I understand it (please correct me if I'm wrong), the same basic structure applies to the Edited Guide, except that the final say is vested in someone other than the original Researcher. On Wikipedia, by contrast, the principle of open editing means that no one has that kind of "ownership" of any article. Everyone is an editor, and any editor can just make a change instead of merely proposing it. (Each article has an associated Talk page, so discussing different versions is possible and, indeed, encouraged -- but it's not required.) Wikipedians are warned, "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it." This unconventional setup definitely makes for a different experience for the participant.

As for your concern about whether either site is just a "mirror" of the other, I don't see that as an issue. There will always be some similarities. Both sites offer the opportunity to fill a gap by writing what belongs there. There will always be some subjects that are covered in both, while others are in one but not the other. The main difference is in the process: Do you want to be a hootooite, a Wikipedian, or (as I think a handful of brave souls might be) both?

Yes, h2g2 is more of a community, and there's more whimsy here. It's a bit misleading to say that Wikipedians aren't allowed to have fun, though. Hootooites never get the fun of editing someone else's copy, do they? I won't give you a detailed plug for Wikipedia, but I'll offer this daring thought: It may be possible to have fun online even without smileys.....

By the way, the Wikipedia article on h2g2 is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2G2 -- take a look, and feel free to try open editing by changing anything that could be improved. You don't even need to register as a user. Just click on "Edit this page" at the left, the top or the bottom and start flailing away!

"Hootooites never get the fun of editing someone else's copy, do they?" Yes they do, we not only have lots of sub-editors, but people often pick up old abandoned entries and edit them into being worthy of the Guide.

Wikipedia's goals appear to be much loftier than h2g2's. We're building a Guide, Wikipedia want to educate third world countries by sending out books versions and CDs.

Mina, I'm not sound on all the details of the h2g2 sub-editing process, but my impression is that the two sites aren't really comparable on that score. The experience of editing for the participants is different, with h2g2 being somewhat more orderly.

As for educating the world, I'm afraid that's pretty far down the road. Right now it ain't in the budget. (Wikipedia runs on donations, not having a sponsor like the BBC.) Figuring out how to solidify a particular set of articles for inclusion in a CD or whatever is under discussion but is far from settled. On h2g2, things that go into the Edited Guide are comparatively stable, but almost all Wikipedia articles are perpetually subject to being edited, so there's no immediately obvious mechanism for deciding what goes onto a CD.

So, lofty goals, yes, but "Between the dream and the reality falls the shadow.”

I wasn't trying to compare them - I think they are incomparable, but I was pointing out that we do sometimes get to fun things. It's not always dull around here.

While I've got your ear - I spotted something on Wikipedia that I thought was a breach of copyright, but I couldn't work out what to do with it. Hopefully I'm wrong, but is there a handy link you can give me?

I was at a talk by the Wikipedia founder a week or so ago. It was really interesting, although he didn't seem to know much about h2g2.

Thanks for your interest in keeping Wikipedia free of copyright violations. It's a never-ending problem.

I don't want to discourage you from entering into the Wikipedia collaboration process, but copyvio is kind of boring administrative stuff -- one of the least fun aspects of the site, albeit a necessary evil. If you want to give me the article name and where you think it was stolen from, I'll be glad to do the scutwork.

But, if you want to take it on, more power to you! It's a two-step process. First, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems and scroll down a little way to "Copyright infringement notice". (Does an anchor link work on h2g2? If so, go directly to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems#Copyright_infringement_notice and save a step.) There's a notice there that you copy and substitute for the text of the challenged article. Second, you go back to the main copyvio page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems -- at the bottom of the page there's a list of articles thought to be copyvios, and you add your find to the list. If, as is almost always the case, the plagiarized material was lifted from a website, then you include in your listing the URL where the material originally appeared. Enclose the URL in [single brackets] so that it displays in abbreviated form. To get credit for all this hard work, finish the listing with four tildes ~~~~ which will sign your username (if you've created one) and time-stamp the entry.

Then, when you've done that, you're entitled to come back to h2g2 and resume having fun.

You have no further responsibilities once you've completed the listing. At least a week will go by, to allow the author or anyone else to contest the charge of copyright violation. Sometime after the week is up, a sysop will do the necessary.

One pitfall: Wikipedia content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. Another website that has the same text may have (legally) copied from Wikipedia rather than vice versa.

BTW, I know that h2g2 isn't a dull site. If I hadn't happened to stumble upon Wikipedia first, I might well be spending a lot of time here. I think both sites are valuable.

This article should be rewritten as:

h2g2 vs Wikipedia - Celebrity Deathmatch

I'm not sure how it would pan out, except that I anticipate illegal use of towels. h2g2 will have to distract the referee first, or it'll get DQ'd.

Can anyone give an example of Wikipedia doing a how-to, other than its main instructional pages? If so, can you give two?

It's Wikipedia policy not to have how-to sorts of articles, so you (hopefully) wouldn't find too many. Specifically, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT , §1.7 (Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information) says:

"Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain 'how-to's."

This issue is probably a good example of the differing goals of h2g2 as a guide and WP as an encyclopedia (though h2g2, for obvious and important reasons, isn't going to offer medical or legal advice in the guide).

Jeff
(and Wikipedian)