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

I'm an utter newbie who's thinking of writing here instead of Wikipedia, so these ideas may have been tried before.

* Save as Draft
I'd like to be able to come back to ideas rather than immediately commit them live to the guide. On Wikipedia I'd use a sandpit, but I haven't found a similar option here. If there is and I've missed it please point me to it. I'd guess it'd be an alternative to delete - an entry only you and the admins can see.

* Media Upload
I'd like photos, but I can see that AV would be good too. I can also see the problems with inappropriate content etc. Would a solution to be to allow only photos uploaded to the H2G2 site to be used in entries? Then you allow editors to upload photos after writing x entries (or y entries for the edited guide). If it's a sufficiently high number there's no incentive for people wanting to abuse the system because getting upload privileges revoked would have a cost. With even more entries you get to embed AV.

* Links from other BBC sites to edited entries
Including BBC News. If those 'Have your say' pages are appropriate for news pages then so are edited guide entries. Getting your work linked from the news site would be a massive incentive for many people to write and would make the site as a whole more visible. For instance the next time it's the midsummer Stonehenge story and the BBC News site covers it, one of the related links could be H2G2:Stonehenge. Or else put in a link for the new story's keywords on the H2G2 search engine - which needs an overhaul.

* Some kind of thing where you upload a photo and get a card to print out with "Your Name: H2G2 Field Researcher" on it.

Save as Draft

You don't commit anything to the Edited Guide until you sub it to PR. It will be on the Unedited Guide list and until then, it's yours to mess about with. Other people will be able to see it, but it's unlikely anyone will search it out to criticise.

Media Uploads

I think it's unlikely that we'll ever let users have free rein over uploads, for reasons you describe. There are quite a few Entries now with custom artwork which has been pre-arranged with the Editorial Team, so it is possible, but really only if you have something specialised in mind.

Several threads below mention the AVIators - we are a volunteer group who are adding to both Edited and Unedited Entries with AV versions. The group is still in its infancy, and everything is run past the Editors first.

Links from other BBC sites

We do get some, and the Editors are very good at pushing for more of them. I think the central BBC news team consider us a little bit 'alternative' to link to h2g2 from news articles, but you'll often find links on TV show homepages and less mainstream contact.

B

The linking from BBC items is hindered by the BBC's commitment to publicise other sites. From what I gather they'd love more h2g2 links but ain't allowed to at the expense of others (when I way others, it's pretty clear we're talking Wikipedia!)

Thanks, that's a helpful way to think about drafting. I'll have a mull about what exactly I want to write about and then take a more relaxed attitude to writing.

That's the key difference between h2g2 and Wiki.

B

Congratulations - you've passed Lesson 1. Being relaxed about your writing is the key difference between h2g2 and Wiki.

B

...and learning not to press 'Post Message' too soon is Lesson 2.

As you can see, I'm yet to pass the exam on that one.

B

Aw, B. *pats*

alun-salt, when I'm writing, I tend to put a notice at the top of the page that reads: 'UNDER CONTRUCTION', or some such. That way nobody is under any illusions that what I'm writing is the finished article. See A28966729.

Hope that helps.

Hi alun salt, welcome to h2g2.

I do the same as Vip; it's never been a problem for me. We also have an area called the Edited Guide Writing Workshop to which you can sumbit incomplete entries for feedback from other writers before you put it in Peer Review.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with! New writers are always welcome.

If you want to hide a Guide Entry, you can delete it. Then only you can see it (by replacing "A" with "UserEdit" in the URL).

TRiG.

The idea of being able to upload or include a photo in your Guide entry is something that I'd like to be able to utilise if I needed it.

I've an idea for an entry and if I could include a photo it would greatly enhance it's understanding, actually a series of small photo's showing a sequence of events would in this instance greatly assist the understanding of the article.

I posted a description of the subject matter (of the proposed guide entry)on a site I frequent which is largely populated by Americans and they mostly didn't believe me until they either googled the topic or asked me for photo's showing the subject matter.
No amount of writing prepared them for the depiction of the actual thing in question.

I'm comfortable with the present restriction but would like to have the choice of including or not, a picture.

If a reader of a Guide entry is sufficiently moved to go and find out more about a particular topic they have read is it then deemed to have 'done it's job'? Or would it be better that they could 'get it all' in the one article; Story, descriptions, depictions, no need to go searching for a photo of the subject matter as it's all there.

If you have photos that are suitable, the photographers group might be able to use them for your entry. So far it's just been one picture per entry though, I'm not sure what the rules are about using more than one.

Ah well, that's welcome news then

Just mention it in the PR thread.