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

Entry: Uses for outdated Guide Entries - A32927565
Author: Zeg Must Prove Brains - U759711

Being cheeky!

If anyone else has pther suggestions, I'd like to hear about them.

good one. There is something missing here "It will never appear on the front page or the lists of edited entries, but it will crop up anytime someone searches for the subject, and can cause confusion to those new to the guide, especially if the edited version and the original have different titles, such as ."
Thanks ZMPB

A much-needed Entry I suppose

>> especially if the edited version and the original have different titles, such as .<<

...? Are you looking for examples or did they not pass properly?

You could look on SWL's page (U1775547), as he has a most convenient parallel presentation of unEdited and Edited versions of his Entries.



I should mention that for 'outdated' I thought those Entries Researches update, thus not quite the same as the ones you describe. Is it just my imperfect command of Shakespeare's language or is the term not precise enough?

A23852216 started off life as "The Legend of Elvis Continues, It's Now and Ever" and ended up as "The Growing Cult of Elvis Presley"

"It is impossible to alter the edited version without going through the whole Peer Review process again, but the original entry can be edited any time the researcher feels like it."

- Not strictly true, you can have minor changes done via Editorial Feedback. If you want to update, yes that does go through Peer Review now, but an Update only has to incubate for a week at minimum

"Rinse and re-use

Next time the urge to write an informative non fiction article on any subject sweeps over you, don't click straight on the Write an Entry button. Rather, go to one of your old, outdated entries, sweep it clean of information by use of your delete key and then write your new entry over it. Using this system, it is possible to write any amount of Edited Guide Entries with just one guide entry."

The only problem with doing this is that the old PR threads remain attached to the Entry, so confusion can occur between the subject of the Entry and other PR threads

You know, this is actually really informative and useful and perhaps you might like to approach the Eds about getting it included as a help page...

What a coincidence. The same thought went through my mind last weekend. I decided to clean up, and deleted all the pre-EGE versions of my entries.

It is rather a pity that when an entry moves to the Edited Guide, the PR thread is lost. [Note to Eds]Is there not a way it could be attached to the EGE - a link 'View Peer Review for this Entry' for example?

These old entries are not actually deleted, there are merely cancelled. You can recover (uncancel) them from 'My Entries' if you need to - better than nothing, but not by a lot.

I don't understand the entry numbering scheme. I once prepared two entries for submission at the same time. I clicked the 'Write an Entry' link twice with only a short interval between, and got two numbers almost 100 apart. Looking at the A-number for this entry, have we really had people click 'Write an Entry' almost 33 million times? If so, where are they all?

The Entry numbers correlate to every single new page created for the DNA database as far as I'm aware, like when new members are created it's over the entire database, not just h2g2.

I think.

Although I could be wrong

Ah, that makes more sense

Good points made by all so far. I have deleted most of my entries (must get around to delete the last two, too). However, you could keep your old entries and 'spice' them up by adding a blob from the h2g2 picture library <./>C809</.>

It's what I once did, before one of my entries got a blob for the first time. I thought they looked so much nicer with a blob.

Good suggestion, B'Elana - I've updated and given you a co-credit for it. And thanks for the links - I had my own idea, but it was much less clear.

This business of keeping original copies of entries in the live database was exactly what caused me to delete all my old ones.

Think of it from the point of view of the casual browser who does not appreciate (and may not spot) the difference between a Guide Entry and an Edited Guide Entry. When they use the search facility to look for whatever it is they are interested in, they might see two entries with the same title. Which do they read? Perhaps both, but if, as Bel suggests, the original entry has had a picture added to it, they might think that was the later, updated version, and miss the final corrected version.

I think there is an argument to say that once an entry has made it past the FP, the original versions of Edited Guide Entries should only be visible to the original author.

But nobody prevents you from 'upadating your old entry, h5ringer. You could always just copy and paste the edited version over your original version - but you can still have the blob on your own copy.

And Zeg, it's really lovely to credit me, but it's absolutely not necessary.

If you want to give credit, you can add that in reference tags at the bottom of the entry, between and . It would look like this:



Enter Researchername here



Bel

Agreed Bel, but I still think that having 2 copies visible to users is potentially confusing.

It always feels stupid to me that the PR thread is attached to the unedited version of an entry - often when I have read an edited entry, I find myself wondering about an area of possible controversy in the text, some potential bone of contention, and then I have to go to authors space, and scroll through occasionally pages of entries trying to find the original, so that I can then find the PR thread. Sometimes its just not possible to track down.

Its a shame, as well as silly, as the PR thread is the first lively discussion an entry generates, and for some abandoned looking entries, the last.

Do Subs generate to new A numbers for an EG entry? Maybe if the new A number was generated fast enough, the PR thread could be moved straight to the bottom of the new entry rather than the old.

Is there a concrete reason why this would be undesirable?

The eds create the new entry.

Thanks for filling another gap in my imperfect knowledge of guideML

I have to admit that I think that this is more suited to The Post than the Edited Guide, but then I've thought that before and the Eds have just slapped stuff in anyway.

" If you delete the entry, the conversations attached to it will be lost forever. "

This isn't true - you can't lose any conversation threads. If the entry is cancelled the threads still exist on h2g2, they just can't be seen on the entry. They will still be visible on Personal Spaces, and even on the info page if they are recent enough. Researchers can still add to them, even if the entry is deleted.

And even if it's a really old entry, uncancel it and the threads will reappear.

Personally I don't think PR entries should be removed, because if there is a query later on, and perhaps the author has left the site, there is no easy way to find the original PR thread, which could be useful.

"the Eds have just slapped stuff in anyway."

Sorry that sounds very rude, and I didn't intend it to be towards you - I was more annoyed at the time that the Eds didn't respond when I asked them and I missed the chance to make comments on the entry I was thinking about. I think this is a fine entry, just not suited for the EG. However, if it does get in, I wanted to make sure my comments were made this time around.

About the rinse and re-use section...

One of the present scouts might be able to confirm or deny whether this is still true, but at one stage, the software running this site didn't like entries being re-used in PR and would throw a wobbly when a scout tried to recommend an entry that, in theory, had already been recommended by another Scout previously (albeit with completely different content)