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

Ok, just thought I'd start yet another debate.... that is, if anyone is actually interested.

I've noticed quite a few times in PR a level of gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) persuasion to get people to use GML in their entries... Sometimes inferring that we scouts would prefer to pick entries in GML.

Note: I am not saying these comments come from Scouts themselves...

Personnally, if the entry is readable in plain text I couldn't care less about the GML... I know that quite a few of the Sub-editors actually prefer working with plain text entries than trying to correct non-standard GML...

The question is this... should we be encouraging people to use gml or should we actively tell people it doesn't matter... after all, for some newbies it is a big step, and even if they eventually get the hang of it for their first entry it might have put them off coming back for more.

It might just make more people write for the Edited Guide if we take away a little of the 'snob' value of writing in perfect GML.


Opinions? Thoughts? Couldn't care less? Go stick your head in a pig Whisky! Go ahead... do your worst

Often it's tricky to imagine how an entry will look like when it's been GML'd - I've occasionally seen a plaintext entry rejected from PR, picked it up in the Flea Market, added GML, and it gets picked in a week. So that's what's in my mind when I suggest GML.
Could be a mistake, though.

-Martin

I've asked this before, personally I don't care either but opinions do vary. It does (or did I haven't checked) say in the guidelines somewhere specifically that it is *not* necessary as that might discourage those who don't know a mark up language at all.

I guess what Lucinda said is true though. I can't think of many entries I've picked that weren't in GuideML - although I know there's been some. I *do* however think that we shouldn't really *instruct* people to put it in. But that is the subject of another conversation elsewhere I believe

It should not matter, its the content that counts not how pretty it is.

My standard line is generally:

"You don't *need* to put this in GuideML -- if this entry gets scouted and accepted for the Edited Guide, a friendly sub-ed will take care of that for you.

On the other hand -- entries that are in GuideML sometimes get more attention in Peer Review because they look more "polished" -- so if you're interested in learning GuideML, it might be worth a try. There's a "help page" that goes over the basics of how to use GuideML, and another page that explains which bits of GuideML are OK to use in Edited Guide entries (they don't use the flashy bits for the Edited Guide).

It's really all up to you, though -- either way, this is turning out to be a great entry for Peer Review."

Then I also add in a link to the GuideML help pages, and the page with "Edited Guide Standard".


Mikey

I was encouraged to make the move to GML in my first couple of entries, which I found a bit of a struggle at first. Once I'd got the vague hang, it did make the entries look much better and I was most pleased.

I often suggest that a Research might consider GML, although I would never lean on anyone.

I would encourage the use of headers and proper paragraphs, though, GML or no GML. Sloppily written entries with monobloc paragraphs and no headers are *difficult* to read, whether the content is good or not.

Am I sitting on the fence on this one? I think it's horses for courses. You tend to quickly get a feel for which researchers are likely to do it. One Researcher I suggested this to recently spent an evening getting to grips with it and by the next day, the entry was in perfect GML! I was well impressed.

Agree with ZSF largely. If something is easy to read, in that it is broken up correctly into para and sub-heads, then it makes a good first impression, and I am more inclined to linger and make an effort with it.

As a non-techie person, I was really quite scared with the idea of GML at first. I didn't understand the GML pages (like reading any technical thing without trying to apply it at the same time). It took someone IRL to show me how it worked before I tried it.

It's a useful skill if you're going to be around hootoo. So, I'd encourage a newbie to have a go, simply along the lines of: it's not that hard when you give it a go, you may find it helps you to evaluate your own entries when writing them (I certainly find this) and you can use it to jazz up four User page.

Certainly encourage them to read the GML pages and go for help to the gurus if they need it.

I personally encourage researchers to try GML for all of the reasons mentioned above, plus the ability to use links of the researcher's choosing. A Sub-ed will be able to include links to EG entries and any outside links he/she may know of, but GML will allow the researcher to include obscure and entry-specific links. Of course, they could simply put the url in the text and ask the Sub-ed to include it when the entry is subbed, but I'm all for encouraging people do things for themselves whenever they can. I'm glad I tried it out, and it's really not a difficult thing to get the hang of.

Hmmm, good points one and all

My problem is that from time to time I get the feeling that some PR threads are more interested in format than content... and that, as Lucinda says, we might be missing gems coz they look awful. If someone writes an entry in plain text and it looks awful, should we push them towards GML or just ask them to stick some carriage returns into the text and break it up into managable chunks like that?

It might also be worth asking Ashley/Anna/Sam just how awful an entry would have to be before they'd refuse to accept it as a scout recommendation... After all, there's no point in us saying,
'don't worry about the format, the sub-ed will fix it' if:
1)-The on-duty editorial staff reject it, and/or
2)-The sub-ed blows a fuse when he sees how much work he's got to do.

I still think, however, that too much emphasis is put on GML however, I'd prefer to see more along the lines of:

'Can you stick a few 'returns' at the ends of paragraphs so we can read it a little easier',

rather than,

'If you insert around the title and around the following titles, then insert around each individual paragraph - oh and the quote should go in - There are quite a few people out there who would consider that a foreign language posting and yikes it!

As with all my comments, please feel free to tell me where to stick it however


whisky

Hmm - reading my last post - I've really got to cut down on the howevers

However... everything you said was relevant!

Let's face it, if when writing an entry someone *could* GML, chances are they *would* GML, so we know we're dealing with someone to whom slashes and chevrons are an undiscovered country, so a good line might be

"This would be easier on the eye if it was broken up into paras, and maybe given some sub headings withion the text. Just hitting the return key a few times would be great, but if you want to do even more, perhaps you might want to consider putting it into GML, which will give you a lot more options to improve the look of it. You can find out more about GML at: xxx, or you can ask one of the gurus who will be happy to give you a hand. Do let me know what you think, and I'll be glad to help too!"

Fluffy enough?

Truth is, sometimes it may be easier to comment on something concrete and objective like layout, rather than something more complex and subjective like tone - perhaps that's why we sometimes push too hard in that direction.

Hi Whisky and all,

for subbing an article, it doesn't really matter to me whether an entry is GML'd or not, as long as it is not looking truly awful. It has been said by someone else in this thread: a bit of structure helps very much, and this could easily be done by hitting the return key at the appropriate places.

In fact it's more work to sub an GML'd entry who superficially looks OK but has awful GML under the hood (ie. non-approved GML) than to sub a plain text entry with a bit of structure. But that's just a subbie's point of view, surely it's a good thing to encourage - but not force - people to learn GML.

SchrEck Inc.

Whisky, I'm definitely with you on this issue.

The only exception I can think of at the moment is that where you present tabular information, it sometimes really needs a table to make sense of it. The incidence of tabular info in plain text entries is very rare, however.

Apart from that, GML is just eye candy, the icing on the cake, the jam on the bread-and-butter of plain text, whatever you want to call it. Paragraphs, headers, lists (you can always use asterisks for bullets), footnotes, links, can all be indicated quite adequately in plain text, bearing in mind that an entry in Peer Review gets picked, not as an EG entry, but as the _basis_ for an EG entry.

Not only will I hardly ever mention GML when reviewing a plain text entry, I rarely even mention straightforward typos or spelling mistakes. The exception to this is where the error is not likely to be picked up by your average spellchecker, so certain proper nouns, foreign terms and so on to need to be picked up on. But I expect such things as the greengrocer's apostrophe, and distinctions such as their/there/they're, its/it's, straightforward tiypos like that one, US spellings etc to be dealt with by the sub, so comment isn't really needed in PR.

These things should not be mentioned in order to 'improve' the entry, but IMO should only be discussed where an entry is already so good that there's hardly anything else left to mention. I think this is particularly important early on in a PR thread, when often you don't even know whether the author is going to respond at all, and if so in what spirit.

If you use IE/Brunel for subbing, as I do, it's simple to add tags round paras, blockquotes etc. Much simpler than changing all the lower case tags to upper case, and getting rid of things like and , and changing ... round to ..., which we have to do. There are various common things like that which people put in their GML and subs have to change, and this is definitely more work than dealing with a nice clean well-laid-out plain text entry.

I also get a bit fed up when somone has pasted from Word or something and you have to change things like smartquotes or curlyquotes to straight ones, and double quotes to single - but that's nothing to do with GML.

Since GML is not a requirement for Peer Review, I don't see why scouts or anyone else should think that an entry in GML has a better chance of being picked than one in plain text. Appearances are always important, they say, but you can wear a clean white shirt and highly-polished shoes just as easily in plain text if you take a bit of care over your appearance.

My impression, having hung out in Peer Review for quite a while now (first as newbie Researcher, then as author, then as Sub, then also as Scout, then as ex-Scout) is that there has been a change. There is much less nitpicking, as I would call it, over things like GML and typos these days than there used to be. But perhaps you think there is still too much?

Anyway, this conversation is so good that I'm going to mention the typo in the subject line. It should really be 'Whether 'tis nobler...' <g, d & >

Bels

Hello All

GuideML is by no means the most important aspect of an entry and Sam, Ashley and I are in agreement about that. It's more important that the entry follows the <./>WritingGuidelines</.> and is well written. However, I've mentioned this thread to the Subs (and I see that SchrEck and Bels are already here) as they're the ones who are going to be most affected by the lack of GuideML.

I would say that learning to use it is part of becoming a long term member of h2g2 though. A rite of passage you might say.



Anna

With my Scout hat on, entries in PR are (generally) easier to read if they've been GMLed. Although, as has been said before, a well laid out plain text entry can be just as readable.

With my Subs hat on, I doesn't really bother me if the entry is GMLed. So long as there is enough foramatting (in whatever form) in the entry to show me what the author intended.

What can I say, it's easier for us if it's been GMLed, but only if it's done at least a bit well. There's nothing more annoying than getting lowercase GML. People can be encouraged to use it, but it shouldn't be enforced.

Hi Anna, you wouldn't be comparing Ashley's knees to a summer's day, would you?

Nah, she been reading too much of Hoovooloo's latest thread on Ask h2g2

IMHO, I prefer to pick plain text to badly-done GuideML. The simple reason is that it's easier to insert GML when subbing than correct bad GML.

So, I don't mind but I only like to pick GML when it is pretty consistent with the Guidelines for Approved GuideML - things like using tags and not s.

Whoami?

Sorry, I didn't know if anyone would notice...

Anna