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

JTG,

You have reminded me what it is I miss about sub-editing. It just wasn't the same amount of fun when you could reject entries. In my last few batches there were at least 3 that I felt should never have made it through peer review and that I had to almost re-write.(This doesn't include my last batch which I never finished - sorry Beeline)

In one of my first batches I had to reject an article by Jim Lyn - I think I was a bit cheeky with that rejection but it was so much fun coming up with inventive yet instructive ways to tell someone they couldn't write! (Not that Jim can't write - In fact he's very good. It's just this one article that wasn't!)

Ginger (Digging a very big hole for herself)

Jim's a good sport and those glitches you are experiencing are temporary and entirely coincidental.

At the risk of seeming to bash peer review, a lot gets through that really shouldn't. I read an offering the other day which was so loaded with errors and speeling mustakes that I guessed the author's first language was something other than English. Yet the following posts had nothing to say about how well (or otherwise) the thing was written, just a lot of chatter about the subject matter and precious little in the way of constructive criticism.

Remember how, in the olden days, when all this were nowt but fields, we used to woop it up when something we had written (or something a friend had written) was accepted? It was a reason to celebrate. Now the expectation is that whatever you write will get in and woe betide (as we used to say) the Sub who dares to change it. Having something accepted with minor alterations is now a cause for complaint. I guess that reflects the changing composition of the community. It just makes me feel old, to be frank.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant. But it was more creative and more fun in the Golden Age of Subbing.

JTG

Keep yer chin up, as Grandad used to say.