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

Entry: Sub-editing and the Lost Art of Rejection - A377552
Author: John-the-gardener, h2g2 Friends of Tibet - A2170982 - U33262

I've just been chased out of Peer Review by an angry mob waving sticks.

This is about some old stuff.

What?!?
But this is gold! It's our history!
(off to get angry with angry mob)

Oh, don't get angry with the angry mob. It was a very small one, and not really angry, and right to point out that PR is for stuff about the world outside h2g2.

Wherever it goes, it's magic.

I wish PR could be a little more whimsical sometimes, but the volume of gunk encourages a certain terseness (should that word exist) or even worse blandness, in the face of entries that were blatantly written during the half hour before which the writer got bored with hootoo...

Anyway - it made me laugh - I think it would be excellent for the UG.

sprout

Bored with hootoo? As if...

The natural tendency to be impatient with gunk and the people who produce it is probably a very useful function of PR. In the Olde Days (here I go again ), gunk went straight to a Sub-editor's in-tray. Before that, of course, the poor 'italics' were buried under mountains of the stuff.

Thanks, sprout. I'm glad you had a chuckle.

JTG

If it truly is gunk without hope of redemption it may be useful. Sometimes it's good stuff in what the PR'er considers to be the wrong place.

This piece however has found an appreciative home . Congratulations JtG! This entry has been picked from the Alternative Writing Workshop (AWW) by the miners and accepted by the editors for inclusion in the h2g2 UnderGuide. It will be featured on h2g2's front page in due course and then be displayed on the shelves of the UnderGuide Archives at A2112490 and the official archives at C1233.

More information and a link to what happens next can be found at the <./>underguide</.> HQ. A helpful friendly Gem Polisher should drop by your personal space soon to talk to you about the next stage of the process. Or, if there is no polishing to be done, the UG edition of your entry will appear on your homepage before it features on the Front Page.

Thank you for contributing to the UnderGuide!

And thank you for the generous review.

"in the face of entries that were blatantly written during the half hour before which the writer got bored with hootoo..."

Who told you the secret of my ritting proseyess?

The secret's out, my friend!

And to All about this "stuff" I can say as bird after 2 years of "lurking"= ( studiing the communication activity in the blessed world of h2g2) I am terribly happy to learn about those humans who are talking more sensible = rejecting the rejections.
Hope to meet you in the "dark" alley of the UG. bird

I think to really enjoy rejection - as I admit I do - you really have to enter into the spirit of the times, a pioneer spirit. Being rejected was nothing to feel disconsolate about. On the contrary, it was what everyone was told quite clearly to expect. And it was what any reasonable person would have considered fair under the circumstances. Add to that the glee of being unexpectedly not rejected... well, that was really something to celebrate.

I wonder if the Underguide would work that way...

I'm sending belated sympathetic vibes to the subed who got my first submission and did such valiant work fitting it into EG Guidelines which, of course, I hadn't read.
Waz

Sympathetic vibes are always nice.

I always (nearly always) got a lot of satisfaction out of Subbing an Entry that was a diamond not merely in the rough but about nine yards into the swamp on the far side of the next fairway.

JTG

... a real slice of life.