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

>> "They aren't gonna know... whether [their entry] meets the guidelines, until it's been submitted"

>But you have to admit, actually reading the guidelines would help a little...

That's work for other people to do isn't it?

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The more I think about it, the more I think the conclusion should be this: Get rid of WW and let PR take on whatever good work was being done in WW.

Rushing through, few things I should mention:

* Someone mentioned the Sin Bin. There hasn't been a Sin Sin since Review Forums were launched...

* We don't move threads in the normal way with Review Conversations, or that will screw up the way the system works. Instead, we simply click on 'remove', just like everyone, and then resubmit the entry, just like everyone. Thus 'all moving of all threads should get an automatic posting from h2g2 Messages' is not true, but there would be a message from the Editors, as we'd be resubmitting the entries and would have to type something in as the first Posting.

* The banner ad can't be split up, and indeed, it's not going to link to PR in a while. When the third skin comes out, we're going to throw the banner ad open to the Community, to allow people to advertise their own areas of the site (as long as they do a good banner ad and get picked). Therefore traffic from the banner ad to PR will dry up, as there won't be a banner ad. Suggestions for other ways to drive traffic (eg front page links etc) are most welcome - we do need some kind of replacement!

* If the conclusion is to kill WW, that's do-able, though I'll have to check how easy it would be to remove it from the drop-down on the submissions page. It's less worrying for us too... as long as the rules for moving things to the FM are re-visited (though not necessarily revised). Up to you, really.

The reason I asked about the sin bin is because there are a few entries (I can think of one in particular but I daresay I can find others if I try) languishing in the depths of the WW which IMO shouldn't be there.

There's even a deleted entry with a thread in there. I wondered if there was an automatic process to take them out; I've only just in the last couple of days started taking an interest in the intricacies of the review forums.

Nope, there's nothing automatic at all when it comes to moving things around, which would explain why things are in the wrong place...

J'au-æmne, if you find things that shouldn't be where they are, yould you please give a call to the Scouts? After all, it's part of our duties to clean out the places.

I used to be able to help more, but moving things round with the RF system is not a simple case of just moving Conversations any more... so I *can't* move things between Review Forums.

So it's down to the Scouts, good on 'em.

Please don't destroy my worldpicture

I thought you could do *everything*

Surely Mark you could make yourself a member of the scouts?

I could, but they can't move Conversations either, so there wouldn't be much point. Once again, with feeling: Nobody, not even Jim, can move Conversations between Review Forums.

Instead we can remove them from one RF and resubmit them to another RF, but we cannot move them. Maybe we'll write a tool to enable this, but I still believe that the remove/resubmit system is a *good* idea, so I'm loathe to change this. Perhaps the only exception would be moves to the FM, but ideally that would be automated anyway.

Hey, Bossel, we used to be able to do everything, but we lost direct access to the live database, remember? So now we can only fix things via tools that Jim's team write for us, and obviously it takes time to write tools... especially when he and his team are working on things like DNA 1.01, 1.02 and beyond.

Oh. Okay. I forgive you.

So, was there a consensus to whether to remove the Writing Workshop? Everything's gone quiet...

(I should add that, at the moment, I have no way to remove Review Forums, as it used to be done directly in the database and we can't do that any more. However, I've added a request for a Review Forum deletion tool to the list, so if we do need to remove any RFs, we can. Still worth working out a stretegy now, though.)

I vote for keeping it.

I'd say bin it.

So, no consensus then?

Happy to go with the flow though, whatever the vibe... up to the Community, as always.

We just have to wait 2 days whilst Gnomon goes to Grease!

A belated reply to Frankie's suggestion that the Flea Market be solely hand-picked. I think the big problem is that if an author goes AWOL in March, his entry shouldn't be put into the Flea Market till June. Who's going to remember in June: "ooh, I wonder if Fred has come back... he had a promising entry he was going to work on, that we removed from Peer Review... Now, what A-number was it..."?

If we can do some database trickery to get entries that have been through review forums with an AWOL author, and submit them to the Flea Market automatically, then please do remove the Writing Workshop (and good riddance). This is the best solution, imo.

If not, then keep it, but change the name and/or the documentation to make it clear that nobody should submit their entries to the Writing Workshop, because it doesn't work.

On a seperate note, could the Alternative Writing Workshop be renamed the "Alternative Workshop", and the CWW similarly renamed to "Collaborative Workshop". Brevity is the soul of wit.

If you're going to change the name of the Writing Workshop and advise people not to put stuff in it, then you might as well scrap it. The only purpose of the WW is so that people who want help with their entries can get it. If you tell people not to put stuff in it, then it is pointless.

I will reiterate my view:

1. The Writing Workshop should be retained.
2. Nobody except the author of an entry should submit it to the Writing Workshop.

If you want to rename it "Gnomon's Writing Workshop", you can.

I've got to go now, so I'll leave you all to sort it out to your satisfaction.

> "The only purpose of the WW is so that people who want help with their entries can get it."

And as a holding pen for entries that will be moved to the Flea Market if their authors leave the building. The Flea Market works - please don't kill it.

I think we should keep it as well.

however if you do want to change the name, I will happily second the notion of Gnomon's writting workshop.

I currently have an entry (Pulsars - A739343 ) that I felt was not ready for PR, so I put it in the WW. It has gotten positive feedback and constructive comments, and I think the WW should remain for the entries that need some medium touching up before they're ready for PR.
I have still to add a couple paragrpahs and change things around a bit... butevereything's going fine. It probably would have been rejected if I'd posted it to peer review first thing.

-FTF~[KEEP WW!]~