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

I agree - but how do we get around the problem of some entries just not being ready for Peer Review - some entries do need a lot of work, others don't - there's such a wide range in there.

I tried to make a similar point in posting 150 but it seems to have been bypassed. It was exactly contributors such as Jimi X that I had in mind. We are lucky enough to have a number of contributors who regularly submit really polished entries to PR, and I would have thought it was axiomatic that contributions of that calibre should be encouraged. For these, Peer Review is not a writing workshop, neither do they need one.

This is another baby-and-bath-water thing: you need a way of bringing on the potentially good but inexperienced writers, of course, but without risking the disaffection of the already-accomplished ones.

Bels

I think that perhaps the best solution is to simply become more aggressive in weeding out entries from PR that still need 'major' work. (And no, I don't have a definition of major work, I just know it when I see it! )

We do a lot of prompting and hand-holding in PR to get people to make fixes that perhaps would be best done in the WW.

I know it's kind of hard-hearted and I don't want to discourage folks from submitting entries, but if an entry isn't ready, why not send it to the workshop for work, enabling PR to be populated with really great stuff that might need only minor tweaking?

and of caurse a functional writing workshop populated by more than just "the usual suspects" would be good for it's original role in university projects, which can't sensibly go through peer review without being scout-proof.

Okay, how do we get WW functioning again?

Could it have the prime advertising spot occupied by Peer Review for a few days?

Not easily, I'm afraid, no...

But, Anna, the Writing Workshop _is_ functioning. There's life in the old dog yet, if 14 new entries in the last 14 days is anything to go by.

Would a mention on the Front Page come amiss? There's white space under 'This Week's Post'.

And could the scouts be channelled towards it?

Bels

Hi all,

What about modifying the 'How to Contribute' page to give a proper bulleted section to the WW, *before* the Peer Review section.

I suspect quite a few newbies (still not comfortable with that word, ) might end up slapping something in PR after hitting the Contribute button and ignoring the admittedly unprepossessing link to WW contained in the Peer Review intro.

for ref:

>>Peer Review: If you've written something that you're really proud of and think it would make an excellent Edited Guide Entry, then you should put it up for Peer Review. Don't be afraid to air your compositions here, as it's a really friendly place to talk about what Researchers have been working on, but if you'd rather get others to help you put the finishing touches to your masterpiece, visit the Writing Workshop or Collaborative Writing Workshop first.
<<

"but if you'd rather *get* others to help you" doesn't sound too , does it?

So why not give WW a proper look in there, but describing it as an ideal place to submit first efforts and talk to other aspiring authors? That could have the double advantage of 'filtering' PR to some extent and livening up the WW.

Well, I'm a bit surprised at myself here - I genuinely think I've had a good idea!

seeya
spiff

title change is really for prev post, but it stands, so...

just a further thought - The Uni of Life intro page could similarly encourage Uni project compilers to use WW as a sounding board - and of course to help other projects on their way.

I'm all in favour of that. there is a serious problem getting comments on your stuff for university projects at the moment, unless you put them in peer review, in which case you get told off.

Making the writing workshop a useful place to post university pages would really help.

It would also get people to visit the university and help push business to the writing workshop.

is there any downside?

Dear Spaceman Spiff and everyone,

I've now altered the contribute page. See what you think...

Anna

Looks good to me, Anna.

[Typo: fledling]

Bels

Oh doh! thanks for that - changed now!

While you're at it, Anna, this one's been bugging me for a bit, I was hoping someone else would mention it, but nobody has. It's on the PeerReview page, end of 2nd para: nuture it.

I had a look, , good stuff. But then, I *would* say that!

What do you think of doing something similar on the Uni of Life page?

It'd be good to get a few of the other people who've been involved in this thread to see what they think of this strategy, too...

spiff

On the university of life situation, I would have no problem with university of life entries going into peer review, considering that there seem be be few of them relative to 'ordinary' entries. Further than that, I think that it makes little sense to have a policy of having one review forum for unfinished entries, and one for finished ones, if the university of life entries don't follow that policy. So if you want WW and PR to exist, then allow university of life entries to be put in the appropriate forum, depending on how finished they are.

As for making them scout-proof, IMO the best way would be to put the words university of life in brackets as part of the name of the entry, and make it clear in the thread that the entry isn't for recommendation. Then, you should get few if any of them recommended, and it then only requires the italics to be on the ball enough to notice they are university of life entries.

I'm still not convinced, though, that WW serves a useful purpose that PR cannot. I think that PR could have its remit extended to include the sort of entries that are not ready for PR review as it stands, if we abandon WW. I think that the standard should be that there should be enough there that it is worth commenting on, which leaves it up to the writer to decide whether it is worth submitting. It is after all very difficult to know if an entry is finished, as many entries have to have a lot of work done to them.

I think that, contrary to Bels idea that inexperienced writers could benefit from the WW, the writing workshop, at least as it stands, is less likely to help. Currently we seem to have a lot fewer comments made there, from a narrower group of people, whereas the inexperienced writers are probably more likely to need more guidance, and encouragement, from as broad a range of people as possible.

Similarly, entries that are not fully finished may well require more comments from a broad range of people, when the entry is still relatively flexible, and the structure of it can be changed more, rather than later on.

I also don't see that the skills in helping that sort of entry are drastically different from those required in criticising more finished entries, so see little need for two review forums with similar types of entries in them, if it is only going to be similar people, but fewer, visiting WW.

Perhaps if there were more responses to WW, I would be more convinced that it could be useful, and that would be helped by removing some of the deadwood entries. In other words, entries that have been abandoned, either by the author leaving h2g2, or just an author forgetting about their entries, and leaving them in the WW.

The first of these is the sort that the scouts are supposed to deal with, and as a scout, I am doing my bit to help remove them.

However, the second kind is the sort that the authors could remove. Basically this is a plea to everyone here to please have a look in the WW (and peer review, and other forums), and see if you have abandoned any entries there, and if you don't want them there, then remove them. This would make our job easier, and help WW to work more smoothly whilst it is here, and make it easier to judge whether WW is a good thing, as well as make it easier to handle the removal of WW if it is decided that we abandon it, as there would be fewer entries to remove.

Silverfish

Bels - also done

Spaceman Spiff - I've drawn attention to the Writing Workshop on the University pages.

Silverfish - University entries don't go into PR because not making them pickable even though they're in Peer Review would probably make the process too complicated, even though you've suggested a really good way of highlighting the fact that the entries aren't pickable. But if they can go into the Writing Workshop, that would be good.

I'm really hoping for a WW revival (I'm even thinking about changing my name to reflect that!) Please do let me know about more deadwood entries in WW (thanks for those you've let me know about already) - I'm more than happy to remove them.

Thanks everyone

For Uni Projects, there are a couple of things that keep me away from popping over to C573 and commenting:

* the awkward layout. A612343 lists a bunch of completed entries, which ipso facto I don't care about if I want to comment on projects in progress *before* they hit the front page. Nor do I really care about ordering it by departments and faculties and suchlike, especially when some of them are completely empty (though it's a nice gimmick). Nor do I care particularly who the sub-ed is, for example.

* the abandoned projects. Is A469992 going anywhere? It's only been a year and a half. I don't want to comment on an entry that won't reach the front page for another eighty-eight years (at the current rate and the number of constellations to cover...)

--

So yes, some means to look at the complete list of entries within every project that the author(s) consider finished would be a good thing. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to browse through the university pages trying to find an entry that interests them and is worth commenting on.

And a review forum would work well for that, in many ways. But I do think it should be a *seperate* review forum (reviewing in university - perhaps we could call it a 'Viva'?) to Peer Review. Univerity Entries have a very different feel to Peer Review entries. Plus, they can't be picked. The writing workshop might be acceptable, but I think it'd be better to start from scratch.

The way I see it working is, whenever any 'Field Researcher' completes one entry in the project, they submit it to Viva, along with a link to the project index page. They then leave it in there (something that couldn't happen in Peer Review) until the entire project is completed, at which point all the entries are removed from Viva. If a Field Researcher has to suspend a project because of other commitments then they remove all their entries from Viva until they're ready to start working on it again.

I think Viva would have a niche amongst reviewers by providing high quality and detailed entries, free from the filth that permeates the other review fora. (even Peer Review has its fair share of garbage). It'd certainly be far more inviting to people who want to comment than the current university pages... (or maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?)

If we could drive business to a university forum which all university entries could go in, then yes i think a seperate university forum is a great idea.

however, the only forum that gets sent traffic at the moment is the peer review forum due to the banner and the default option being peer review.

I really dislike the idea of forcing university entries into the peer review forum, as they were removed because they didn't really work well there.

There were too many problems with trying to stop them being picked, and with them having the interlinking stripped, etc.

I think stuffing them in the writting workshop is a good intermediate solution, and would have the side effect of getting university contributers to frequent the writting workshop, and getting more feedback for university entries.

I especially like the idea of having the link in all university entries to the project page, but I think it would be better long term to have it in the box at the side with the contributer names.

If there are no major gripes about this, I will see about moving the individual entries of the intelligence project into the writting workshop within the next week or so.

I would suggest other project leaders do the same.