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

Entry: The Edited Guide - A3938628
Author: Mikey the Humming Mouse - A1355195 Hitchhike your way into the Edited Guide! - U99875

Here it is -- there are clearly two places that aren't fleshed out yet, but thought I would throw it out there for people to start digging in to.

I do think we should do everything we can to keep it from becoming overwhelmingly long -- in fact, I would definitely be open to condensing what's already there.

Ok, have fleshed out the empty bits referenced in the message as well, plus filled in some more links.

The great project begins...

Well done, first off, for the brave and best-intentioned start. The trouble is, of course, that everyone's got their own slant.

My . The main weakness here is that it fails to mention the wider Guide in context. Even in the 'not Everything' part (which needs links, btw), you only list the places where some form of editorial selection has admitted Entries.

It's important that anything that anyone writes endures here. It's important to the newbie, because it means that what they contribute doesn't need to pass a test before it's worthwhile. It's important to the community, because there's so much more to share than fact.

Anyone else agree that the pre-PR Guide Entry should be explained first, and presented as the starting contribution from which the EG is built?

The other thing that worries me, and probably many of us, is the familiar problem. It's OK claiming the 'more interesting than an encyclopaedia' line, but will we really mean it when it comes to PR? Some brilliantly entertaining Entries, essentially EG-compliant but strange, have been hounded out of Peer Review down the years. With them goes the goodwill and the confidence of a good writer. There's nothing so crushing as the denial of falsely-raised expectations.

It's a fine judgement how to pitch this. One the one hand, we can invite people to express themselves, but then we have to deal sympathetically when some of what we get is not quite what we meant. On the other hand, we can take PR for what it is, and write that in big letters on the tin - but who's going to be inspired by that?

All that's to come, but taking the first step here is really important. You've made it, and thanks for that.

Mikey -

"Infinite Probability Drive?"



Joe

Traveller in Time scrolling down the page
"Actually I think it is too long to be read by someone running by already.
One of the things I prefer would be an index not unlike on the front page. 'You find a book of any self respect and quality has an index'.
(feel free to use < test3925703 >, I wrote the links in GuideML)


Trying to read it myself,
>Maybe you've heard about it, maybe you haven't - but what is the Edited Guide? It is:
-- Suggesting the reader has not jet heard of the Edited Guide is, well, kind of offensive. If the reader is that stupid they will skip this massive page immediately.

>Edited Guide entries
--Was it not 'Edited Guide Entries' for the 'Edited Guide' and 'Guide entries' or 'entry' for the rest?
>articles
--'Edited Guide Entries'



The search is likely to come up with lots of unedited material. "

< <./>test3925703</.> >

*copies and pastes a comment she erroneously made elswhere*

Mikey, I like the line 'Inspired by "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", but by the longer interesting bits, not the short (but funny) one-liners' but perhaps it should read 'Inspired by *The Book* in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", but by the longer interesting bits, not the short (but funny) one-liners.'

I'm suggesting this because I think it might make it clearer that we're writing a book of factual content similar to that described in HHGTTG and not a work of fiction.

Amy

OK, so bit by bit:

Have made the edits Amy and Joe suggested - thanks!

Have no idea whatsoever TiT is suggesting in most of his two posts. However, the main point of this page is for the rather large number of people out there who *don't* know what the Edited Guide is. I'm open to revising the sentence in question if people find it bothersome, but I'm not interested in turning this into another page for people who already know what's going on -- this is for the people who don't. And I'm not really in favor of the "index" idea for a page like this - part of the point is to encourage people to see the steps that come before "writing", and an index would rather defeat that.

Pinniped, I have taken a shot at trying to put the EG into the broader context of the Guide as a whole -- let me know what you think. However, I really don't think I can give it the level of depth you're looking for - it's the kind of thing that is important, but not what this particular page is about. If this was going to be an entry strictly about *writing* EG entries, I would probably agree with you - but it's not.

You also seem rather more convinced than I that entries that *meet the Writing Guidelines* will be hounded out of PR simply for being different. Myself, I have almost never seen that happen - but I've seen plenty of people claim that it had, when in fact:

* The entry didn't really meet the Writing Guidelines -- and it's quite possible to have a superb, different, and highly interesting entry that does, we have quite a few in the EG that attest to that

* Rather than being 'hounded' out of PR, the author had stomped off in a huff because people had pointed out changes that needed to be made -- for example, removing 'in jokes', making an entry less biased, clarifying some things for the reader, correct inaccurate facts, include some more detail, etc. Alternatively, the author didn't leave the PR thread, but refused to make any changes whatsoever (the old 'take it or leave it), and the thread was eventually removed from PR as a dead end.

* Likewise, I've seen people yank their entries from Peer Review because _individuals_ said that the entry just wasn't EG material -- these people weren't laying down the law, they were giving their own opinion, which is what they're in PR to do. I've seen entries pulled when there were several quite positive comments, but one or two negative ones -- or, likewise, pulled when the very first comment is negative, before any one else has had a chance to comment.

I really don't see any reason to revise this page to take into account the groups above -- especially given that the vast majority of brilliant and interesting entries do quite well in Peer Review. These situations are problems (although I think you and I view the problems rather diffierently), but they're not what this entry is about.

The fact remains that we DO have loads of interesting entries in the Edited Guide, that interesting-ness IS part of the writing guidelines, and that it IS encouraged by a good number of reviewers in Peer Review.

> Even in the 'not Everything' part (which needs links, btw)

Um, it has links, and has since the first posting here. There's not a link for AGG/GAG/CAC because I was unable to find one that was usable - let me know if you have one I could use. There are many AGG/GAG/CAC archive pages out there, but most seem to stop several years back.

And I've just added the 'unedited Guide' section in, but how on earth would I link to that?

Traveller in Time under the impression this was supposed to be a 'frontpage', rather then just another introduction
"Well, if this is meant to be something to fill in the gaps as what the ACEs and the help pages also try, then it suffers from what they all do: too long, too much and a bit chaotic.

If this is to be something we would like people to return to (already while there is too much information for one screen) then the introduction is rubbish on the second visit. "

'The Book' in HHGTTG is not called 'The Guide' but 'The Book.'

This is obviously going to be a contentious project and there will be many differing views about how it should be tackled. The reason I didn't tackle it myself when people said 'If you want want one why don't you write it?' is that I'm an ideas man and a tweaker I come up with ideas, and I'm good at fine tuning, but I'm not so good at actually getting something like this underway. So let's start tweaking

I do agree that more should be made, and earlier in the page about what the EG is *not* and why. In other words, if a newbie does take the time to read this page they will find out before they get bored and just submit their entry to PR, why they shouldn't.

I envisage this page as being an introduction to the EG, an explanation of what it and what it isn't, as well as how people can get involved with it, and at the moment it seems to lean too much toward the latter. It's very difficult to do both without making the page inordinately long.

I also see some of the category pages having links... ah, I see you've put a link in already

I would like to see the Italics add the 'Life', 'The Universe', 'Everything' boxes that appear on the Front Page if and when this project is accepted (which is similar to TiT's idea, but not in the body of the page), and for this page have a permanent link on the FP.

TiT says that it's already long, which is why I think it's important to explain what should and should not be put into PR early on. I don't see how this page could be anything but long, although it can be clear, and indeed already is.

Some PR-type corrections and suggestions:

"Inspired by 'The Guide' in the book 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'"
Inspired by 'The Book' in The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy'

"People read the Edited Guide in all sorts of ways, for all sorts of reasons"
I'm not sure exactly what that means nor how relevant it is to this page. I think it could be cut out wiithout the page losing anything if the page is to be kept as short possible.

"For many of us, the Front Page of h2g2 was our first exposure to the Edited Guide - every weekday, a number of new articles are highlighted on the Front Page as they make their debut into the Edited Guide"
No need for the second instance of 'Front Page', and 'debut into the Edited Guide' doesn't look right. How about 'as they join the ranks of edited entries', or something similar?

"just click on the links!"
I think that can be cut.

"which will take you to a random entry of the thousands in the Edited Guide"
'which will take you to a random selection of the thousands of entries in the Edited Guide'.

Once you've already linked to a page, such as PR or the writing guidelines, you don't need to link to it again, certainly not in the same section at least.

"It's great for authors to get to hear"
'It's great for authors to hear'

"Are there pieces of the entry"
'Are there parts of the entry'

"Can you think of additional pieces of information"
'Can you think of additional information'

"First, an extra copy of your entry will be made, and given to a Sub-Editor3 for some spit and polish - it's this copy that will go into the Edited Guide, but you still get to keep the original as well. The day your entry appears on the Front Page, you'll get a reminder email so that you don't miss your big day."
I think that entire section can be cut and replaced with a simple link to EditedGuide-Process, if indeed it's even necessary to explain that part of the EG process on this page.

The 'Scouts' section of Volunteering for the Edited Guide. I would say that a Scout's most important role is commenting on entries and guiding both the entry and author through PR. I would certainly explain that first, then talk about their task of recommending entries, and finally talk about keeping PR tidy. Something like this perhaps:
'Scouts are volunteers whose job it is to look after Peer Review. Their most important role is to interact with authors, helping them to improve their entry to a point where it meets the writing guidelines and is as good as it can be. Once a month every Scout has to pick a set number of entries from Peer Review that they consider are ready to go into the Edited Guide - the h2g2 Editors make the final decision whether or not the entry is accepted. Scouts are also charged with helping to keep Peer Review tidy by occasionally asking the Editors to remove from Peer Review any entries which are not suitable for the Edited Guide, or which have been abandoned by their author. If you want to volunteer to be a Scout, and have spent some time getting to know how Peer Review works and making helpful comments, take a look at the instructions here.'

"They will clean up the odd spelling and grammar errors that weren't caught during Peer Review"
'They will clean up any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors that weren't caught while the entry was in Peer Review'

"A Last Suggestion...."
'A Final Suggestion....', although I think I'd prefer it if this something of an earlier suggestion.

Reminder to self to find best page for CAC link and bookmarking this page for future reference. Like what I'm seeing so far, agree with Oojakapiv's (hey I wrote it without copy and paste!) comments, and am reasonably proud that you actually wrote this as I wouldn't have dared...

Kathryn

A2198045

According to Jodan...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A2645561

"The AGG/CAC - if you're looking for a giggle, this might have something to hit your funny bone. "

As one of the foundering members of the AGG, which later mouldered into the CAC, and finally festered into the current CAC Continuum,
I find this short bit of pith patently inoffensive.
The original AGG was a sharp stab in the eye of complacency, consistency, and respectibility. It was an attempt, as the UnderGirdle is now, to highlight entries that were not getting FrontPaged or EGed, most of which were sitting quietly in the bowels of H2, waiting to emerge in their full glory as grandchildren of the original vision of DNA.

I would prefer, if you must provide a blurb, something more offensive.

signed,
(tonsilrevenge)
second assistant dogsbody

Given that this is to be a front page *about* the Edited Guide, I really don't see any reason to include bitter bits about why people dislike the Edited Guide and so created something else. Truthfully, we could just leave that last section out altogether -- I wouldn't mind a bit, I only included it to make other people happy. Or I could just leave the AGG/GAG/CAC out -- after all, it does seem rather less organized than the others listed -- they've even included some of my entries without ever telling me about it.

There already are pages about reading h2g2 in general, and writing h2g2 in general, and those are the places to go into all sorts of detail about the differnet places -- not here.

Though I don't remember any "bitter bits".


I mean, if you are going to front page this as an intro for newbies, then you need to sugar-coat the pill a bit for those who might find the whole EG PR process a bit intidimating and, dare I say it, staid.

Warning: What follows is sarcasm:

Also, I thought you were going to write an entry about the EG,
not build a memorial for it...

The poor thing's sitting on pins and needles, waiting for the doorbell to ring, thinking it might be the coffin delivery fellows.

Warning: That was sarcasm.

Anyway, I'll leave you to it. You know where to find me.

I think I may be the first Newbie to respond.

And all I really wanted to do was say you are on the right track. It is taking me a long time to get my head around exactly how this place works, where I am supposed to post, and what I am supposed to do. This has helped clarify my thoughts very neatly.

I get the feeling that some more "editorial" style feedback is also required. So, just a note about footnote 3:

"The Scouts are a volunteer group here on h2g2 - more on them below."

As a slight bad habit reader, I tend to read footnotes last. Like I said, a bad habit. However it does mean that the footnote does not make much sense. You may want to rephrase as:


"The Scouts are a volunteer group here on h2g2 - more on them further along in the entry."

And thanks for a helpful entry

Mikey, this text:

"Important Note: Peer Review is not the place for entries that are unfinished, works in progress, rants, fiction, one-liners, jokes or personal theories that have no accepted basis in the 'real' world (whatever that means). But if you've written something that you feel is finished and want to see what everyone else thinks, then Peer Review might well be the right place for you. If not, please wait until the entry is complete or you have more time to finish it."

is fairly near the top of the PR page. I think something like it should be also be near the top of this page, along with something clearly defining the difference between the Edited Guide and the unedited Guide, and about the fact that as soon as you create an entry it becomes part of The Guide, but not everything is suitable for the EG.

I must admit that my own vision for an EG front page was a much expanded version of the second two paragraphs in the 'Edited Guide' section on my PS... perhaps the information in those paragraphs could be used as the introduction to this page.

======================

What is the Edited Guide? It is:

* Inspired by 'The Book' in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

* Made up of thousands of articles called Edited Guide entries - each of which has been written, reviewed, and selected by people here on h2g2.

* Like an encyclopedia in some ways - the articles are true, accurate, and based in reality.

* A lot more interesting and fun to read than an encyclopedia.

Researching and writing entries for h2g2 is the reason why we're known as Researchers (with a capital 'R'). We should all be doing something to research and write useful entries for the Guide as outlined in Douglas' vision for h2g2 , and indeed, as soon as you create an entry it becomes part of the overall Guide that is h2g2.

The Edited Guide is a section of h2g2 which contains its best factual writing and is considered to be an encyclopaedia of sorts. Entries for the Edited Guide must follow the Writing-Guidelines, which means that not every single entry that you write will be suitable. Peer Review is not the place for entries that are unfinished, works in progress, rants, fiction, one-liners, jokes or personal theories that have no accepted basis in the 'real' world. But if you've written something that you feel is finished, which follows the guidelines and you want to see what everyone else thinks, then Peer Review might well be the right place for your entry.

To get into the Edited Guide an entry must go through the PeerReview process where it will be scrutinised and critiqued by fellow Researchers, picked by a Scout, edited by a <./>Sub-editor</.>, looked over by the h2g2 Editors <insert link to <./>Team</.>, and eventually published on the <./>FrontPage</.>.

Some important pages which all Researchers should read before considering submitting an entry to PR are Learning to Write on h2g2, Writing for the Edited Guide, and the House Rules .

=======================

Now, I realise that this is going to make the page incredibly long if all the other information is kept in, but I wonder how much of it needs to be? And even if it is, the explanation of what the EG is rather than the explanation of how it works is right there at the beginning.