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

Please post opinions on the new Peer Review process here.

Does anyone care to make predictions on what the long-term effects of the changes will be?

I think it is a good thing, having just had my entry savaged by someone who knows what they are taliking about. It was a somewhat technical subjet I was trying to explain, and it is a great help to have feedback from a fellow technical person to pick up on the technical, rather than purely grammatical, errors that a sub-editor would not necesarily know about. Of course, it is a bit unpleasent to see your beloved (or jotted of in five minutes, depending) entry get torn apart, but if it has to be, then fair enough, I should be good enough to take the advice in the spirit it was given.
So, yes, so far I think it is a decent system.

I definatly think it'll work better.
One of the things that I've noticed while SubEdding is that you'll often get an entry on a topic of which you know nothing about. Americans may get entries on football (soccer) while an English Sub may get an entry on American Football for instance. We don't all know everything, but other researchers know about what each other has written. So, hopefully, when a sub gets an entry that they do know nothing about, at least there will be the community discussion there to guide them to the inconsistancies and inaccuracies.
A sub can, if they wish, stick the entries through a programme like Word to sort out a lot of the grammar and spelling quickly, but it's more of the content checking where the old process falls short.

I hope people get the hang of the new system. I think it'll work.

The danger is, though, that if everything goes there then the idea of being reviewed by your peers may not work as the forum gets swamped with lots of articles. It's also harder to come over here and leave a link to the article, so a lot of newbie articles may well get left behind if they are unsure of navigating the guide - pressing a "submit" button is far easier.

Well, that should be where the Scouts come into play. But I do think a submit button was a good thing. Perhaps a combination of the two methods would be better. You write your article and then submit for Peer Review?

I want to thank everyone for the feedback. Mark Moxon has given some additional info on the Peer Review process at: http://www.h2g2.com/F48902?thread=67613 Based on what he wrote, I have modified my column a little. It turns out the Scouts must pass articles on from the Peer Review page to the sub-editors. Otherwise, the sub-editors won't see the entry. I also think Bluebottle has made a good point about the Submit button. It should at least be possible to leave a note about the Peer Review process on the 'editing' page for each new entry.

And now I shall eat my words somewhat.

A note to this effect has *already* been added.