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

I'm sure some of my entires do include some personal anecdote I think Caron Keating was one of them. Not a major part of the article put a personal reflection.

Grand that all the 'oldies' say they've used personal stuff in their Guide Entries. Did they do it with their first ever entries? When they thought it might make it something special? Popped it into PR and it got rave reviews? Somehow I doubt it . That's the kind of thing you do with confidence in your writing. I think PR needs to realise that such wonderful potential often needs a little nudge in the right direction, positive stuff. I know, I know, in the most part everyone is supportive, but let's not it be a flash in the pan. Let's try and build up people's confidence before shooting them down in flames
HF

Caron Keating went through PR last year.

uh huh, but did you first put an Entry in PR last year? Missed my point there I think

I think the old hands at PR need to think back to when they first put an Entry in for reviewing. Then think about how they approach new researchers and their first time or near to first time entries. Not everyone is a consummate writer with 15 or more Edited Guide Entries.

I'm just pushing for more positive encouragement surrounding the new researchers as they are the future of the site, if it has a future...as I mentioned, I'm scared that with no impetus to change for the better the current Scout/Sub team in PR will go the way of the Old Writing Team...and it needn't. Everyone has brilliant ideas and contribute to the whole of h2g2 fantastically, IMHO, but I think we're all in danger of getting stuck in a rut. And not a good rut (no mention of badgers rutting please)...

(I use alabaster, by the way , and 95% is wa-a-ay off, I think.)

"I do still think though that if we were to move the Edited Guide beyond fact-based guide style entries, that we are inevitably moving into the realm of fiction, speculation, single-person accounts etc, and my personal feeling is that this would be a backward step. The thing we forget about is that guide based factual entries are possibly the most accessible entries anyone can write. They are easy to develop, improve, criticise, understand and agree with. Moving out of this realm brings us into a very different world - one of opinion, bias, controversy and elitism to borrow a phrase. "

I'm curious who you think wants fiction, single person-accounts and speculation in the EG? That's what the UG is for.

There's a very large difference between wanting style, stimulation and variety in the EG guide and wanting fiction. The latter is something that will not happen on h2g2, for good reason. The former is something that is good and needs doing - I don't think anyone disagrees with this and it really is the heart of PROD's argument.

*ponders* Is there problem with PR at the mo?

I've not really been to PR since the Traditional Children's Songs entry went through after Christmas. RL has been too busy, and contributing to PR is time-consuming. I can't be the only person who steers clear of PR under such circumstances. I've also not yet managed to contribute anything myself (apart from a collaboration with HF where he did all the work ) - again, because of time. It's stated quite clearly that an entry should only be submitted to PR if the author considers it to be "finished" and I haven't got beyond "thinking about it" for most topics. I did write one entry as a very new newbie, which ended up in the UG, and I knew instinctively at the time I wrote it that it wasn't suitable for the EG, although I wasn't exactly sure why.

I think I'd find PROD more accessible if there were some examples of what has been rejected from PR recently and how this was done, because that *seems* to be the basis of the discussion.

Writing workshop seems woefully under-active and I've sometimes thought, near the end of a long PR discussion, that an entry should really have been in WW and not PR. But when something sits in WW and nobody notices it for several weeks, that's hardly encouraging. So *maybe* it's WW that needs the higher profile (eg the permanently on-screen button), and to WW that new entries should go by default, to be filtered from there to the correct place by common consent or by a Scout.

If some Scouts occasionally seem harsh on completely unsuitable entries submitted to PR by newbies, then that's partly the responsibility of people like me, who cop out entirely from commenting on such entries (I do this in the belief that Scouts can say it more tactfully than I can, because they've had the practice ) and partly because, to be frank, I don't think it's expecting a great deal of people that they *read the instructions* (this is, after all, a text-based environment) before submitting an entry to PR.

I won't review something I'm not interested in, or which is badly written or poorly thought out. I *will* comment on well-written entries about which I know comparatively little (generally with an "I know nothing" caveat). In most cases I restrict myself to "well done" ... plus shedloads of typo nitpicks. Perhaps this is exactly what's not wanted, although I do try to make it clear that I only do this with entries which I personally think ought to be in the EG. But when I'm in PR, that's my contribution, because I know that picking up typos on-screen is something I'm good at (NB I have at the time of writing been awake for 20 hours, which automatically excuses any embarrassing typos in this post).

Entries I've commented on have ranged from the side-achingly funny to ones so heart-wrenching that I could only bear to read them once, from heavy science to easy recipes ... lots of entries, short and long, in different styles. Isn't that what the EG is about?

I've read all the blog in this thread, and all the other threads attached to this entry, and I'm *still* not clear about what the perceived problem is here. Has something major happened in PR while I've been elsewhere, or lots of minor things built up to one big thing?

Mol

I think the more pressing argument is what is getting in the EG, rather than what's not, but the one I can think of before I go to sleep is A3051802 Cancer A Personal Story. I recommended it in my capacity as a scout, and it was rejected, although it had clear precedent for inclusion. I was given a flimsy argument about how another entry on an experience with cancer was accepted on the condition that it would be the only entry of its type in the EG (which, by the way, isn't the case. There's one entry on a cyst in the brain and one about an experience with cancer that are similarly formatted), which I don't believe.





But that's the past.

OOO! Higher profile to the Writing Workshop! Magnificent Idea!! Mol, I always found your nitpicking constructive And you've done it again... (will pop this idea off to the Italics if you're agreed?)
HF

Although I must admit, when I've put things into WW or even the CWW they've not got much attention. Perhaps it was the topics, but again the Bob the Builder Entry A3239967 that Mol and myself worked on was put into WW and even the CWW from memory, where it had little to no response. I think the high profile PR gets in respect to the other areas of hootoo is one of the major problems in there being what so many people have regarded as 'dross' going into Peer Review. Does that make sense? To cut out the dross we need to push for people to use the WW in order to polish their ideas into something suitable for the Edited Guide. Yeah? I think I'm lost a bit now. What am I discussing again?
HF

PF, You're saying exactly what I was thinking and didn't quite manage to say . Yes, take it to the slopey ones. WW needs to be as active as PR, or more so, for this to work. So it needs to be the first place people stick their entries, and more of a nursery of Guide material of all sorts, with lots of us in there commenting.

Then PR can be more of a tea and scones place, with a string quartet in the corner: "Jolly nice entry. I really think it's for the Towers", rather than the happening milkshake bar it can be at times. Vibrancy is wonderful, but it doesn't make for clarity of thought.

Jodan, OK, now I think I understand, thank you. Need to have a mull on that issue separately before putting in my twopenn'orth.

Mol

Talking of WW needing to be more active, I've had an entry in WW for nearly 2 months, and it's attracted one person's comments.

It's in WW because I really don't know what to do with it, but it seems a waste to just leave it hanging around forever - I wrote it nearly 5 years ago.

So yes, more activity in the other forums would be nice. And yes, I do post in them myself, although not much lately. I even posted in the update forum, but the author didn't bother coming back to the thread.

I'm all for this idea of promoting WW for the 'first timers' and leaving PR as the final step into the Edited Guide for when people have their confidence about writing. Perhaps then people won't be put off by over-enthusiastic 'editors' reconstructing their pride and joy as soon as they put it in for being critiqued. The over-zealous type really 'get-my-goat'.

BTW Mina, love your Torture Garden piece I just Recommended this one; A4004427 which you might like to link What is it you have in WW? Oh, I know, perhaps I'll just go over and look...

for all the positive ideas and feedback, this is what makes me happy to be a part of hootoo

HF

oops should be A4002247 I'm not good with the whole letters and numbers thing. Some might have noticed.
HF

If Peer Review is elitist, then I assume I am too.

Why ? Because I unsubscribe from badly written entries ? Because I fail to comment on polemics ?

I spend a lot of time in PR, but I have no badges, because I want to be able to unsubscribe if I feel like it. Because I want to be aceberic when people don't listen to good advice.

I don't get involved in site politics because I'm crap at it - I have had arguements with all sorts of people in the Forum, but I don't carry it over to thier PR entries.

I initially did a search for my home town - and found nothing but cr*p, (and an entry from DD on Holy Trinity) So I wrote one. Then I listened to what people were saying in PR until it was approved. During that time I started commenting on other things in PR, and I've been there ever since.

And it's much appreciated.

Site politics is a frustrating thing to get involved in. When I first joined, I probably would've been arguing against myself now. I've changed much

4 Years on and I'm still trying to find my niche.
HF

"BTW Mina, love your Torture Garden piece"

Thanks very much!

"What is it you have in WW? Oh, I know, perhaps I'll just go over and look.."

Good luck finding it! It's not written in my name, it's under another account of mine.

yeah, I had that thought...
Frood

Jodan, you seem to be contradicting yourself. You complained that A3051802 Cancer A Personal Story that you picked was rejected, then you say

The character of h2g2 has evolved, according to the nature of the active researchers. As Mina pointed out elsewhere, writers, reviewers, scouts are all volunteers. Opinions will differ.

You consider . If your PROD article typifies the quality of writing you'd like to see in the EG, then it's not for me. I disagree with the opinions you express and I don't find PROD the least bit persuasive.