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

Perhaps the over-riding rule of h2g2 is that no one person (or group of people) should decide what an Edited Guide entry shall look like. It's all very well saying 'get off your butts and be creative'; if h2g2 were a full-time paid job, I'm sure we would be.

Every high-volume h2g2 Researcher (Gnomon, DD, Jodan, Mina etc) has produced Entries that I as an individual have found chin-strokingly interesting; the same have also produced Entries that I have found as dull as ditchwater. Inversely, I have Subbed entries by first-time geeky authors which I thought were completely inaccessible at first; recently I have revisited them and found them fascinating. I gather from his journal that Jodan is a bit disillusioned with Front Page Entries of late - perhaps this is more to do with his own mindset than anything else?

I agree that the PR process inevitably leads to some drying and process-lining, but the main contributors are also valued Scouts who rely on PR for their shiny red badges and to criticise them would be unproductive.

However, I remain fully in support of the PR process at present. It is no secret that I am a big, big advocate of collaborative entries. In fact, I reckon I could make a case for having written more collaborative words than any other researcher. So bear this in mind: every single Entry that goes through PR gets creative, collaborative input. I have never seen a PR thread without suggestions for additions, links, footnotes, jokes and the like. And if that's not building a city, I don't know what is.

B

"I agree that the PR process inevitably leads to some drying and process-lining, but the main contributors are also valued Scouts who rely on PR for their shiny red badges and to criticise them would be unproductive."

To criticize scouts would be unproductive? You do realize that two of the authors of the above entry do have those shiny red badges? Criticizing a body that has some flaws in it (favoritism, cronyism, staunch conservatism, to name a few) is one of the most productive things I can think of, by the way. That's how things get done. I don't think we criticize scouts in the article though. I'll have to check.

I'm confused with your use of the word 'but' there. You start off by saying something negative, and then the word 'but' should mean that the next part is positive, but you seem to say that the same people contributing over and over is a good thing. Surely you meant to use the word and in place of the conjunction 'but'? Or perhaps it was sarcasm?



You're right about at least one thing. It might be my mindset about these entries. That could be the case for anyone at any time. But I don't think so for me, right now. Maybe though.

So what's the proposal that you disagree with, Master B?

Well, I suppose there isn't one - bad choice of words. I'm too right-wing and hence anti-revolutionary.

"I'm confused with your use of the word 'but' there."

Bad choice of words again (I blame the beer). What I was trying to get across is that it's no point knocking those who do the majority of the work. Scout recruitment has always been a problem on hootoo and the site is, to some extent, reliant upon people who go through the motions with an Entry in PR, instead of encouraging creativity. It's futile to knock those that do (which was an implicit, if not explicit, statement) because it'd be a struggle to replace them.

B

I don't intend to be irritatingly precise, but the title should omit either the semicolon or the word "but", as both indicate the separation of two clauses and to use both would be redundant. Actually, replace the semicolon with a comma: the second part is not an independent clause.

"I understand the sentiment, but disagree with the proposal."

Well, thank you.

The reason for that uncharacteristic slip is that I decided to edit the subject line halfway through typing the post. The words changed their meaning; the punctuation did not.

B

I'd just like to point out that, if the Conversations under this Entry turn into discussions about punctuation, it would be tragically ironic.

Can we get back to Master B's original point?

The concern about upsetting the senior Scouts is valid. We've tried not to make this confrontational for that reason. But it seems to me that there's a self-defeating aspect to the stoicism at the heart of PR - the Forum just keeps getting more insular.

This isn't an 'either/or' argument. Let's stress that again. It's a reminder that there is no 'right' style in the Edited Guide. Its variety is its essence.

I don't think that the responsibilities of the guide needs to fall in the hands of an elite few, and, speaking as probably one of those elite few, I think that your argument about challenging scouts falls down when you consider that hopefully, once we've made the EG more inclusive, we'll get more reg'lurr (realize that's not a word, by the way, before it's corrected) folks in PR, who will assume some of the responsibilities.

Also, the more people we have, the more likely that an entry on a particular shoe will be found in PR by someone who wears/makes/sells that particular shoe. Someone with first hand knowledge. That'll help keep the guide accurate too, which can only be a good thing.

(Don't mind me, I'm just removing the But.)

"I'd just like to point out that, if the Conversations under this Entry turn into discussions about punctuation, it would be tragically ironic."

Yeah, I was thinking that too.

I think that this is a well-worded argument (unsurprising given the contributors ) and is deliberately non-confrontational. It was my post that made it confrontational by voicing what you were too polite to say. Otherwise, I agree with Pin entirely.

"Also, the more people we have, the more likely that an entry on a particular shoe will be found in PR by someone who wears/makes/sells that particular shoe. Someone with first hand knowledge. That'll help keep the guide accurate too, which can only be a good thing."

Can it only be a good thing? It's ironic that the PR conversation on fords' controversial "You're Getting That" Entry is simultaneously popping to the top of my conversation list. No-one thought that was a particularly great piece of writing - would 'opening out' PR expose us to a lot more of these.

**wonders at the marvel of hootoo which allows two chaps from Scunthorpe to engage in debate with a another chap from Ohio**

B

Don't remind me about the chap from Ohio

Accuracy is overrated round here. Mainly because it's unattainable. (It's one of the three aspects of a real encyclopaedia that hootoo can never achieve, the other two being comprehensiveness and a proper index)

A proper index! What a great project for my summer holidays!

B

Don't remind me about the seal from Scunthorpe

Accuracy is a good thing. It's certainly not the most important thing, as Pin says, but it's a good thing. I think that if I wanted to, I could probably push through some made up story about Ohio's early colonial history. That's why we can't worry about accuracy too much - because no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to stop inaccuracy.

Yes, I do think that making the PR system more inclusive would probably cause more entries like that, but its benefits would far, far outweigh those sorts of problems. I know when I was a newbie, I certainly had no idea what the hell I was doing. I was a nuisance to scouts for a while (I'm actually mentioned on the scout forum as an example of a problematic researcher from that time ). But overall, I should hope I've left behind a positive mark on h2g2.

Kind of like that old adage - You've got to spend money to make money, only You've got to spend time to save time.

Well, just don't base it on Life, the Universe and Everything.
(I have this secret theory that that particular taxonomy was originally intended to be a joke)

Oops. Simulwotsit.

I wasn't listening to him anyway.

"To criticize scouts would be unproductive? You do realize that two of the authors of the above entry do have those shiny red badges? Criticizing a body that has some flaws in it (favoritism, cronyism, staunch conservatism, to name a few)"

Speaking as an ex-scout, I don't recognise that description of scouts at all. I've never exercised favouritism or ever had favourable treatment from other scouts. In fact, one of my entries languished in PR for nearly six months while being perfectly pickable for most of the time. Nor do I accept that scouts are 'staunch conservatives' - pesonally I regularly picked borderline entries and went out on a limb to see what could get accepted. And others do the same.

I guess I disagree in a few ways too.

I've enjoyed some of Pin's swoops into the purple, but not others, and Pin has a writing style I can relate to. However, either we recatagorize what an 'edited' entry is, or we remove the concept of 'editing' entirely.

I think we've all seen enough of the lower quality writing that appears in the Guide to want to maintain standards, at least of comprehensibility.

Jodan has extened barriers in The Guide by using his imagination to produce entries like the Ihio State Flag (don't give me that guidon crap) I think we all need to challenge guidelines - the 1,000 word one is something I particularly ignore, and let the quality of the writing be the deciding factor.

I really don't want to get into a war of semantics, but you'll notice I said that the scouts have some flaws - those are certainly not the major characteristics. If you want me to list the positive aspects of the scout group, it'll be longer than the other list, but it will be irrelevant

I have noticed some of the characteristics I mentioned though. They're not common though, so perhaps I shouldn't have written that so it could have been taken the wrong way - that those problems are rampant. I apologize for that much.