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

What really confuses me about this whole debate is that we have one bunch of people saying that the EG is [insert string of negative adjectives here] and PR is nasty and horrid and yukky, and on the other hand we have another bunch of people saying that the EG hasn't been as strong for years and that PR has more good stuff in it than ever before in the whole history of the anthropoid ape.

So which of you guys is right?

Or are you both right?

There are a lot of value-words in these threads, a lot of qualatitive adjectives which mean different things to different people.

It is clear that it isn't just confusing me, and it leads me to conclude that you are working from different first principles, and using different criteria to decide the meaning of words like 'good' 'interesting' 'exciting' 'off-putting' and so on.

So, boys and girls, in simple language, what gives?

Ben

Hi Ben
Personally, I don't think that the current quality of the Guide has as much to do with it as some others do. No matter how good/mediocre/crappy it is, it can be better. It can be something great.

Kind of makes you wonder why there's so much arguing, eh?

Myself, I think it's a bit above mediocre currently, with some great entries pulling up the average of snooze-fests.

I certainly agree the only way we can get anything from this whole discussion is if we get a lot more specific.

An example - one specific point that was made was if an entry in PR isn't really suitable for PR, but might be perfect for the Underguide or the Post, then that should be mentioned in the review, instead of leaving it at "this is unsuitable. Please remove it from Peer Review".

Now that's a good point - I don't think anyone would disagree. It gives us something to work with - it's constructive. I think it would be best if we address specific points like this, rather than talking about tendancies towards elitism and so on. For one thing, such talk just tends to get people's backs up, but it's also very hard to do anything about it unless it's a lot more specific and less like a general manifesto.

"Myself, I think it's a bit above mediocre currently, with some great entries pulling up the average of snooze-fests."

I can't believe you've just been so insulting!

And you expect people to take notice of you after you've just called their writing 'mediocre'?

The Guide is written by people who write for pleasure and interest in the Edited Guide. I'm certainly not a trained writer - I've learnt what I know on and from h2g2 itself, and I care much more about that, than the opinion of one person who is happy to dismiss the efforts of people who do something for pleasure. Get your head out of your backside and try appreciating that we're *not* trying to write the best most wonderful thing in the world, or produce something written by the best authors in the world - we're writing a Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything, written by the people experiencing it. It's described as unconventional for sake.

The word 'condescending' comes to mind. There's a lot of it about.

Jodan and PROD, I mean, not you Mina. .

I might be being a bit baity about this, but it's not as if people are queuing up to pay any of us for writing for the Guide so that we can give up work to go on lots of courses to suddenly be fabulous at writing!

At the moment I've got one 35 hour a week job, *and* an 18 hour a week job, *and* I spend the equivalent of another 20 hour week travelling to work and still I find time to contribute to the Edited Guide. I'm terribly sorry if that means I can only churn out mediocre snooze fests, but at least I'm not pissing loads of people off in the process.

Mediocre is an insult?
I've been called worse things. Gnomon called my writing mediocre about a month ago very publicly. Called some of my stuff atrocious.

I don't care. Mediocre isn't an insult. It's just saying it doesn't stand out as great.

"Get your head out of your backside and try appreciating that we're *not* trying to write the best most wonderful thing in the world"'

My head isn't in my backside, my head's in the stars. I've always believed that corny saying you see on posters that When you shoot for the stars, you always end up higher than you started. Maybe we should be *trying* to write the best, most wonderful thing in the world.

You have much to learn, Jodan.

Jodan:

"Personally, I don't think that the current quality of the Guide has as much to do with it as some others do. No matter how good/mediocre/crappy it is, it can be better. It can be something great.

Kind of makes you wonder why there's so much arguing, eh?

Myself, I think it's a bit above mediocre currently, with some great entries pulling up the average of snooze-fests."

Let me try to understand this. You don't think that the current quality of the Guide (by which I presume you mean EG) is a big issue, but you then go on to say that it can be great. Either that's a contradiction, or you want to change the EG, and if I remember rightly (without going there) the PROD manifesto says that it doesn't want to change any of the guidelines.

Some of things you've said in this thread *can* be perceived as insulting Jodan - "It can be great" for instance. That suggests that it isn't. I disagree. I think it's bloody marvellous, but *anything* can always be a little better.

What I'm seeing here at PROD is a group of people with a vision. Nowt wrong with that - very noble and laudable. They seem to want to impose their vision on something which another group of people (and a few of their own members) are passionate about, and the vigour with which they've defended their proposal since it was first put forward suggests to me that they don't want to take no for an answer.

Since the voices in opposition to their proposal - and I fully agree that the PRODders have the best interests of h2g2 and the EG at heart - have been so strong, instances of someone trying to change something and not getting their way have started to creep in - the people who are not agreement with their views are being called reactionaries. It's even been suggested that some are jealous that they didn't think of PROD first.

If the discussion descends any further in that direction PROD will lose any respect they or the proposal already have.

This is what fascinates me about the issue, and why I have spent a lot of time posting in the PR thread on Pinniped's River Don Engine entry, which I thought was intended as a standard-bearer for PROD.

There seem to be a fair number of hootoers who think that Pinniped is one of the best writers for the Guide. There are others (like me) who are gobsmacked at the very idea. If people fundamentally disagree on what makes writing excellent, then we can't use excellence as a criterion in choosing entries for the Edited Guide.

I think the basic clash is the age-old one between the classic and romantic temperaments. I'm well on the classic side myself: I prefer 'Emma' to 'Wuthering Heights', Vermeer to Caravaggio, Mozart to Wagner. The qualities I admire in writing include clarity, precision, elegance, balance and incisiveness. To someone of a more romantic temperament, a piece which I consider excellent may come across as curt, cold, and, well...dull. The kind of 'challenging' or 'surprising' entry I like is one where the author gives a new understanding or a logical framework to something that previously confused me.

I can't speak for the romantic temperament. But looking at other's entries, it seems that a romantic puts a very high value on feelings and imagery. What a romantic considers excellent may strike me as incoherent, weighed down with purple prose, and, well...dull. The 'challenge' or 'surprise' is likely to be in evoking strong feelings or leaving vivid impressions. I'm likely to find the emotion spurious and the connection between the impressions incoherent, so the challenge simply doesn't work.

Maybe some full-blown romantic out there could give their views...

Azara

I'd guess that I fall somewhere between the two so I can't help you out there Azara, but I think you raise an important point, and one which will always be difficult to resolve because it's based on personal preferences and likes.

For instance...

I said in another thread somewhere that one type of entry that bores me to tears is the 'Advice for Aliens Encountering Humans/Descriptions of Basic Human Attributes or Characteristics' entry, of which there were many on early h2g2. There is one currently in PR which to me is mostly schoolboy drivel. It has potential to be a lot better than it is, but some of the most seasoned and respected PR regulars (and quite a few more recent/occasional visitors) are virtually hailing as one of the best entries we've had in a blue moon, and were doing so even before it had improved to the extent it has.

I don't intend to go there and say what I think of it because I figure those other reviewers must be seeing something in it that I don't, and I respect their judgement enough that I don't think they've been nobbled in some way (that was a joke btw), there must be something I'm missing.

In a way, isn't that PROD's point, that they want more people to express an opinion? The difficulty with that, as you point out, is that there will be varied opinions which may be irreconcilable.

It strikes me that what PROD should be doing, if they are not happy with PR as it is, is getting in there & making comment. Lead by example. That might cause some people to look at some entries differently.

No, we're supposed to agree that there is A Problem so that Jodan can tell us The Answer. 175?thread=175" >F76045?thread=623386&skip=40&show=20 post 45

I could be worng, but this may be The Answer.
A3783279

Umm, no.
Answer was an acronym.

I've deleted the article you link to Amy, because it's got nothing to do with the current discussion.

I very much doubt you've deleted it , Jodan. Unless the House Rules have changed suddenly.

Oh, I thought you'd pulled my post, whereas it appears you were just too shy to show us your thoughts.