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

I've just completed a review of 50 entries currently in Peer Review. I just chose the top 50 in the list earlier on today. Not scientific by any means, and probably not totally random either, but as a means of taking the temperature I just wanted to judge my feelings with what others have been saying.

OK - so here's what I find - out of the 50 entries, 34 entries (68%) got an overall positive reaction. Not one reviewer appears to have made any comment about them being unsuitable.

5 Authors felt somewhat bruised by PR. 36 authors found it a positive experience.

24 entries were by new authors. 13 of them were responding positively to the process. Another 7 had not responded at all. 2 did not yet receive a comment at all, so this leaves us with 3 new authors who felt that PR was tough going for them. The entries in question are Wareham Dorset; The EU Constitutional Treaty and Dating Women.

There were 14 entries where at least one researcher posted a comment that was perceived by me as negative. Of these only 6 entries got a negative reaction from the bulk of other posters.

A3904797 One reviewer suggested that Book Reviews were not good EG candidates. Otherwise a positive reaction.

A4056923 One very pointed reaction about misrepresenting the town from a reviewer who is actually quite new to PR. Otherwise reaction was positive.

A4067912 Many reviewers felt that it was not suitable as it was too biased towards a particular viewpoint.

A4068966 Reviewers felt it was linked with the PROD debate. Subject matter felt unsuitable.

A3965358 Entry was one of a number to be submitted by the same author. Some researchers referred him to previous PR comments.

A3912419 One reseacher called the entry out of date. Most reviewers said they enjoyed it and want author to come back.

A4063006 Author entered an article which is already in the EG.

A4060441 One researcher called the entry boring. Author has engaged but not made his feelings known.

A3933489 Almost all reviewers felt that entry was unsuitable.

A3976950 Mixed reaction - not overwhelmingly positive. Some reviewers felt that the entry had some way to go, also some potential house rules violations.

A4054501 Small mixup about the word "first draft". Otherwise a positive reaction.

A3453374 Many people liked it. Some researchers felt it was too close to an opinion piece. Some entries from the author suggest that he disagreed.

A4049093 Researchers found it insulting to women.

A3862839 Reactions were generally positive, but Italics mentioned WG. Author elvised.


What this means to me is that in general, people are trying to do their best in PR, and in general, the reaction is a positive one. I found only one example of what I would consider rudeness. I did not see any cliquish behaviour taking place. I also did not see very much evidence of the reviewers imposing the guidelines first before reading - I'm not sure how you would assess this.

It seems to me from my bubble that process is working quite well. The good ones get praised to heaven, the ones in need of work are given the assistance they need, and the unsuitable ones are left off as gently as possible. Some entries could do with more eyes for sure.

The full list of entries examined is below.

A4058958   Finding An Upright Piano To Buy
A4058967   Viewing And Purchasing An Upright Piano
A4067417   The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Europe
A3876050   Musical Theatre Cast Recordings
A4055032   Sea Shanties
A3897903   Star Wars Episode Now - The Religion of the Jedi
A3893457   Raw Garlic for Beginners
A4037221   Classic Poisons
A3903095   Botulinum Toxin and Its Medical Applications
A3306593   St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK (from 1666AD)
A3944324   Flash Mobbing
A4034828   The Impact of Heather in the New Zealand countryside.
A3943749   Two-Storey Outhouses of the United States
A433487   Whitelocks First City Luncheon Bar, Leeds
A1961057   Clive Barker-Author, Director and Playwright.
A2965133   Americanism
A3941778   Onions
A4061251   The Cultural Revolution
A4051711   VAT- Value Added Tax
A4025567   Credit Sequences in Woody Allen Films
A4003066   Tiswas - the TV show
A3803302   Cat Hoarding: an Indication of Mental Illness?
A3808613   The Grey Heron
A4068966   The Great Romantic Myth and the evils of The One
A3453374   The Relationship Between The Word "Unique"
A4058822   Buzz Words Used In Piano Advertising
A4015153   Feet - important extremities
A4070486   Islam & Alcohol
A4002517   Mahavakyas
A4055410   Emergency Outdoor Survival
A4067921   The Isla Vista Juggling Festival
A4064915   Bahasa Malaysia / Bahasa Melayu
A4060081   How to Survive in the Wilderness
A4044719   The Beatles' 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'
A4063330   How To Start a Fire in an Emergency
A3904797   David Lindsay - A Voyage To Arcturus
A3933489   Pondering the age of the universe.
A3976950   Cadair Idris, Wales, UK
A4054501   Mulch
A4056923   Wareham, Dorset, UK
A4067912   The EU constitutional treaty
A4049093   Dating Women
A4068380   Toes
A4072411   A History of the Democratic Party
A3943136   Wind & Kitesurfing, Poole Bay, England
A3965358   spicy chili
A3912419   Glove Compartments
A4063006   rex the runt
A4060441   ICH-GCP 1: A Brief History
A3862839   Guitar - Artificial Harmonics

Blimey! Good for you Woodpigeon. This whole kerfuffle has been subjective in the extreme, and it is good to have some rationality and some numerical evidence brought to the table.

Regarding A4068966, where you say "Reviewers felt it was linked with the PROD debate. Subject matter felt unsuitable".

I hesitated between putting it into the AWW or PR, bearing in mind that I haven't put anything into PR for 18 months or a couple of years. I decided to put it into PR because it is just one of many entries I have done on myth and belief.

The timing was co-incidental.

I am not now, and never have been a PRODder.

I was invited to join them in the early stages of their debate, but I didn't have the time or the knowledge of PR necessary to discuss it with them.

Now I have concluded that I probably disagree with them.

Thanks again for taking the time to contribute so concretely to all this.

Ben

Thank B - it was a comment made in the thread, and you were, in my opinion, one of those 5 researchers who were bit bruised by the experience ! I tried not to put my own opinions into the entries or the summary of the reviews.

Yeah, I appreciated your neutrality, Woodpigeon.

I was furious to be assumed to be playing petty little pseudo-political point-scoring mind-games with PR, and irritated to be assumed to be part of the PRODers though given that I was and remain and UnderGuider, that is less suprising an assumption.

Ironic, really, that PROD should itself cause people to be bruised by comments made to them in PR.

In fact that particular irony has put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Ben

thanks woodpigeon!

part of me is interested in knowing the statistics. part of me also thinks that statistics miss the point. allow me to respond with some specific instances of my own

>> F2080809?thread=630010 / A3926009 : entry on maintaining a notebook for writing guide entries. Could easily have been put in the EG somewhere

>> F115645?thread=250778 / A976098 : incredibly creative piece on body piercing. Contains a lot of material that could be used to add to articles A526213 and A494813, or perhaps an article on cultural classifications or experiential anecdotes within the body piercing community

F74130?thread=641979 / A4034251 : entry on Hunter Thompson. tribute to HST, second of its kind (the first is at A3764405). contains material common with the EG entry A246386. Gonzo by illustration, therefore ought it not to be in the EG?

>> F74130?thread=613257 / A3732275 : could this be turned into a guide entry on body language in public?

>> F2001588?thread=574742 / A3565514 : could the writer have been persuaded to change the entry to fit the writing guidelines?

what do you think?

~ db

>> Ironic, really, that PROD should itself cause people to be bruised by comments made to them in PR.

oh come on, ben, that's unfair. how did PROD *cause* it, exactly? how's the Engine entry responsible for people's attitudes? seems to me the reviewers chose to take a stance, and you were affected by that, that's all.

~ db

No it's not unfair, db.

The *second* post in the PR thread said: "Before anyone devotes a lot of their time on discussing the merits and EG-worthiness of this entry can I ask if this is is a serious attempt to get an entry into the EG or is it another boundary-pushing exercise?" It then referred directly to Pin's artfully placed "River Don".

I was annoyed to be thought to be playing games with PR for my own entertainment. I admit that might be a bit disingenuous of me, given Hellman's Anachronism, and The Short Guide to Short Words, but they both had a deliberate point (Hellmans pointed out that it is respectable to discuss time-travel in theory but not in practice, and the Short Guide was an attempt to get some sort of consistancy from the Moderators). And both were in PR before the UG was thought of.

The Romantic Myth it is very similar to other entries I have written which are in the Edited Guide, and I was peeved that the second reaction to the entry was to ask if it was a time-waster.

The fact that this question was asked is *directly* due to PROD and the River Don engine.

I suppose I am going to have to read that thread and see who the Seal's been riling.

*sigh*

Ben

These invitations to comment on why pieces are not in the EG or to say whether they should be in the EG or not strike me as an attempt to drive a wedge between PR commentators and the Italics. If you want to know why those pieces you list aren't in the EG, db, I suggest you ask the Editors.

We cannot have a situation where the Editors' decisions are undermined by people retrospectively giving their own take on the Guidelines, particularly those guidelines relating to writing being required to be instructive, informative and verifiably factual, when they might not have thought through the long-term effects of setting a new precedent.

*blinks*

I am not used to agreeing with Amy, but this is the second or maybe the third time today that I have found myself doing so.

The editors' decisions are, and must remain, final. I have fought tooth and nail against their decisions *before* they were taken, (a nice game of 7Card W**kstain, anyone?) But once they are taken, they are taken, and that's it.

Ben

That's not actually true Ben. I've seen Jims and the gang reverse decisions on many UG business things. They also have been seen to succumb to strong pressure from the community. A groundswell of support has been known to cause changes in the towers. The italics are people - wonderful people, by the way. They aren't as inflexible and rigid as they're occasionally painted out to be

Woodpigeon, I worry that the sample size doesn't take into account those entries that were quickly taken out of PR by the editors and those simply languishing, but I do respect your conclusions and the fact that you did that much work .

"The *second* post in the PR thread said: "Before anyone devotes a lot of their time on discussing the merits and EG-worthiness of this entry can I ask if this is is a serious attempt to get an entry into the EG or is it another boundary-pushing exercise?" It then referred directly to Pin's artfully placed "River Don".

I was annoyed to be thought to be playing games with PR for my own entertainment."

I was going to keep my comments about this on Ben's PS, but since she's brought it up in two posts in this thread I think a link is merited here, just for everyone's clarification. I should have read further down this thread before posting this F1599167?thread=644465 on Ben's Message Centre I guess.

I guess this is interesting and all, but what I don't seem to understand is that you seem to be assuming that any negative comments are inherently a bad thing for Peer Review -- please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's definitely the impression I got from your first post here.

Peer Review is about peers reviewing -- and that means peers feeling free to post both positive AND negative reactions to an entry. It's the relatively negative comments that tell me 'this is what sucks about your entry' that help me truly improve the meat of my writing, not the comments about 'this is great, but there's a typo in line three'. Now, more often than not I won't take the same tack towards improving the entry as the person who told me that 'it sucks' suggested -- but I will pay close attention to what they had a problem with, and try and find my own way to improve it.

I would hate to see Peer Review become a place where all negative comments are discouraged because they might put off some researchers.

I certainly didn't interpret Woodpigeon's post as implying that negative comments are inherently bad. But if people are saying that we need to be more encouraging and open-minded in Peer Review, then a representative sample of what it's like at the moment is very useful. The negative responses Woodpigeon describes sound very reasonable overall to me.

Azara

That's pretty much it Azara.

You will understand that my wording of "negative comment" is fairly subjective and I defined it personally as a comment suggesting that the entry was not suitable for the Edited Guide, or an attack that could be perceived as offputting to the writer of the entry. I was attempting to answer the question as to whether Peer Reviewers could be perceived as a curmudgeonly bunch, only too happy to take to pieces the good work of others, or whether, on the whole, the reviewing was constructive.

I think that direct criticism has a place in Peer Review - absolutely it does. It's just that the data I presented shows that it doesn't appear to happen as often as people might think.

To the point of entries being quickly withdrawn, I won't claim that this is a scientific analysis, however it was a snapshot in time and no entries of the sort that Jodan mentioned did appear in the snapshot (I think), which then begs the question as to how often they do appear in reality.

"...which then begs the question as to how often they do appear in reality."

Not that I think it happens all that often, but here is an example --

F2119806?thread=645492&latest=1