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

Stairs
http://www.h2g2.com/A447077

So, what do you think? A good, informative piece about stairs and maybe a bit on the use thereof? Please, any criticism is good criticism. Help me out, as I'm shooting for my first Edited Guide Entry. Any help is greatly appreciated!

-- JacketFan

This is a fairly comprehensive article on stairs.

You should put a footnote beside the word "elevator" giving the British English name "lift". The guide is supposed to be written in British English, but that would disturb the assonance between elevator and escalator which is an important part of this paragraph.

You say that a single stair is not much use, but they do exist as traps for the unwary. The King of Saudi Arabia even had a single step escalator constructed as he was having difficulty climbing the (single) stair. You might like to mention this.

There's a lot more that could be said about stairs such as: the handedness of spiral staircases; the phantom step where you step on an extra step at the top which isn't there and the equally painful experience of continuing down the stairs by one step when you have reached the bottom.

Just one comment, it's purely asthetic cos the article's good, but I think this would be better if it was broken up a bit with some good subheaders. I found the three huge chunks of text a bit daunting on their own...

Oh... much info as yet unmentioned. =) Good point. I'll start revising the entry tonight, probably. Thanks for the thoughts!

I made some changes to it tonight, but I was kinda pushed for time, so the changes were primarily in appearance and layout. I will do some more research on the handedness of spiral staircases and probably include that in my Entry by tomorrow night, I hope. =) Or, if you'd rather, someone else could always make another Entry, and we could hope the two would be editted together? =) Thanks again for the help!

-- JacketFan

The story about the handedness of spiral staircases as I heard it is that all spiral staircases go upwards to the right except those in churches and monasteries. The reason is supposed to be so that attackers of castles ascending the staircase must hold on to the central pillar with their right hand, their sword arm, while defenders coming down the staircase can hold the central pillar with their left hand, leaving their sword arm free. Staircases in churches and monasteries go the other way as a gesture, to show they are men of peace and are not going to fight.

Of course by this reasoning, staircases in castles which went down into the basement should spiral the opposite way. I don't whether this is the case.

If I remember rightly, in the discussion forum for the edited entry 'Driving on the Left', there was a whole load of topic drift about spiral stairs. I might be wrong though

- Adam

http://www.h2g2.com/A447077
Stairs

Well, its come a long way since my first attempt. =) Thanks to all, and any further advice is still much appreciated. By the way, since all of you helped, I'd be glad to include your names as references (Question: Does anyone know how to make a reference to a discussion post?) or whatnot. But, like I said, thanks a bundle and let me know if you ever need any ideas or anything!

-- JacketFan

Hi,
You really don't need to name those who have helped, unless it is truly a group effort, which this isn't.

As for adding links and references and stuff, have a peek at:

http://www.h2g2.com/A340912

and:

http://www.h2g2.com/GuideML-Clinic

- Adam

One final question before I wrap it up - *should* I include reference/link tags to discussion posts? That is, how long with the links to the discussion forums be valid? Do they delete discussion posts? I mean, they do have to, right? Conserve space and all that? I want to give credit to the good people who (unknowingly) supplied me with much of my information, but only if the links will work (and they'd all be internal links, anyway, sooo...). =)

-- JacketFan

I wouldn't include links to discussion posts - usually when an article is edited for inclusion, Mark Moxon will gather all the threads together and move them to the article page (eg this thread will be moved from Peer Review to the Stairs page), so locations will change.

Ahhh, okay. Thanks a lot! =)

--JacketFan

They may not be part of the subject, but what about hand rails? At least they prevent you from using gravity mode in the wrong place

I thought this was a really great article myself.
(Okay, not the most helpful of comments, but true).

Oh, I completely agree on that! I wouldn't have thought it was possible to find that much stuff on such 'simple' things, and was just thinking of adding a sentence, along the lines of
'hand rails are items to keep you in walking mode (rather than switching into gravity mode), and to help you maintain an upward movement once you chose so'.
Well, just my sense of humour, and possibly I am alone with that.

This is an absolutely fabulous entry.

Agreed. This is just the type of thing I like to see in the Guide.

AND I WANT MORE!

As an aside to the whole flying bit, I might add that (in real life) this method is much more useful when attempting to traverse downwards (as opposed to upwards) -- in as much as if you don't manage to miss when throwing yourself at the ground, you still end up where you wanted to be -- just with a larger thump than might have been otherwise desired.


mikey

Oooh... lots of nice new comments. You know, handrails hadn't occured to me, though they are highly important in the properly balanced traversing of stairs. I'll be sure to work that in, and thanks to both who mentioned it. =) Also, thanks to all for the great positive comments. =) Really builds up one's self-esteem!! =D

-- JF

Would ladders be worthy of a brief mention?



- Adam