This week's View notes that h2g2 is Editing at the same pace that its researchers are writing. It also looks at a number of new and upcoming site features.

There are 238 entries remaining in the old Queue, compared to 241 a week ago. So only 3 entries were removed from the old Queue last week. The average reduction for the several weeks prior was 16 entries per week, so this past week represents a small anomaly. It's possible that next week we'll see a higher than usual reduction.

There are 436 entries currently waiting at the Peer Review page, which is only 5 more than last week. When we add this to the entries in the old Queue, we get a total of 674 entries total waiting to be Edited. That's an addition of only 2 entries, meaning h2g2 is keeping pace with its writers almost exactly.

The What's Coming Up page has 15 entries on it as I write my column, compared to 16 at the same time last week. In general, I am still seeing a very high rate of turnover on the What's Coming Up page. I had to print it out three times last week, just to make sure I haven't missed any of the entries listed there.

I keep trying to find out whether the Peer Review process is faster or slower than the old Editing process. I looked again this week, and couldn't find any significant difference. The averages were close to the same -- again around 11 weeks from submitting the entry for review to seeing it featured on h2g2's main page.

The only significant difference I noticed was that the amount of time for the Peer Review entries was far more variable. In other words, most of the entries from the old Queue were written no more than a month apart from each other. But with the Peer Review selections, there were several months separating the earliest examples and the latest ones.

I would guess this has at least something to do with the structure of the Peer Review page. On that page, entries submitted long ago and not commented upon at the time tend to receive less notice. Entries that are commented on more frequently float to the top. As a result, a good but non-controversial entry can get stuck in the back forums for months before somebody notices it and lifts it out for review.

This is an unfortunate facet of the technological restraints currently imposed on Peer Review. In the long term, another method of listing submissions may help to alleviate the more variable nature of the system.

It's just impossible to come to any hard and fast conclusions when it comes to Peer Review. All I can say is that if there were no guarantees on when your entry would be edited with the old system, there are even fewer with Peer Review. That said, Peer Review has been more successful at keeping up with h2g2's writers than the old Editing system. So there is hope that things will get better rather than worse -- in the long term.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that the Community Soapbox page was handling a lot of questions and comments about general and business policies at h2g2. In short order, the page became a confusing hodge podge of discussion where the Community was receiving less notice than it deserved.

It should help, then, that h2g2 has opened up a separate forum for Business Feedback. If your question relates to advertising, site-related merchandise, or copyright clauses, please use the newly created forum.

A couple of new GuideML tags have been added over the past couple of weeks. Both tags are approved by h2g2, meaning they are okay for use in Guide Entries that you plan to submit to the Peer Review scheme.

The first new tag is the Entity tag. This useful tag helps you add special characters in your entry like copyright symbols, various money symbols, the & sign, mathematical symbols, foreign language characters, and so forth. For instructions and an example of using the Entity tag, go to the Entity Tag page. For a list of useful characters you can add to your entries, visit the Special Character Codes page.

The other 'new' tag is the HR (or Horizontal Rule) tag. I put quotes around the word new because the HR tag is a well-worn standard in HTML. It simply adds a line below the most recent paragraph to deliniate a contextual break in the page's content. For instructions and a visual example of the HR tag, go to the HR Tag page.

HTML users should note that the HR tag looks a little different in GuideML, because it must include a slash. Where <HR> might be correct in HTML, <HR /> is the only correct way to write the tag in GuideML. If you forget the ending slash, h2g2 will have difficult processing your GuideML code. The Entity tag also requires an ending slash.

As I said last week, a number of upgraded features are scheduled to be implemented at h2g2 around the second week of November. If you haven't already read about them, do check out Mark Moxon's exclusive article for the Post about the changes.

I know one change that will probably be very popular indeed. A number of new smileys will be made available for our use. You can read the posts by numerous researchers asking for additional smileys at this thread on the Feedback page.

Current smilies include ,
,
,
,
, and
.¹ Dozens more will be added soon, though I don't know exactly what they will be yet. For further discussion on the new smileys, check out this article in the Post.

Of course, smileys are not approved for use in Edited Guide Entries. Feel free to use them in your forum posts and personal pages, but don't use the new smileys in the entries you submit to Peer Review. This goes for the new smileys as well as the old ones.

The only possible down side to the smiley additions is that overuse could slow down h2g2's servers if everyone celebrates by using multiple smileys in every post. Please be kind to other h2g2 users, especially when the smileys are first released, and keep your smiley use down to a reasonable level.

In case you hadn't heard, one of the h2g2 staffers is in the hospital. Abi, h2g2's Deputy Community Editor, has been grounded by a swollen foot. While I don't know the exact details, it sounds pretty painful to me.

You can wish Abi well at this thread. Abi will be out for at least a week due to her condition, and possibly longer. If you have questions for Abi in the meanwhile, you should ask Peta instead.

Next week, I'll take the break before h2g2's site update as an excuse to go off on a bit of a tangent. I'll offer up some how-to information about creating a Community group at h2g2. My common sense advice will come sprinkled with anecdotes from my experience in creating the h2g2 Musicians Guild.

Fragilis the Melodical

Click here to see previous weeks' Views from the Queue.

Opinions expressed in this column are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of h2g2 or the Post.

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