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

Hi Fragilis.

Great article! Can I point out a couple of tiny things, though?

You said: "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 queue system is now a simple copy storage facility, and its length is completely meaningless. It shouldn't go up or down much, really, as it simply stores entries from the time that they are recommended, to the point at which they've been edited and go through for date and art allocation. The only stat that would be valid - and it isn't yet, as there are remnants of the old queue in there - would be to divide the queue length by six to see how many working days there are between recommendation and scheduling, but as you can't tell how long the scheduling part takes, it's still academic.

We're going to be removing the stat from the Info page for this very reason.

Also you said: "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."

Indeed! There is *absolutely no guarantee* that we will edit all the entries suggested in Peer Review - in fact, I can guarantee that we *won't*. If we did give that guarantee, we'd simply have the old queue all over again, which was a totally non-scalable system.

The Peer Review system hopefully picks out the best entries from those on offer, but it has never claimed to process every one. We pick four (soon to be six) entries per day from the PR system, and that's the only guarantee.

However, these are tiny points in an excellent article, and I hope you don't mind me being a bit picky. I just wouldn't want people going 'Hey! You haven't looked at my entry yet and you've taken longer than the six weeks that you said you'd take'... when we never said anything of the sort!

Another statistic bites the dust.

No, of course I don't mind your nitpicks. I was unaware that recommended entries from the Peer Review system were being included in the Info Page's statistic on the number of entries remaining. That complicates matters even further than I understood. I'm really glad you explained this to me, and I will post a correction in next week's column.

I hesitate to make a quick change this week, as some people have already read this week's column and I would rather everyone read the correction and explanation. In previous columns, I made it clear that my statistics could be a bit shifty until I became accustomed to Peer Review. Sure enough, lately it has been tougher going for me because it is difficult to track Peer Review, and I don't understand all of the system's technical workings.

I know h2g2 doesn't give guarantees as to when (or even if) entries will be Edited. I have said as much several times, and I know from experience that my column's readers understand. All the same, there is huge interest among writers at h2g2 for *some* sort of information. Their desire for at least general guidelines about what to expect has driven this column from the get-go. I have learned never to underestimate the impatience of a writer waiting for their moment in the spotlight.

I am considering wrapping up the column once Peer Review has established a firm foothold. I am finding reliable statistics of any sort harder and harder to come by. While part of this might theoretically be alleviated if Peer Review employed automated processes, some is inherent in the Peer Review system. If I become unable to provide a useful service to h2g2's writers, then perhaps it would be best to close up shop.

At the very least, the column's name will soon be a tad outdated.

It might be outdated, but the commentary is great - I'm sure that even if the stats are unavailable, there's plenty of scope for a general commentary on things like perceived quality of entries going into the Edited Guide (questions like 'has PR made the Guide better?').

And The Post has complete editorial independence, so it's the perfect place to talk about it, and hopefully very soon it'll be linked to from the front page area, so the traffic will go up too.

Just waiting for those graphics, guys.