This week, the View looks at the wide variety of h2g2's personal pages. It also includes a brief update about the approval of controversial entries for h2g2's Edited Guide.

There are 13 entries on the What's Coming Up page, compared to 10 two weeks ago. And there are 355 entries on the Peer Review page, a decrease of 123 in the past two weeks. If we add the statistics together, we get a total of 368 entries, compared to 488 in my last report.

The reduction in submissions on the Peer Review page has a special cause this week. There is an effort underway now to clean out unwanted threads. Those threads that fail to follow the instructions for submission will be routinely moved to the Sin Bin from now on. This includes threads submitting more than one entry, submissions of user pages and forum discussions, and personal conversations posted to the Peer Review page.

Any thread where the title doesn't follow the correct format (A111111 - Title of Entry) has also been booted out of the system.¹ So if you have posted a submission with an improper title, you will have to resubmit it properly to Peer Review. And if you posted more than one submission for the same entry, you can also expect all threads but one to be moved to the Sin Bin.

There are a total of 107 threads in the Sin Bin this week. If we add those to the threads on Peer Review and What's Coming Up, we get a total of 475 entries. This brings our two week decrease down to a more reasonable 13. In the future, I will treat Sin Bin threads as 'rejections' from the Peer Review system and will not include them in my total count of entries in Peer Review. I will keep track of how many threads have been dumped into the Bin, though.

Not all of the threads moved to the Sin Bin include a note informing the author. You may want to check the Bin if you suspect one of your submissions may have been moved there. And if you're unclear on how to properly submit your entry, I highly recommend Lucinda's wonderful submission tips. In the future, I understand that a note to the author will be posted when threads are moved to the Bin.

In other news, I'm seeing more featured entries that hail from the Peer Review system. I verified 9 entries from Peer Review out of 25 featured last week. The Peer Review entries seem generally more comprehensive and more accurate. I also noticed fewer complaints about things like spelling and grammar. This tells me that the Peer Review system is accomplishing at least one of its goals so far. It is improving overall quality.

When h2g2 underwent a site change a few weeks ago, it stopped putting most of the daily featured entries on the main page. Those relegated to the Read page were receiving less notice. It wasn't long before various researchers (including me) began worrying that authors were being given less incentive to contribute. Luckily, h2g2 has listened to our concerns and all the day's featured entries are back on the site's main page.

The View has also taken occasional looks over the past month or so at the controversial entries entering the Peer Review system. Entries covering sexual or religious topics were meeting with more resistance than the others. Would these be rejected on the basis of their subject matter? Or could particularly well-written entries still make it through the system?

It's looking like the latter. A long discussions about adult content in the Community Soapbox reached a general consensus allowing for polite discussions of adult topics. After being removed from Peer Review temporarily to clear up a copyright issue, the entry on Cunnilingus has moved solidly to the What's Coming Up page. And another entry on Internet Porn² has also recently been recommended by a Scout for formal editing.

The controversial entry on God written by atheist Twophlag Gargleblap has met with a slightly different fate. Deciding the entry was too biased and failed to include the perspective of religious members, the h2g2 staffers have decided to open the subject up for mass collaboration. You can join the discussions about God now. The end result should be an entry that combines a wide variety of views as expressed by numerous members of h2g2.

We all have personal pages. At least, we should have. To see yours, click on the 'My Space' button near the top of this page on the left side. Just as we are all individuals at h2g2, we seem to have many different ideas on what a personal page should look like. Without getting too judgmental about it, let's take a brief look at the types of personal pages out there. Which type is yours?

The Empty Personal Page

We all start with an empty personal page. There is no description of the user, whose 'name' is still composed of the letter U and a bunch of numbers. There are no journal entries to read. There is nothing at all, perhaps, save some canned text about the possibility of future writings and a single post to a random forum saying little more than, 'Me too!' We all have to start somewhere, right?

But some personal pages never really become personal. Most often, this is the sad remains of a member who has abandoned h2g2 indefinitely. Our reaction to that is an understandable frustration at being unable to contact the person we came to visit. But a few other such pages are owned by active members who are intimidated by the prospect of personalizing their user pages.

For the latter, I say, 'Don't Worry! You Can Do It!' Updating your user page the first time isn't much harder than writing email. You just have to gather up your wits and give it a try. The rewards can be great, too. If you don't put *something* on your user page, nobody can post a message to you on it. By leaving the page blank, you could be denying yourself a steady influx of helpful visitors and personal conversations. So jump on in. The water's fine.

The Purely Practical Personal Page

For some of us, the personal page is simply a good place to get a few formalities out of the way. You know. 'Hello. Nice to meet you. My name's Erik, and I live in Bristol. Come chat with me if you like tennis or animal crackers.' Why overcomplicate things, when the page can be so streamlined and simple that it never needs to be updated?

The journal may remain blank on such a page, or it may be filled with several brief entries. 'Got an interesting animal cracker today. Can't tell whether it's a giraffe or a kangaroo.' At its worst, the journal can become a clearinghouse for random thoughts that mean nothing to anyone but the author. But at their best, the journals can lend a little healthy satire or introspection into an otherwise mundane seeming life.

There is a satisfying and beautiful simplicity to a well-done practical personal page. It is easy to read, and quick to get to the point. And for the author, the ease of using ordinary text to compose the page may have special benefits. On the down side, some practical pages are so generic that just about anyone could have written them. If you have a practical page, give it a check. Does it say anything about you that helps people remember who you are among the sea of researchers at h2g2?

The Entertaining Personal Page

The entertaining personal page makes your eyes light up the first time you see it. Perhaps it quotes some interesting semi-famous poetry or fiction. Perhaps it is crammed with colorful pictures and interactive gadgets to play around with. Perhaps it includes incredible humour resulting in harsh guffaws at the computer screen. It might even change each time you visit, or even more often than you bother visiting.

The journal may attempt to inspire you, make you giggle, or draw your attention towards issues of dreadful importance to the author. It may attempt to provoke you with the seemingly endless details that make life so crazy and interesting. If there is a journal, it will be bursting with life and with effort. Sometimes this can make it stressful to read, but other times it brings about a healthy sense of wonder.

The biggest potential pitfall with the entertaining personal page is that it might cross the line into excess. Too many fancy fonts and animations make it hard to concentrate on the copy. And poorly managed gadgets may explode in the wrong browser. Worst of all, the author's personality may get lost in the all the theatrics. But if the page's author can stay reasonably grounded, they can create a page worth spending a half an hour or more to fully explore.

The Zenlike Personal Page

The zenlike personal page makes you cock one eyebrow when you first visit. Perhaps it contains in-joke references to something you've never heard of before. Or perhaps the author has found it amusing to stay firmly on the surreal side of life. Or maybe they really are so fixated on a single topic (like lemming suicide) that it hasn't occurred to them to discuss anything else.

The journal here may be quite empty. Or it could be filled with rambling rants and/or peculiar non-sequitors. 'I hate lemmings! And would someone please tell me why is there a postage stamp from Albania in my office cublicle?' If everything is done exactly so, you can get a moment of real zen euphoria from experiencing a moment of pure yet irrational understanding of the contents. Or you might simply get a headache.

For those among us who have accidentally created a zenline personal page, please consider telling the rest of the world what exactly you are going on about. If your page is a huge homage to an obscure fictional dystopia, please tell us which one and where we can find out more about it. If your goal in life is to convince the world that your opinion is completely right, consider moving this to a side entry so we can learn something about you before hearing your argument.

For those who really did intend to waylay the h2g2 community with your zenlike wit and charm, please remember to go easy on us. There are only so many epiphanies your average person can handle in one sitting. So do dazzle us with your brilliant insanity. Really, please do. But keep it short and snappy. Our unfettered brain will thank you in the morning.

The Gushing Personal Page

The gushing personal page can't wait to tell you everything about the person behind it. And I mean everything. 'I have 85 calico cats, and you shall learn all their names and how many spots each one has! Plus I shall tell you about the painful surgery I undertook to have a huge mole removed from my foot!' Sometimes you wonder why, exactly, the author feels sure you want to know so much about them.

The journal is updated daily, or at least weekly. It is full of the same sort of self-obsessive information as the upper portion of the page. In fact, it might be hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins if it weren't for h2g2's conventions on page layout.

It is easy to turn away from the gushing personal page. But if we give it a chance, we'll soon realize that the person who owns it really does have a good heart and the very best of intentions. We can even find ourselves bemused at our actions as we return again and again to check up on someone we hardly know.

The challenge for people with a gushing personal page is to remember to keep the basics laid out in easy reach. Don't confuse first-time visitors by expecting them to jump in and start reading details from the middle of a long story. Once the first-time visitor's needs have been satisfied, feel free to express yourself. Just don't forget to respect your more squeamish and innocent readers.

Let's face it. Some people are addicted to updating their personal pages. So next week, the View will take a look at methods for sprucing up personal pages and other informal areas of h2g2. We'll look at options ranging from quirky content to nifty interactive gadgets. We'll also discuss the technological pitfalls you need to watch out for.

Starting next week, the View will be detailing the experiences of five volunteers³ as they experience the trials and travails of the Peer Review experience. I would like to thank Joanna, Bossel, Pheroneous, Jeremy, and Uncle Sam for volunteering to share their experiences and their angst with us.

Fragilis the Melodical

Click here to see previous weeks' Views.

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

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