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

Another excellent article Fragilis. In some ways I am relieved not to be a sub... apart from on the Post of course! LOL
shazzPRME

I enjoyed reading it too, and was surprised to see the Paul McCartney Death Clues article mentioned in it.
You're right that it's getting to be annoying - I wrote the article on the 9th March last year and submitted it the same day to the old system. But I heard that the sub it was sent to had quit, and so on the first day (or certainly within the first week) of the peer review system being introduced I submitted it there, and nothing's happened since....

Oh well...

Great article, though, Fragilis.

<BB<

hiya - the couple of standard comments and thoughts...

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To your third volunteer: the way to get nitpicks and suchlike really is to ask for them. Instead of the usual: "comments and criticism welcome", or whatever, put something a little more direct.

"I'd like any kind of criticism - if there are punctuation or grammar problems, please tell me. If you feel something is worded awkwardly, please tell me. If you're not sure that the structure is ABSOLUTELY ideal, please tell me. I'm trying to make a perfect entry here - but I need your help!"

YMMV. I just indicate "I do welcome nitpicks" if asked, and leave it at that, but the stronger approach should do better still - or worse still, depending on whether you like being nitpicked.

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The other things is to point out the writing workshop as a source for half-written entries, and ideas for entries. The nice thing about it is that you're garanteed to get at least one person interested in an entry on that topic, and there may be something already there that you can build upon. You also get a headstart in people interested in the entry, as people who commented on the previous effort will hopefully comment on your rewrite too.

Find a topic your interested in, post to the thread, and see whether the author's actively improving it, or wouldn't mind handing it on to someone more willing to take the burden. Then do the test123456 trick, add a credit to the original researcher, and you're away. The 'Konstanz' entry came back from the workshop in just this fashion - it's on the comingup page, I believe.

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Talking about giving peer review to others: two comments for your next column. Don't just review the first page: the threads slightly deeper in are often overlooked, but they need feedback just as much as the rest of them. This is volunteer #3's problem: the languish factor. People not just reviewing the most active conversations will help that - though I do agree that a technical fix is needed in the long term.

The other is the old positive/negative thing. Oldhands aren't at risk so much, but if someone's posted their first entry to PR, they need to be encouraged - recently I've been trying to always pick out one good thing about the entry - one sentence that made me laugh, or a picture that explains things well, or the way one paragraph is put together and made me feel. People learn just as well from being told what they've done right, I suspect...

Thanks to everyone for the great comments.

Bluebottle, your entry's history is even stranger than I thought. I'm starting to wonder whether the entry isn't somehow cursed.

Lucinda, I will pass on your advise to my third volunteer through email in case they don't happen to read this thread. I'm sure any tips will be welcomed at this point.

Also, thanks for the thoughts about next week's column. I will definitely suggest looking for older threads, and including some pleasant commentary. Of course, I'll give you due credit for the ideas too.

bleh - they're not original thoughts - just credit god for giving mankind brains...

Sorry, but you're stuck with it. I'm agnostic.

That was me, using a different login.