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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A558803

The entry on juggling mentions contact juggling in passing. I believe it deserves more attention, if only so that people realise just how damn difficult it is! I have therefore written this entry.

Looks good, though I can think of a few things to add about:

Why use a clear ball (the illusion of it sliding rather than rolling)

The isolation type stuff (just holding it and moving hand etc fast while keeping ball still) - whats the effect, how bloody difficult it is to do...links to mime a little - having it fly away from you as if under its own violition.

Rolling it up arms, across chest (if youre really good) etc.

Book reference(s) (James Ernest's "Contact Juggling")
Web reference(s) (contactjuggling dot arg can't give the url here - you know the one I mean?)

Other fun things to do with a contact ball:
(1) Hold it in front of you with both hands, walk about the room, looks like theres a little world moving about on the surface of the ball.
(2) Use it and the sun to burn holes in small bits of paper.

Other not fun things to do with a contact ball:
(1) drop it on your ankle.
(2) use it in bright sunlight and hold it in the wrong position too long (not sure how actually possible this is to do accidentally)

One other thing I noticed - I'd class contactjuggling as being more towards the arty than the technical side of juggling - arty can still be hard to learn, and contact certainly is, but its hard to get to look really smooth and nice (like arty toss juggling), whereas technical its hard to do it at all (that may not be the distinction used in the existing juggling entry but it makes sense to me )

Sounds a bit like a more complicated version of rhythmic gymnastics to me...

Perhaps you could use GuideML to link directly to the entry on Juggling. Also GuideML could be used to add paragraph headings. Apart from that I see no problems. I know almost nothing about contact juggling, so I can't comment on the content.

One more thing: "Hardcore technical jugglers don't like tricks that look good to the public" - I think this is slightly unfair to technical jugglers - I'd say they like tricks that don't necessarily look good to the public and are more interested in the personal challenge.

I do draw the distinction "hardcore" to distinguish those of us (the majority) who like to try difficult tricks which can look good (e.g. Rubenstein's Revenge et al) and those like certain people I know who frown on such fripperies and prefer to do less impressive, wildly difficult stuff simply for the sake of it (e.g. Right Middle Left with clawed throws) and, crucially, with no intention of ever performing.

They actively dislike tricks that look good to the layperson? I've never met anyone like that, although there are some who dont care either way if what they do is impressive to the public.

It's not an active dislike so much as a good natured disdain for "crowd pleasing" - this term to be declaimed in a dour northern accent for full effect. It's really about a very personal frisson of pleasure from slipping odd reverse spin throws into a cascade in such a way that the audience don't even notice. It's not a crowd pleaser, it's not that easy, at least at first, and the only people who appreciate are other jugglers.
All of which has almost nothing to do with contact juggling, which I find fairly crowd-pleasing on the whole, although it's definitely pretty low on the response:effort ratio!

Yeah, but it feels great I find it's perfect for casually messing with one ball while talking to someone, and people do think it looks cool. Always useful to have something for your hands to be doing. I'm just now getting into footbag (aka hackysac) which is another juggling related skill - I'm mostly a numbers juggler, though I like to have a feeler into the other areas.

The footnote is way too long (I like to hover on the number and read the pop-up rather than clicking, and it doesn't stay there long). The information could be included in the article itself.

Also the two paragraphs at the top are too big and bold, with two much of a gap underneath. They could be normal sized, and say, itacised or something if needbe.

Good entry though, should be in the Edited Guide no problem.

Constructive criticism - excellent! Your wish is my command. I agree, the footnote was too wordy. It was also unintentionally and rather inarticulately slanderous on some technical jugglers - so it's not any more. I'm much happier with the entry as it is now. Thanks HenryS and Frankie Roberto for the helpful comments.

No worries Hoovooloo (nice name btw)...

Good luck with the entry!

Editorial Note: This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review forum because this entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

If they have not been along already, the Scout who recommended your entry will post here soon, to let you know what happens next. Meanwhile you can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!

Hey congratulations!

What next?

What happens next: the sub-editors will look at your entry, and make any neccessary minor corrections (spelling, punctuation, grammar, as well as checking any links, and making the visual style consistent with the rest of the edted guide). It's sort of like proof-reading I suppose.
Then the in-house editors will check over this, and it's possible that a picture may be added.
When all the work has been done, the entry will be added to the edited guide, and linked from the front page.

You will be pleased to know that your entry is no longer in the waiting pile but is being edited by me! I was pleased to see an entry i had read in peer review.