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

I would say a limit of 12 months, I know this seems quite long, but we do seem to have researchers that go off travelling for months at a time.
Anyone going to be away for longer than that but intending to finish work themselves can always save it in a text editor and delete the work from h2g2.
It's also good for unexpected absences.

I'd say half that.
(I think it's 6 months)


Dancer

I'm going to say the opposite, just for the heck of it...

I'd call the 'work in progress' checkbox a 'not for review' checkbox. People might use it if they've written a personal opinion on X, and don't want people to discuss it in any of the review forums. There have also been people who were annoyed to find that their entries had been edited and put into the edited guide without their permission.

Now, I know that h2g2 has the legal right to do this, but I think they should respect the desires of authors - and if an author doesn't want his entry to be put up for review, then it shouldn't be. And just because they leave h2g2 (temporarily or permanently) doesn't change that.

Alternatively, we could have seperate 'Not For Review' and 'Work in Progress' checkboxes, along with a bunch of others - but that's all extra work, and I don't know how much. I'd prefer to provide the hard garantee first - and leave the others till later.

Nice idea, Lucinda. I'll re-word it to 'Not for Review', though the default won't be ticked.

Would this mean that if someone writes an entry and then disappears, it will be ok for someone else to write an entry on the same subject and get it in the edited guide?
I have a personal interest in this, as someone wrote on a subject I'd like to do a project on, but it isn't in the edited guide, and she hardly posts to h2g2 now. What it a reasonable time to leave before I go for it and 'steal her thunder'? Her entries were written over 18 months ago.

Personally, Mina, I think you're in the clear. 18 months is an awfully long time. If you use of the earlier person's material, you can share credit with them. Otherwise, I would just go ahead and write your own piece and submit it normally.

You could leave a note about your project on their Personal Space, but I doubt you'll get any reply and I don't think it's ethically necessary after so long a length of time anyway.

Well, that's my personal opinion.

Thanks Fragilis, the researcher in question has been back to h2g2 in that time, but posted nothing since May that I can see, so I don't feel too pushy asking if I can pick up where she started. I'm happy to rewrite it, or to use her work. I can't do anything until I have finished my current project anyway, so I've sort of given her 6 weeks to read my mesage. The thread's here if you want to see what I am talking about. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F8495?thread=128179 And sorry to go off topic slightly, but maybe this asks the question, what do we do with entries written before this tick box is invented? Wish I hadn't said 12 months at the beginning of this thread.

Easy (I think!). We leave the box effectively unticked for old entries, because if someone is a current Researcher and they want to 'protect' their content from review, they can tick the box, and if they've left, it's academic anyway.

Currently any entry can be put into Peer Review by anyone, so they can't really complain that things have got worse in the new system. We've only had one complaint in the whole time about an entry that a Scout put into PR (rather than the author), but that one got resolved, so I don't see it being a major pain.

I also think it's probably fair game to borrow the GuideML for an entry that someone has written, to credit them (which you can now do) and to expand it considerably. You should definitely post to them to let them know and to ask them to help out, but by making a copy you're not changing their original, and as long as you add a reasonable amount in your version, that would be OK. Simply copying and submitting with your name on it would obviously not be fair.

Ok, thanks for that Mark. I'll get on it as soon as my current project is finished.

Mark, Mina, Fragilis:

I had noticed a fair number of unedited articles that had been around
a year or more, and (not knowing any better) I had assumed that the
scouts were having trouble keeping up with the huge workload. After
reading this thread, I see that the problem may rest with researchers
who leave unfinished work behind. Do I have it right now?
(Please say yes. )

Yes, Paul. That's correct. Not everyone wants their articles to become part of the Edited Guide. And even among those who do want to submit their articles, there are some writers who don't stick around long enough to see their entry through the hurdles. Many entries are written and then left behind as the writer moves on to other things.