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

So, to summarise, in this case a Researcher has the primary role in updating an entry as it would be better for people to choose hat they update based on what they know about. This could be done by giving Researchers access to a version of the Edited Entry, which would then be submitted.

This is an excellent idea, but my main concern is supposing someone takes the entry and then disappears? At least if we handle the process via a volunteer scheme, there's a formal agreement between volunteers and inhouse Editors and if we don't hear from someone from months it can be allocated to someone else.

Having the responsibility rest with one person reminds me of the old system of accept and reject. It was lengthy, it took months. Projects in the University scheme are similiarly given over to (usually) one Researcher, and that's great, but some subjects have been long abandonned but we've never formally been told this. However if discussion goes on via a PR type forum (let's call it the Update forum) then at least the discussion stays current, is in full view of the whole Community, is not kept within the realm of one Researcher, and all the information that's deemed 'essential' for that topic, ends up being listed in one discussion thread.

Supposing we do have a scheme like this... If a Researcher volunteers for a topic, then perhaps they should be given access to the GuideML for only a fixed period of time. Two weeks say, and then someone else could volunteer for it.

It's sensible that only one person should work on it at a time, but perhaps the entry should be put straight into an Update forum, rather than waiting for the Researcher to put it in. That way anyone else who'd like to make a contribution should be directed to the person who's working on it, so that they can collaborate. Hopefully this should also 'fast track' major changes.

Researchers wouldn't be given access to the GuideML of an actual Edited entry, but to a copy of it (and we'd work out how to replace the old version with the new).

> "It's sensible that only one person should work on it at a time, but perhaps the entry should be put straight into an Update forum, rather than waiting for the Researcher to put it in. That way anyone else who'd like to make a contribution should be directed to the person who's working on it, so that they can collaborate."

Well, yes and no. Part of the attraction of Peer Review is that entries there are 'finished' (or at least considered by their authors to be finished). It'd be good to have the same culture in the Update Forum. Also, I think you'd get better quality updates if people have an initial pressure-free period to look through all the comments in the attached conversations, research on the web, and so on. Then you can do honing and quality control in the Update Forum almost as a seperate stage. This works well for the initial pass, where most of the work is done before the entry is submitted to Peer Review, so I think it'd work well for updates, too.

Regarding abandoned updates. I think the best solution is simply to make it non-exclusive. Any Researcher can grab the GuideML via the test page, create a copy, link to the copy from a forum on the original, work on updating it, and submit it when they're ready. Researchers planning to do an update ought to check the forums, so they know whether someone else is doing the same thing.

I understand the fear of duplicated work, but I don't think that's going to happen all that often, and it's not a massive concern if it does happen from time to time. Careful use of forums and suchlike should make duplication no more frequent than it is in Peer Review.

Example:
There's an entry on Elephants, which some people believe needs an update (and some people don't). Fred makes a copy of the entry, and drops a forum note titled: "Update - A123456". Then Fred gets killed by an Elephant while he's involved in some research for his update.
Some time later, Mary comes along and also wants to update the entry. She looks at the update thread, and notices that Fred's home space hasn't been updated since a journal entry saying "Today I'm going to get really close to the elephant herd I've been tracking", which was a couple of months ago. Judging that Fred is AWOL, for whatever reason, Mary creates her own copy of the GuideML. Being an expert pachydermologist, she finishes the update in a couple of weeks, and submits it to the Update Forum.
In the update forum, there is general acclamation and good thoughts. A few people raise comments about why Mary didn't include this bit of info, or whether there should be some complementary info about the Arctic Elephant, and Mary makes a few minor changes to deal with these comments. While it's in the Update Forum, James comes along. He also wants to update the original Elephants entry, but he sees from that entry that an update is in the Update Forum, so he clicks on that link, looks at Mary's proposed replacement, and is generally content. Eventually, Elephants II gets picked, edited, and the rest.

-Martin

I agree with Lucinda that this is the way is should work. With perhaps one little addition in that if someone undertakes an update, they should be asked *really* nicely to post an 'update in progress' thread at the original Edited Entry with the A-number of the update.

Just to make it a bit easier for folks to collaborate instead of working on separate updates at the same time.

But really, Lucinda's description is just what I think the process should look like.



- Jimi X

Would it not be that if the article is being updated then it would say at the side, just like it currently says if an article is in Peer Review, The Writers Workshop or what have you. That then links to the update forum as at present. Other than that I agree with the suggestion above, only I hope most updates ain't going to be that dangerous.

This suggestion gets the Woodpigeon stamp of approval...

Yes Munchkin, but if someone's making an update of an entry, and *hasn't* submitted it to the Update Forum yet (perhaps because it'll take them some time to do), then there can't be a link to the thread in the Update Forum, because it won't have one!

The other thing I like about my idea is that it's easier to do, so we might get it quicker

-Martin

Ah, hadn't thought of that Just have to ask people politely to leave a note then I suppose.

Thanks everyone for those thoughts so far!

Lucinda - Okay that sounds sensible.

Jimi - So anyone who undertakes an update should be asked to post an update in progress thread at the original Edited Entry with the A number of the update.



Anna

Yes.

Basically, it'd be a calling card pointing people to the work in progress if they want to help out before it gets to the Update Review Forum.

Of course, if they don't want to and somebody *else* does an update as well it might make things a bit awkward in the Update Review Forum ...

'calling card' is a good way of putting it. The other benefit is that people who are subscribed to the entry get told about the possible update at that point, and those are the people who'll be most use later on.

A similar system works in the Flea Market at the moment, come to that.

Hi Anna, good spot - a clear hole in the proposal. My fault, Woodpidgeon did think of this but I forgot to include it:

"What if somebody takes it upon themselves to make a change, then loses interest or is knocked over by a bus and doesn't bother to free up the article? Maybe there needs to be a time limit for making changes - a week or two."
(F90511?thread=186221&skip=0&show=20#p2058044)

I think this is a lot better than letting two people work on the entry at once.

One of the points about this proposal is that the person doing the update is able to spend some time working on it before they submit it to the review forum for comments and contributions from others. As has been pointed out, this means that there is a period of time where you can't link to the review forum (and the author can't leave a note in the RF because you can't post directly to RFs). I think during this time we either a) don't link anywhere b) link to author or c) link to copy of entry being worked on.

Argh, major simulpost (or maybe it just took me over 24 mins to compose the post...)

I mistook leaving a note in the entry's forum for leaving a note in the review forum...

I quite like Lucinda's proposal, but I think the time-limit idea could equally work.

Can I ask people to consider this question: F91231?thread=194373

Frankie - How about if the Entry was flagged as being worked on by a Researcher and anyone interested in contributing should be linked to the entry. The Researcher who's working on it would be encouraged to look out for other contributors - it's polite after all...

I don't like a time limit, because sometimes it will genuinely take a long time to do an update - and you can't expect everyone to dedicate the time to h2g2 that some people do (mentioning no names! ). Besides, some entries haven't been updated for a couple of years - will it make such a big difference if it takes a couple of months for someone to finish making sense of all the conversations?

-Martin

"How about if the Entry was flagged as being worked on by a Researcher and anyone interested in contributing should be linked to the entry."

That was option c) - and I think that would be my preference too. If the updater was automatically subscribed to the version of the entry they're working on, they should see the comments easily enough!

"You can't expect everyone to dedicate the time to h2g2 that some people do (mentioning no names!)"

- oi! I did ask h2g2 for suggestions on other things I could do this summer, but didn't get that many ideas...

Fair point about the time limit, but we should still stop other people from updating the entry whilst it's already being worked on. Perhaps we should just have some tool to look at a list pf updates being worked on for extra long periods of time, and if neccessary the italics could reset the entry so that other people could update the entry. That or we have a two month time limit (which is long enough - see the recent PR decision).

Agreed, the time limit could well be longer than two weeks, but I still think we need to give people deadlines It gives people at least a ballpark time period to work towards and it can always be extended.

> "Fair point about the time limit, but we should still stop other people from updating the entry whilst it's already being worked on."

> "Agreed, the time limit could well be longer than two weeks"

If you just make the deadline longer, say three months, to allow for regular but small-scale users of h2g2 updating larger entries, then you'll run into problems with newbies who hit 'update this entry', lock the entry, and then dissappear without so much as a personal space. Whereas if you just rely on etiquette, then most Researchers can tell the difference between a newbie that's gone AWOL, and someone with a message on hir homespace saying "I'm on safari for a month in Africa: back on the 5th of May".

> "I still think we need to give people deadlines"

I hate deadlines. Writing or updating an entry takes as long as it takes, no more, no less. It's not like h2g2 is a *job* for most of us - I get enough stress from meaningless delivery dates at work, thanks terribly.

> "It gives people at least a ballpark time period"

It gives the same ballpark for a single-page entry that needs a few bits and pieces added, as for a ten-page monster that needs to be split up into ten new entries with an index page and a vast array of new info. And the same ballpark for an hour-a-day person as an hour-a-week person.

If you want to give a guideline as to the time requirements, just put a note on the relevant help page saying:
"The time it'll take you to update an entry will depend on all kinds of things, but most entries will take about a couple of hours. If you spend a few minutes each day you should get it done in a couple of weeks at most. Larger entries can take much more time - particularly if they need splitting into smaller entries."

-Martin

I am quite happy with Lucinda / JimiX's proposal, but could I add that the "calling card" be *automatically* generated once someone decides to do an update, and that it provide a link to the new entry? And, are we still considering an Update button, so that people don't have to mess around with copying test pages etc, ie. that it's all done for you? When you hit the update button, you read a little bit about what that means and whether you accept it or not, you get the GuideML, and a new entry is automatically generated for you?

> "Fair point about the time limit, but we should still stop other people from updating the entry whilst it's already being worked on."

Why? I think that we could rely on etiquette here, just as we do for two people covering the same subject in Peer Review/University. We don't need some kind of heavy-handed enforcement method involving deadlines and suchlike.

-Martin

I like Woodpidgeon's idea: this'd make the process a little more reliable and user-friendly. But it's not *necessary*: we could start off before that button is available. Like the way we started Peer Review before we had a proper Review Forums code. In fact, doing it this way (process first, code second) is best, because then we'll have some real experience of the system working to decide what we do need, and what we don't.

-Martin