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

This thread is for discussing the proposals for new improved Guidelines. This particular topic has been discussed at length already and the links to the most relevant recent threads are in the page this conversation is attached to.

It would be kind if you kept your posts on topic. Thank you.

Mrs Zen / a broad called Ben

Hi Ben.

Just a short post to make this appear in my space.

Will add more later.

GT

Whenever so far I've clicked on the link in the enry that this thread is off, to the document, it says page not availible

A couple of questions:

- is there to be a House Style for things like spelling, use of hyphens etc? Why/why not?

- what does it mean that the writer is the final arbiter? I completely support that no entry will be published without the writer's ok. I'm not sure what this phrase means: "Writers are the ultimate arbiters of how an entry will look," Do you mean the writer decides layout, headers or not, fonts etc?


I like the Rules and Suggestions idea

I imagine there will be some sort of House style, but I would hope that it would be much less restrictive than the current House style. We'll eventually have to look at whether we want to keep the whole guide in British English, for example. That was an imperative under the BBC, but perhaps not under private ownership.

My intent with the "writer is the final arbiter" thing was just as you said. No entry can be published with the writer's name if the writer disapproves of its publication. "look" was probably a poor choice of words, but layout, format, etc are important to some writers, I suppose.

I've altered my document a little bit there. It would be good to have suggestions on the wording there. This is one document where precise wording is necessary. If there's an ambiguous phrase, it could easily be exploited in the future. So pedantry is welcomed in this case.

I think the phrase 'final arbiter' is problematic. To me it reads that the writer will control editing of the entry, whereas I think you are meaning that if in the end the writer is unhappy the entry won't be published. Is that right?

How about:

Consider the suggestions of others. Writers have the ultimate say in whether their entry will be published, and h2g2 will never attach a writer's name to work he or she disapproves of. However, an entry can almost always benefit from the advice and suggestions of other h2g2 users. Part of the experience of h2g2 involves having your work edited and criticized.

I've switched it around quite a bit:

"Consider the suggestions of others. A writer is the ultimate judge of the value of reviews and suggestions, but an entry can almost always benefit from the advice of other h2g2 users. Part of the experience of h2g2 involves having your work edited and criticized. However, h2g2 will never force a writer to make changes he or she finds unacceptable (with the exception of plagiarism and House Rules violations, as noted above)."

>>However, h2g2 will never force a writer to make changes he or she finds unacceptable (with the exception of plagiarism and House Rules violations, as noted above)."

Ok, so I'm not clear. Are you saying that the writer does have final say on how an entry gets published? i.e. if they want something that no-one else thinks is ok (apart from plagarism and HR) then the entry gets published? ie the writer has the same control that the Eds do now?

Ha, no, that would be madness

This kind of reminds me of my most recent entry I've written for h2g2. I put it in PR, the Eds had some suggestions which I sort of disagreed with - not a huge deal, but I thought their suggestion would sort of ruin the flow of the introduction of the entry. So I left it. The Eds accepted it, and said something to the effect of, "Oh well, we'll just change it ourselves." All that I'm saying is that shouldn't happen. This is, incidentally, why I'm waiting for the noohootoo to write anything for PR.

I'll add a sentence to make that very clear, because that's an important point, kea.

"In some circumstances, of course, failure to adopt reasonable suggestions may affect an entry's suitability for publication."

>>The Eds accepted it, and said something to the effect of, "Oh well, we'll just change it ourselves." All that I'm saying is that shouldn't happen.

Completely agree (and I was never sure at what point researchers lose publishing veto).

I think it needs to be explicit who has final editorial control too:

"While the Guide Editors have final say on whether an entry is suitable for publication, any writer can choose at any stage to withdraw their entry and not have it published."

"Consider the suggestions of others. A writer is the ultimate judge of the value of reviews and suggestions, but an entry can almost always benefit from the advice of other h2g2 users. Part of the experience of h2g2 involves having your work edited and criticized. However, h2g2 will never force a writer to make changes he or she finds unacceptable (with the exception of plagiarism and House Rules violations, as noted above) and they may withdraw their entry from consideration at any time. In some circumstances, failure to adopt reasonable suggestions may negatively affect an entry's suitability for publication."

A little wordy, but not unclear, I think.