21^st June 2011 - We interrupt your browsing with some welcome news:

The BBC have confirmed the success of the three-way bid by Robbie Stamp, the Community Consortium and Noesis.

When you read what's on the Magrathea pages and the conversations here, please remember that they were written while the bid was being worked on, so some things have changed.

We now return you to your original programming

Now considered complete - but probably to be discussed again in the future.

The original Googledoc is here: http://docs.google.com/document/d/1n9FDEW8AWmLCFAIDmdx-AOlu4uL-E2KY_lmUUUEFZco/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMvIipgJ#

As usual, please keep comments to this thread if possible.

Thanks again,

Vip

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Volunteers

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Volunteers are the Researchers who keep the Guide ticking. All Researchers are free to write and to review in the Writing Workshop. Some jobs though cannot be dealt with in this ad-hoc way and that is where the Volunteers come in. Step up, the:

Editors

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Without a doubt, the Editors have a lot of input into the Editorial Process. Once the Community and Author have agreed that the Entry is ready for publication, it is up to the Editors to give their approval. Once two have agreed, the Entry can be removed from the Writing Workshop.

They then give the Entry a final double check to make sure it doesn’t break the Rules and that it has no errors, they can publish it to the Front Page.

They also have a large role in keeping the Guide up to date. From day-to-day minor queries to instigating and controlling the Rolling Review process, the Editors make sure that the Guide is the best it can be.
The Rolling Review systematically looks at every Approved Entry and makes sure that the facts are still correct and that it still meets the high standards of the Guide. Entries that no longer meet those criteria will be updated or demoted to ordinary Entry status.

Because of the importance of their role only respected members of the Community can be voted to be Editors.

Aces

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Although the name might change, the Aces are currently the face of h2g2 to the new sign-ups. As mentioned elsewhere in this document their role will be overhauled significantly, allowing them to dedicate their time to being truly proactive in looking out for new users and to absorb the role of Gurus.

They also will take on a new and vital role in keeping the Community vibrant by starting topics of conversation, leading the way in writing Collaborative Entries, making sure conversations are in the right places, and helping to calm heated debates. They may also run competitions and challenges and generally keep Community Central buzzing!

Moderators

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The moderators are currently faceless employees, famed for not seeing context and hiding posts that were legitmate. Although we can never avoid all of those problems completely, the aim is to have a sympathetic moderation system that also removes libelous, slanderous and offensive topics very very quickly. The moderators themselves are unlikely to be on permanent duty, as it may be a stressful job. It may be taken on by the ACEs or as a seperate group. It is anticipated that a well-behaved Community like h2g2 will produce few posts that need removing.

Showcase Editors

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This panel will be responsible for selecting the very best of the Approved Guide to go into the Showcase. Members will usually have been long-standing members whose views on writing quality are known and understood. It could potentially include professional writers or other non-members who are well respected in their fields, but this is only an idea at this stage and h2g2 members will always have overall control.

Executive Editors

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The Executive Editors are probably the hardest group to pin down. They have overall responsibility for making sure that the site is running well. They oversee the Editorial Process to make sure that Entries are not getting missed by Editors, that Aces are keeping in top of welcoming new members, that the moderators are responding quickly and that the Showcase Editors are being reasonable in their selections. They will also report in to the overall owner, whoever that may be.

AVIators

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These Volunteers deal with photographs, diagrams, videos, podcasts, and anything that falls out of the scope of text. At the moment many of our images are provided by the BBC so we will need to replace those when they become unavailable.

Post Editors

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The Post Editors are our hard-working Post volunteers.