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

Under Ground Hitchhikers?
Ugh, me likem idea, but then me likem dirt and worms and stuff.

But why stop at having an UG with your EG and AGG, let's call up Iggy get an IGG going too! And for the more primitive perhaps even an OG.


Don't take offense please. I'm just shooting from the hip here because my first reaction is somewhat defensive of what we have accomplished with <./>AggGag</.>-CAC. We have discovered that there are already more 'writing workshop' areas than people can keep track of and more lost and forlorn entries than one editor could ever read or manage.

We have been trying to narrow the range of motion for researchers to the simple question "to EG or not to EG (ie: AggGagCAC)". I see UGH and IGGY and OGG as just more variations on WW, CWW and AWW.

Not that I'm against variety or can't see the need for each new wave of new researchers to react as we did when we created AggGag. Or as Peregrin did when he created h2g2 Fiction... and many since have tried to find solutions to the unsatisfying nature of the EG.

Creative, fictional work (while admittedly desirable and currently excluded from EG) is such a personal thing it will always raise questions of individual tastes making it impossible to be completely objective and fair. Inevitably personal and subjective reasons (friends, agendas) make it impossible to establish clear editorial practices. At least the EG and 'the editors' can be more consistent, if only by consistently rejecting a lot of good stuff. I believe any 'Underguide' has to be 'reactive' to that rejection more than anything else.

~jwf~

Oh, ~jwf~ I do agree with you! Deja vu all over again, just like last time and the time before.

I cannot speak for anyone else, because we are nothing as coherent as a group or anything, so I am going to speak solely for myself here.

The reason I am hanging around these forums and continually asking questions and writing lists in them is because - like y'all - I see good pieces being written which do not get the fame and glory they deserve.

My personal definiton of 'fame and glory' is 'official edited status and a slot on the front page'. I know that this is not the goal for everyone who has posted in these threads. As I said, this is a completely personal response to your post.

So my long-term goal is to find a way to get official edited status and a slot on the front page for entries which do not adhere to the current Guidelines. (I like trying to square circles. Doing something which is easy is s-o-o-o-o-o dull! )

Since the guidelines are not going to be changed, I sugggested creating a class of entry which is similar to 'edited' (in that it has been scouted, subbed and had some italicised fairydust sprinkled over it) but which in some way denotes the fact that it is not part of the Edited Guide. This idea seemed to take off, and I am not even sure if it was solely mine. It grew out of the mould like a mushroom. Various terms were bandied about: 'Selected', 'Recommended', 'Anthologised', 'The Peoples' Choice' and so on. It seems that this is technically pretty challenging, unless it is done within the Guide ML, which, I guess, is an option.



I, for one, am very very clear about one thing. If we are to get non-EG style entries the status and credit they deserve then *last* thing we should do is create yet another bloody splinter group.

If we (whoever 'we' may be) cannot work with (and possibly within) the Post and AGG/GAG/CAC then I think we are doomed to failure.

Look at it another way. Here are a group of people who are interested in what AGG/GAG/CAC did and do, and who are interested in (asking nicely) if they can join in and help.

I personally, (and I must stress again that this is a personal opinion), think that if we can graft onto, or develop, or grow out of, AGG/GAG/CAC then we have some chance of succeeding. Like Newton, we will be standing on the shoulders of giants. If we try to rival AGG/GAG/CAC then we will fail.



Story so far.

Some debates have been had about the AWW and why it does not work

The meme of an Underguide has been set loose in the world

Some discussions have taken place about guidelines, and whether they are necessary

Some discussions have taken place about the merits separate official UG entries, (which appear to be too technically tricky to manage in the short term)

Based on the idea of separate but equal status for entries, some discussions took place on whether there should be one forum (PR) or two, one for the EG and t'tother for the UG

Some debates have taken place about whether or not the UG would require separate volunteer schemes, and whether or not the UG subs and scouts should be combined

The suggestion has been made for Writing Mentors to roam the WW and the AWW providing support and guidance to new writers



With only a couple of exceptions, no-one has suggested a scheme which bypasses AGG/GAG/CAC, and I for one have been repeatedly asking for information about the history of AGG/GAG/CAC and about the number of entries which y'all turn up. If it is hard to find an entry a week, then there is no point in proposing a scheme which requires a new front page slot every day.

~jwf~ I am *really* glad you have come out of the woodwork on this one. Your silence has been noticable.

I can see why you might feel like a bowl of petunias, in many respects I do myself. But if all that this round of talking does is become another straw blowing in the wind, then eventually, maybe, with enough straws on its back, the camel will go through the eye of the needle.

Or something.

B

>> Or something. <<

Exactly! I couldn't agree more.
And if I may add 'or ANYthing'.

Organisation is the key.
Visibility and credibility are the need.

The new wrinkle to all the old problems we see here is perhaps the notion that 'the powers that be' (the h2g2 editors) might now support what has been seen to date as a 'revolutionary' or 'contrary' attitude from individuals and groups who complained about the limitations and deficiencies of the Edited Guide.

Perhaps it is finally sinking in that there should be an organised and visible forum for entries of the non EG kind. It would require more bodies and hands than and <./>AggGag</.>-CAC have been able to muster and must be managed by persons motivated by more than 'good intentions' or a chance to enhance their own status.

If such a Forum were instituted it would also allow for a redefinition of the EG and even a purging of that august body of work so that many entries which had slipped in, which do not really meet the EG guidelines, could be redirected to the alternate guide.

That is to say, we could have a 'fact and formal' guide and a 'fun and fiction' guide, a two party system. But to have official status and the hands to make light work, it would have to be managed in- house with all those involved in the work of it (pioneers like shazz)properly compensated for their efforts.

peace
jwf

Hi Jay Dub and Ben, and anyone i missed...

looks like you're thinkin' a bit like me right now, jd, that The Post already *is* the 'forum' we're all looking for...

didja see what i said in the AWW thread? that maybe AWW could be to The Post what PR is to The Front Page?

AWW wouldn't need to produce quite so much material, just enough to provide The Post with a few individual articles per week...

but it could have a life of it's own such as PR has now... if there was some genuine competition to produce Post-worthy stuff...

ok, enough... dots from me...

i'm around...

John, I don't think this is a rehash of AGG/GAG or WW or AWW or Fiction Central. The thing that's radically different this time is that Anna has hinted about some front-page exposure being possible if we could present her with an organized group of volunteers who seem able to find high quality entries on a regular basis. (She really emphasized the "high quality" bit.)

It would be convenient if CAC filled all those requirements, and we could stop all these debates about how to plan some now group. But CAC is a very loose group -- which works very well on our small scale to keep things creative and democratic. I don't think it's organized enough to please the Italics. I'd say CAC promotes high quality entries, but I don't know if the Italics would agree. Anna was also talking about a system which would function like PR, forcing authors to be critiqued by others. AWW sometimes works to provide feedback for authors, but most of the time CAC picks entries and promotes them with little or no polishing at all. When we do make any adjustments, it's more like the sub-editing process, very little like the Peer Review process, where even the silliest entries get lots of diverse comments. (Is "scrotum itch" still in Peer Review? This is my favorite example for everything in PR right now. I'll cry when they bump it to one of the other forums.)

Lastly, I don't think CAC has the level of participation that Anna talked about. We have five or six regulars and several other stragglers. The hardcore Popeye Chucklers have been very committed, but even that group almost disintegrated before issue 42.

The reason I've been pursuing this as a new & separate entity is that I didn't think CAC could be expanded to meet the requirements that Anna has laid out. Some of our hardcore CAC members would drop out if the group turned into a hierarchical, creativity-busting organization. If CAC were stretched to meet Anna's requirements, it would probably either break apart or the end result would not be pretty.

"That is to say, we could have a 'fact and formal' guide and a 'fun and fiction' guide, a two party system. But to have official status and the hands to make light work, it would have to be managed in- house with all those involved in the work of it (pioneers like shazz)properly compensated for their efforts."

That doesn't seem very likely. However, an unofficial group using a small bit of front-page space to promote "fun and fiction" entries does seem possible. I think it would be better to try that than to wait for h2g2 or BBC to pay a staff for that purpose.

Does anyone know if the Post has a mission statement or something similar to describe their intended function? I want to make the case that we're trying something different, not duplicating what the Post already does, but I'm not sure what the Post is meant to be. Maybe we are duplicating what the Post already does.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A933897

about as close as you are going to get to a current mission statement, I think.