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

v. clever mr b.!

I've been having a look around the AWW, leaving odd comments, trying to decide whether entries are UG material or not. One or two are (in my opinion) UG entries as they are, just needing a bit of GML, more are half and half. Sort of ambiguous amphibians. Not UG standard as they are (imo again of course) but with definite potential. It's frustrating - I'm itching to have PR style forums on them but the authors all seem to be missing.

I decided to pretend they'd be back, to practise mining, only to get into knots trying to judge how much detail to go to or whether to just pass by saying 'that was nice'. I wrote out a whole lot to post here to find out if anyone else had the same problem, then thought I'd take a look at GTB's APR page. And I found the answers there.

I think that APR page is excellent. It fits with my own vision of the UG mirroring the EG and giving authors that PR type process. Is there a consensus on this? There is the alternative approach put forward on another thread by Sir Bossel, (whose opinions I respect), that with personal pieces you take 'em or leave 'em as you find 'em.Which sort of fits with the current AWW page which doesn't give writers any lead on what to expect or reviewers any lead on how to comment there.

(read that entry yesterday, ought to be in the EG oughtn't it?)

Ben, I'm wondering how far we can go towards finding a consensus of opinion on what makes a UG entry in the AWW threads without having the sort of discussions about entries that, (I think - there's so much still to discuss on all of this ), are planned for offsite discussion when the UG gets off the ground.
Waz

Have you got the amphibious links? Then we may be able to beat out some gaps with specific examples...

I think the discussions should be in AWW - I am being very open there both about the UG and about the voting. I am also being very open that the UG does not actually exist yet.

The advantages of having the discussions there are:

1) It promotes the Underguide among people who dont already know about it
2) It keeps AWW busy which is good for writers and good for reviewers
3) It means that people who dont go to the MSN group can lurk in the conversations
4) It says that we are open and not hiding anything, (course we are!)

That said, I have opened a new board in MSN where we can track the voting.

Cheers

B

Dive into AWW, fwt. The discussions are all in there, and reasonably current.

B

...and I continue to work on the new APR page, albeit slowly. It's at A953354, in case anyone wants to subscribe and hasn't. Waz, I'm glad you like how it looks so far.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome, here or there.


GTB

Thanks for the reminder to subscribe GTB! , I'd forgotten.

Ben, points 1) to 4) - all good points. I'll continue at the AWW. I just need to think through the idea of telling some poor unsuspecting author that his work is not, imho, up to scratch for the UG.

('The UG?'
'Yeah, UG. It doesn't exist yet, but if it did this wouldn't be in it.'
'Ah, so you're telling me that there isn't a guide, that I'm not going to be in...'
...
...
...
'erm... yes...I think, sort of'
)

fwt have a read of 'Why pick on Scunthorpe' at the AWW - that's one I felt was neither fish, foul nor frog. And not quite a total hamster.

Waz

That should have said fowl.
Time to log off
Waz

Some of the authors with entries dumped from PR into AWW may not be looking for further comments. I suggest we comment only on the ones that look good enough to use in UG after polishing, or the entries that have been directly submitted to AWW. No need to put a rejection stamp on all things there until AWW/APR becomes a review forum specifically for the Underguide.

'Yeah, UG. It doesn't exist yet, but if it did this wouldn't be in it.'

I think we might get some unpleasant suggestions about what to do with our not-quite-existent-yet UG if we started telling people they were already rejected from it.

"I think we might get some unpleasant suggestions..." Like?

Your suggestion makes sense. It will work as long as we don't find widely varying views on what looks good enough and there's not much sign of that happening so far.
Waz

I know this sounds dumb...but where's AWW? On the plus point, I talked about the UG with Hypatia, who looked over the blog, but got a little at it all, but she said that she'd put some of her stuff in AWW, with the direct intention of getting them in the UG.

What do we do if we find a good one, just drop in and say hi?

Evening fwt,
You'll find the AWW here http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/Writing-Alternative
It has a link at the top of the Peer Review page, that's my usual route to it.

I've just been commenting on the entry and saying, if I think it could be an Underguide entry, that if there was an Underguide I'd vote for it. Or words to that effect.

I found GTB's nearly hatched draft Alternative Peer Review page very useful reading regarding commenting on entries.

See you round there .
Waz

Cool Thanks very mcuh!

Are we going to start voting offsite?

I like Hypatia's poetry and Peregrine's entry on how Gene Chandler sold their name...

A shortcut to AWW is <./>RF5</.>.

At this stage, I think a good starting activity for soon-to-be UG Scouts would be to make a personal list of entries for which you'd definitely vote, in their current state, or with very little revision. If we each have a number of entries in mind, then when we get started voting for real, we can hit the ground running!


GTB

OK! I got my votes!

For the three main categories, how about:

'Poetry, Personals and Prose'?

I think that covers all the bases and follows the three of the EG...

What do you think of all this spook: we haven't heard from you in a while.

well, sine most of the discussion has gone on over msn group, and i've been through a tragedy recently, i've missed half of what has been going on (hence i rpefer discussion on h2g2). want to update me?

Most of it has gone on here actually! We're currently running around in the AWW to find suitable entries for the UG..

What do you think?