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

Entry: The St. Louis Radio Guide - A956603
Author: Raukodraug - Keeper of the Fullmoon Smiley [(2*(-1)+8-0)*(3+4)=42] - U218034

I've made some improvements to my original incarnation of the entry and am again looking for feedback.

Thanks.

Having a guide like this is a great idea, but it's so tied to the present time. Don't forget that if picked for editing, an entry will be around for a long, long time, unlike a fair few of these radio stations or their parent companies. It simply won't be practical to keep it up to date as stations are bought and sold or change their format, and I can't think of a way around that

Added to that, you'll have to lose all of the first person references and recommendations. It's one thing to explain what the output of a station is like, it's entirely another to say 'it's great'. One's a statement, the other's a judgement.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about time-sensitive issue as much. We certainly have other entries in the guide that would be equally effective. Restaurants are bought out or closed, parks are shut down or paved over, etc. -- we live in a world in flux.

As for the "personal recommendation" type comments, I think they may have come from a comment I made the first time this entry was in PR (back when the entry mainly consisted of the table). I commented that the table itself didn't seem to be enough to comprise an Edited Guide entry per se, and wrote

"Is there other information you can provide about any of the radio stations? Which ones are the most popular? Which ones have the best contests? Which ones have the coolest morning shows? Which ones are most favored by teenagers, or by college students?"

What I was trying to get at, was not just the author's personal opinion, but more of a "local consensus" type thing -- i.e., if I were to write a similar entry about Seattle, I could tell you which stations 20-somethings tend to listen to for the morning shows (but no one with children in the car will listen to because of the language), that kind of info. I could tell you which stations are popular with the college students, even though they're stations I detest, personally. It's more "population-based" than personal-opinion based.

I've pulled out the uses of first person pronouns and cleaned it up a little bit.

Looks much better Raukodraug

Mikey - would you compromise about the time sensitivity by going along with the suggestion of having a disclaimer in the entry (either directly above or below the table), something along the lines of "Please bear in mind that radio stations can change format at the whim of their owners, or may go out of business."

That sounds like a reasonable suggestion.

Are you still working on this, Raukodraug?

I'm working on it as often as I have the time. With th end of the semester at the university I work at it's been a bit crazy for me. If you have suggestions or comments I would love to here them, though.

Ooh, nothing's happened for two months.

The only comment I can think of is that I have no idea where St. Louis is. Could you put in a little detail to explain where it is, and why someone might want to visit in the first place?


Geggs

St. Louis is in Missouri, and I tend to think of it as being smack dab in the middle of the US.

Personally, I don't think that it's really neccessary to go into why someone would visit, as the entry really isn't a tourist guide of any sort.

Frankly, I think that between the work that's been done on the entry, and the comments here in the thread, it has reached the point where it could be polished off by a sub if picked -- I don't think what still needs to be done is too burdensome.

What do other people think?

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Well done


Scout

woo hoo!


Mikey