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

I'm with Sho here - I'm fed up with fkf's twisted accusations of all and sundry on h2g2 being anti-American. Do we really have to put up with that? And in PR at that? It's the second time she's trying to disturb a PR discussion like this.

We need a smiley.

oh well, I haven't seen her do it before - don't get me wrong. I just meant in general.

I've only seen that one PR thread because I'm subscribed to this entry.

What I'm interested in, also, from that thread is: why is Gnomon peeved at Jodan?

I haven't a clue. Gnomon's last remark in that thread took me completely by surprise.

mind you, I'm all excited now - prompted by seeing this convo I dipped my toe into the waters of PR this evening. And found a Dick Bruna entry languishing.

I want Miffy on the front page!

TiT is procrastinating.

I'm going to poke him with a sharp stick

Oh, with that.

Oh wow, I just noticed this in my conversation list. I love spawning controversy.

"Well, as I've never had sex with a goat, or any other cloven hoofed animal, I can't really comment on that side of things. But I don't think it's appropriate to 'stir the pot' as such. The Entry will suffer, Jodan will probably up and leave h2g2 again, and to be honest, I really can't say I blame him if he does. A great loss if that happens, simply because some people can't let bygones be bygones and flog a dead horse (or goat)."

No, this doesn't really bother me. It got me a bit exasperated at a couple of points, I must admit, and I wouldn't recommend it for new writers, but I've had the PR experience on probably around 100 entries (and that's not tooting my own horn, about 15 of those are university entries, and the rest were entries put into PR which didn't make it through to the other side).

As for anti-Americanism, I'm not sure where that came from in that thread (I'm an interesting person to call anti-American) but it's true that there is some anti-Americanism to be found in h2g2. By no means is it something that the vast majority of hootooers engage in. It's there on the outer edges, in some small ways. But I'm not that worried about it, personally. It's pretty well balanced by the other anti-British, anti-Irish, anti-Jewish, anti-whatever drivel everywhere else on h2g2 and the internet at large.

Actually, to add on to that, I am sort of encouraged by how most of the Peers were very mature and made what I consider to be the reasonable judgment in this case. If it promotes introspection in the Peer Review system, I'm all for it. I'm still in favor of allowing the EG to include much more creative, imaginative entries.

Amen to that, Sheepboy

No Founding Mothers sure, but it's ridiculous to think that women weren't involved in that process and that they didn't have any influence on it.

There's two pertinent points here:

- because of the social status of women at the time, and because women work differently that men (as a class), women's influence tended to be in more background or 'common' ways (rather than famous, heroic ways). Women still often work in that way and it's still hard for society to take account of it.

- white male historians write history about the deeds that make sense to them or are important to them, and so we have stories overwhelmingly about white men (and other people that interest white men) and from the perspective of white men. I'm sure that class has something to do with it as well.


*

The point made in that thread about Native Amercian influence is vey important as well. I haven't read the entry though, so won't comment further.

I agree that the anti-american thing is off (although it's not as full on as it was last time). But I think it's valid for people to post in PR about what they think about an entry.

I don't think we should be discouraging people by saying things like your comments aren't that valid because you've not written any entries Remember that people read in PR, sometimes for a long time, before they comment or write an entry of their own.

I also agree that it's good where respect is brought into conversations eg being considered in challenging established EG authors , but I've seen some incredibly disrespectful things said about new author entries by old researchers, so I'm not sure that the standard of PR has been undermined by kf's input (even though I don't agree with several things about her apporoach).

For Sho, or others, some of fkf's previous accusations that h2g2 is anti-American:
F7334495?thread=4413437

Given that is their PS, can't they do what they like there?

Perhaps this would be a better example?

F7334496?thread=4221430

That doesn't seem to be about anit-US sentiment though.

I was hoping for the other PR thread, but don't have the motivation (yet) to go find it.

It's here:

F7369621?thread=4306107


Oh, and why the name change kea?

ah
I see.
thanks.

And yes, I agree that in PR people should be allowed to comment on an entry and what they think of it, even when (especially when) they are in the minority.

As for adding founding mothers and founding native Americans... this piece is written about the Founding Fathers as, I believe, they are referred to generally in the States and elsewhere. I think the points about women and native Americans is valid, but that would be a whole other entry.

Someone want to write it? It would make a good companion piece.

Some of those threads are absoloutely magical to read. She's not got the wrong end of the stick, she just doesn't seem to have a stick.

Thanks B'El. Nice to see that thread had a happy ending (I'd forgotten all about the gutless incident, which was a conflict fkf and I had in a thread on the Forum).

Charlotee Badger was one of the first European women to live in NZ. By all accounts she was a buccaneer, so am honouring her on Talk Like a Pirate Day (garr ).