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

Some of our experts will be occasional visitors to h2g2 - perhaps they subscribe to the various h2g2 societies rather than Peer Review or askh2g2. We can engage them by posting to the society forums themselves. When I write a maths entry I post to the h2g2 Maths Lab (in a thread for that purpose) to alert members to the PR conversation. (F106558?thread=3646841)

The Geographical society has one, too - see F634966?thread=328197 - but it's been quiet for a while.

I suggest we promote these PR alert threads, and create them where they don't exist.

There's a list of societies in the h2g2 Post - see A630019. Is anyone willing to help me trawl them and see if we can recruit a few more Peer Reviewers?

You know, I didn't even know they existed. If I have time when I get home tonight, I'll see what I can do, Icy.

I'd like to see a revival of some of these areas too. I was considering writing some linked articles, and looked at the 'University' but there had been no recent activity apart from Alex's, in ages.

I think I'll be writing some about museums for all the interesting but irrelevant to my bachelor thesis information I found

I've done a few, Icy; I started at the bottom and got to the top of the Education section. I've only included groups that appear to have a clear purpose.

Off to make tea now...

For all the debate that's gone on since - some sensible and some otherwise - kea really answered it best in post two:

'You don't have to be a doctor or a scientist to critique the red wine entry. You need to be able to understand how to critique medical and scientific research though, or at least how to raise the issues.'

I would go further than that - you really just need to know how to check facts.

The best way to learn about a subject is to investigate it. Research it for yourself and check what you find against the Entry. Sometimes the facts as presented just don't sound right; sometimes you can just Google a detail and find it to be wrong.

For those of you who have suggested that it is easier to review grammar and punctuation because it is less objective, I would say - what is objective about a fact? Alcohol is far more likely to induce cancer than resveratrol is to prevent it. Those facts are easily checked.

My greatest concern is these faux-medical, faux-health pieces that are written on the basis of one or two headlines and don't mean anything. Red wine won't lower your stress levels, reduce your chances of getting cancer or protect you against dental cavities. Medical evidence strongly suggests it will increase your chances of all three. My concern is that, until I came along, this piece was on the verge of being accepted despite containing dangerously erroneous advice.

There have been some excellent suggestions in this thread:


Kea: 'We don't want just experts in the field. We want a range of people who can take an interest and who have research skills.'

Absolutely. We need people who can check facts and point out errors. My other recent experience was of reviewing an incorrect piece was about a famous musician, in which so many of the facts were wrong I suggested the author (who had nobly rescued it from FM) check every one. The piece was removed from PR.


ST: 'There's a list here attached to the Scouts homepage section, A1039105 speciallist topics and/or subjects Scouts know something about. Would it not be an idea to expand/open this to any researcher who has a particular knowledge of a subject on the basis that if a specialised topic comes into PR, whether medical, mechanical or similar then having a list of researchers available to ask could help in sorting content.'

The Scouts and Subs Specialist Topics pages haven't been updated since before I joined, and if both were that would certainly help. It just needs someone to email the Eds and offer to update them.


The idea of posting to Ask whenever a new subject is posted is a good one - you never know who might be reading. It would be great is this could be automated - I don't think that would be hard to do - but would anyone subbed to PR be willing to do that?

Ultimately, something like this will only work if people back the initiatives up - good to see one or two of you have kicked off already

Thanks Vip

I'm working downwards, and have added the following Alert threads:

Musicians' Guild: F52166?thread=6899897
Writers' Lounge: F7818745?thread=6899906
Collectors' Corner: F6508821?thread=6899909
Pagan Community Centre: F5899420?thread=6899920

(work in progress...)

Actually, Rich, I said it's spelling and grammar that *are* objective...

I am not around anywhere near as much as I'd like to be these days, but if there's anything theatrical that people would like me to take a look at (or less likely, anything to do with librarianship and information science), feel free to drop a note at my personal space. Must remember to check PR more often...

Wasn't there some kind of experts page floating around that wasn't updated by the Eds?

I'd start a new thread for everyone to put their areas of expertise, but it would be silly if we already have one.

I distinctly remember a question about experts - I'll do a little rummaging about.

Aha! I knew there was a list: U197895

I will try and add a bit more science into PR where needed

Looks like the Sexperts need to be added to the Guild of Experts