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

Some time later (well, I was back at work yesterday, so couldn't join in)...

In reply to post 255:

1 & 2 re Subs and PR. What pisses me off no end is when Scouts pick an entry and don't put the PR thread link into the little box. As Subs we're expected to read the PR thread. I've posted to the Scouts list twice asking that people do it, and they still don't and it's getting to the point where I'm not bothering to search for it, so it's not being read now - I realise this isn't ideal, but it takes so long to find anything on h2g2 these days that I just don't have time anymore, plus if the author has deleted their copy (it happens) I've got no chance of finding it anyway.

Previously I did read through PR threads making sure tweaks were done, although I wouldn't write whole new chunks because of a comment in PR as I believe some Subs do. I still read the PR thread if it's added to the box. And of course, there's no way of knowing which Sub picked an entry unless they sign there message, and the people who don't post the link don't sign their names, so I can't even contact them directly and ask them to put it in.

3. In the 'old days' Subs were allocated entries when they had none on their list - so they could have cleared off and the Ed allocating wouldn't know. Now, we have to ask for them, so there shouldn't be any Elvised-Subs with entries. Most people only get two at a time, so don't get behind.

4. Yes some will be better than others, and there is no feedback for Subs - mainly because we're volunteers I guess. But the odd bit of feedback from the Eds - or even from those who *do* have experience would probably go a long way.

Of course, I'm perfect. I've earned my living subbing. *preen*

"And of course, there's no way of knowing which Sub picked an entry unless they sign there message"

I meant:

And of course, there's no way of knowing which Scout picked an entry unless they sign their message.

Told you I was perfect!

>"And of course, there's no way of knowing which Scout picked an entry unless they sign their message."

I didn't know that. Confession: I *always* include the link for the PR thread, and on the rare occasion that I remember, I even delete my skin preference from it.

Maybe you could email the Scouts again Mina, briefly explain your problem of finding the PR thread when the author has deleted their copy. I think people tend to be more cooperative when they understand a situation, rather than just by instruction.

Emmily

This is way too late to be typing this so excuse any senior moments

<>

I used to pick up every spelling error and fix guide-ml and ask for footnotes to be made into sentences, no punctuation in Headers, pop tags after the Headers

Now I've seen all the complaining about the long (humungous in some cases) posts I have taken a step back.


What is wrong with checking if the person in PR is a newbie first...then posting something appropriate? I happened along as first reviewer to a newbie who had submitted 2 entries on Mahler..so I posted that I read it and thanked him, welcomed him to PR and a warm welcome to h2g2 as well (he'd been here just over a day).
Other people posted after me, but no-one at his other entry, so I've just responded to his posting after mine, when he's suggesting I try Mahler's Fourth..or something
I just wanted to bring the thread up to the attention of everyone who had missed it, but I was worried I'd be accused of "chit chat" on a PR thread, and to be quite honest I feel like I'm treading on eggshells in PR.

I have watched Gnomon's style and tried to review like him. I don't mind if someone tells me a lot of errors in one post, but I sincerely went to Straighttalker's entry to help him because he appealed for help here.
I tried to post just the places which needed altering (from Matt's review as well as my own) and I managed to post 4 relatively short posts (for me) when I was told to stop by others who said I wasn;t helping things.



Then the entry got picked (I think to save the bloodletting going on) and I feel like planting my head in a bucket of sand.

If I hadn't seen that newbie with a virgin thread today I wouldn't have posted in PR at all.

We need some guidelines, Gnomon says point out all the typos and punctuation etc., (as well as content comments), others are saying leave it for the sub-ed.

What can we do?
Discuss the entry content for the 7 days THEN start on the guide-ml, typos, house-style and punctuation?
Whatever we decide, please let it be universal 'cos I'm getting peeved (more than that but I don't swear) with all the bickering.



Mina, I am so sorry I'm one of the ones who deletes the old entry after it's been recommended, because I saw you post that you did that because you only want the search engine to bring up your edited entry.
I had no idea I was stopping the sub-ed from finding my PR thread
Now that I know that, I will wait to delete the old entry until after it's been subbed.



In the ComingUp page, there's a queue x 3.
Recommended but not sent to sub-ed.
Sent to sub-ed, being edited. (and why is this the *old* number, not the new number?)
Back from sub-ed - waiting for final polish.
If this third stage isn't being done any more, can we have that page changed to just the two queues please?



Yes, B'Elana's accent is enough to give a straight woman gay thoughts!

to bed

Annie

>>If this third stage isn't being done any more<<

Oh, it is The Eds do make final changes, if they spot the need for them.

As I keep seeing my name and my first experience being raised in this thread I think it only right I point out again why I got 'stressed out'. A lot of what I was being asked to do, 3 weeks after the initial comments were repeats of stuff already done in the first week.i was being asked to change/alter things that had been done as previously requested and what i wanted was some consistency in the comments in terms of style, grammar and everything else. I did not want to have to keep changing the same thing time and time again.Then when new things started being added as well It felt like this was going to be a never ending circle.
I have apologised in 2 other threads for being somewhat abrupt at the time, I repeat that apology, I should have left alone until well enough to cope and deal with it.
My main gripe was, lack of consistency.

Straighttalker, if you were badly treated in your first experience in Peer Review, you don't need to apologise. We should be apologising! We have two different documents that describe what should go into an Entry on its way to the Edited Guide: these are the Writing Guidelines and the "WRiting for the Edited Guide" page which I call the House Style. Unfortunately, we're not all equally familiar with them, and the reviewers are, you have to remember, volunteers. We're just members of the public who happen to be interested in building this Guide. So sometimes we may offer conflicting advice. This is an issue that we, and not you, should be able to sort out.

Annie, just because people disagree doesn't mean you are wrong! Would you like to give a link to the conversation where you had the problems? I know that people don't like pointing the finger at other people, but how else can we figure out what we are doing wrong? We have to know what was done so that we collectively don't do it again.

Gnomon, it is the thread I posted here before.

"Now I've seen all the complaining about the long (humungous in some cases) posts I have taken a step back.

I tried to post just the places which needed altering (from Matt's review as well as my own) and I managed to post 4 relatively short posts (for me) when I was told to stop by others who said I wasn;t helping things.



Then the entry got picked (I think to save the bloodletting going on) and I feel like planting my head in a bucket of sand."

Annie, you posted four large posts of corrections immediately after Matt's enormous post of corrections when ST was freaking out a bit. So I said that probably wasn't an ideal thing to do - I don't exactly call that bloodletting I'm sorry if me discussing this here has made you feel like planting your head in a bucket of sand, but I'm not sure why it should. Isn't this sort of thing what this forum is *for*?

"Maybe you could email the Scouts again Mina, briefly explain your problem of finding the PR thread when the author has deleted their copy. I think people tend to be more cooperative when they understand a situation, rather than just by instruction."

I did that already Emmily - on the 23rd Oct and again on Feb 7th. Neither email was answered by another Scout, or by an Editor.

Straighttalker, none of this is your fault, we're discussing peer reviewer's style here, which *needs* discussing!

Kelli, I said "Then the entry got picked (I think to save the bloodletting going on) and I feel like planting my head in a bucket of sand" (that was about Peer Review and reviewing in general, not here. That's why I'm bringing it up here.)

Did you read the other posts?
So I said that probably wasn't an ideal thing to do - I don't exactly call that bloodletting -

Jabberwock: I think that the entry has been ready for quite a long time. I don't see why we should expect ST to do all of this - isn't that what sub-editors are for? Annie, your work is selfless and tireless , as was Matt's, although I don't agree with all of it - but I think the end result will be quite a counterproductive demoralising one, and put this entry into danger of withdrawal when - and I repeat what I said yonks ago - it is potentially one of the best and most informative entries we have.

Emmily: Have we forgotten the unwritten rules of being gentle with first-times in Peer Review - unless I'm mistaken this is Straighttalker's first trip through PR, IMO these long lists of minor corrections are not appropriate for a first-timer. Sorry Matt and Annie, I know you intentions were well-intended, but are more likely to have a negative rather than positive effect on Straighttalker and any new visitors to PR.

However, this:
<quote>
"StraightTalker - please don't do anything rash like delete the entry.
We all have different styles of reviewing (I'm currently reviewing mine)

I have angina, I'm going to read this, and I will post the typos etc., so you can do a quick tidy-up, alright? I don't want to override Dr Matt at all but nor do I want to see you so upset."



is what I posted directly before my postings of corrections, it's right there, at the top of the thread.

It took me quite some time to go through Doctor Matt's post picking out the differences between his words and Straighttalker's, plus I changed some of Matt's and I only went there as a direct response to ST's appeal here.

I think I better take some time out.

F3130648?thread=2225352&skip=80&show=20

That's the PR thread, Gnomon.

I'm sure it did take a long time, but maybe it would have been better to wait until ST had calmed down a bit, as he subsequently did.

The other posts you quoted do not sound like bloodletting either They sound like a few people trying to tell ST not to panic - I think you are being a little over-sensitive!

"Mina, I am so sorry I'm one of the ones who deletes the old entry after it's been recommended, because I saw you post that you did that because you only want the search engine to bring up your edited entry.

I must have said that a long time ago Annie, I'd forgotten I'd said it or even did it! I think it's a great idea though, so I'll go back to doing it. Once the entry's been on the FP of course.

"We need some guidelines, Gnomon says point out all the typos and punctuation etc., (as well as content comments), others are saying leave it for the sub-ed."

Typos do need pointing out, it's just that the way it's done may need to be different for every author. I don't mind long lists, one has just been posted to an entry of mine in PR, but they shouldn't be *first*.

Suppose an author spends ages changing typos, then changes the idea of the entry (as in the Necrophilia one) and deletes half the entry - spelling etc should really be once content changes are reasonably finished so we don't have to go through the entry again and post up more lists.

Poor B'Elana! Her first entry, which was about a tram in Germany, had literally hundreds of comments in PR, and they all seemed to be debating the spelling and formatting. The entry itself was only about a page long. When I first noticed this entry in PR, there were already 175 postings in the thread. This sort of thing should definitely be discouraged.

Could we make it an unofficial rule that no-one is allowed to point out any typos until the entry has been at least three days in Peer Review?

I said 7 days in post 304, but 3 days sounds fair

It's lucky Bella was so accomodating, and this is perhaps more because she said she knew she would need help with grammar etc. due to her apparently amazing accent

I think some of the major problems with spelling and punctuation in PR is, 'too many cooks'. Perhaps only Sub-editors should comment on spelling and punctuation in PR, as after all, they are the ones who know Guide Style back to front. Or perhaps there should be a list of people who do this. Especially when we have so many arguments over it! And the fact there's American English and proper English I know many other non-English speakers use American English in their speaking and writing.

Where was I? Official PR spell-checkers? An idea. Stops any confusion arising. I know it puts the onus on a select few again, but as I've said before I get so tired of seeing the same suggestions made over and over again and authors being confused because one person says one thing, then another says another regarding the positioning of a semi-colon! (Not that I've seen that, it's just an example)

'I think some of the major problems with spelling and punctuation in PR is, 'too many cooks'. Perhaps only Sub-editors should comment on spelling and punctuation in PR, as after all, they are the ones who know Guide Style back to front. Or perhaps there should be a list of people who do this'.

Yes, I've said exactly that elsewhere - perhaps earlier in this thread.

I've suggested that there should be 'badged' Reviewers who are accredited to deal with spelling issues.

'...authors being confused because one person says one thing, then another says another regarding...'

It's the -ize vs -ise issue which I keep seeing batted backwards and forwards, much to the confusion of the author

The -ise thing and the medieval thing should be added to the House Style page.

oh it's wonderful when you see mediaevil...just makes me think of the tabloid press...