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

>>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.<<

Thanks Gnomon, but the funny thing is, I didn't mind at all, it was my first entry, and I expected there would be corrections, so that was ok. The feedback was very positive in my opinion, so what more could i have asked for ? It encouraged me to submit another entry, only this time, I made sure to have the spell checking and grammar done by a friend, as well as answering his questions and comments, and I had a close look at my first entry to help me with the formatting, so I hope there should be less suggestions for these things this time around. If there are, well, ok, I rely on all you experienceed Peer reviewers to tell me where I'm wrong, or should add things etc. After all, that's what PR is for

And as to my accent Never thought it would cause such reactions

You almost make me sorry I didn't go to London in January.

To be honest, I don't think my accent would be worth going to a meet - but I'm sure yours would

Do we really have so many people commenting in Peer Review that we can afford to start saying to people "don't comment on this problem," or "ignore spelling mistakes and leave it to our especially trained team." ?

I don't think so.

Well, 16 people commented on B'Elana's Ebelwei Express entry, and managed to clock up 199 postings between them.

Chronic verbal diarroea (Or typed, I don't know) by the sounds of things

Is it really that much of a problem? When I've got an entry in PR I'm really grateful when people post corrections because I want to do everything I can to correct them. If the authors keen then they should want to improve the entry and be grateful. Obviously it's good to combine it with a comment for newbies because then it's easier for them.

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I agree with what you're saying, Mckay. I disagree with having dedicated spell-checkers because: a) it places a burden on those people to check spelling, and then the entry suffers if one of the spell-checkers isn't available or doesn't post to a given entry; b) it takes the responsibility away from the author, who should really be in charge of running the entry through a spell-checker and proofreading in as much as they are able; c) some entries don't get as much reviewing as others - while B'Elana's entry had lots of posters, very technical entries or those of limited interest may not get as many reviewers and one of the few may not be a spell-checker; d) Just as Scouts do not read every entry in PR, spell-checkers could not be expected to read every entry, while their service would be absolutely vital to the system - so the limited resources would therefore just be screwing the entry.

I agree that it could be better if we held off with spelling corrections until some content comments have been made (even: yep, good one, you seem to have covered it all)

Yes, some authors like it, but I thought we were trying to make PR more appealing and less of a place to encourage more people to use it?)

I just really think that when something comes up that is a great nugget of an idea, but badly/poorly written, it should be encouraged to go to WW rather than have the PR people comment.

Because,the WW seems (to me) to be populated with people who are good at getting the best writing out of people. (I haven't had time to have a really good poke around there but that is my impression. Of course, I'm one of those who looks at PR and thinks " this is scary" so I could be wrong)

I have to admit to never using a spell checker. Can I set up British English on my German version of Word?

oh, and


Gnomon - you could always come to the German meet (A8232202) to hear B'Elana's accent in the flesh. so to speak

'I disagree with having dedicated spell-checkers because: a) it places a burden on those people to check spelling'

> But the spell ceckers would be volunteers - who, presumably enjoy doiung it - so it wouldn't be a burden.



'and then the entry suffers if one of the spell-checkers isn't available'
> wWell, we've already been saying in this thread that the (nitpicky-type) spell checking shouldn't be hgappening until the Entry has been in PR for its first week.

'or doesn't post to a given entry; b) it takes the responsibility away from the author, who should really be in charge of running the entry through a spell-checker and proofreading in as much as they are able'

Absolutely. The Guidelines say that we shouldn't submit an Entry to PR until we think it is virtually ready for the EG. This pre-supposes that the author has proof-read it/performed some kind of spell check.



nb. Especially in the casec of newbies, there is nothing wrong/inconsistency in a PR'r suggesting, even in Post 2, that the author run the Entry through a spell checker if there are a large number of such errors.

As a point of interest which spell checker would be acceptable to use?
I ran my current article through spell checker in Word, using both English/English and American English and the differences were vast to say the least!! This becomes an issue more with names and places.

just a thought....

As it's a BBC website, obviously English English should be used.

'and then the entry suffers if one of the spell-checkers isn't available or doesn't post to a given entry'

No it won't because (really) it is the Sub-Eds job to check final spellings. The 'Accredited Spell Checkers' just take some of this burden away.

Te advantage of 'Accredited Spell Checkers' is that the author isn't inundated with conflicting ideas on what consstitutes the correct spelling of a particular word.

(In an ideal world, most people in PR might apply to do the test for accreditation, so they can all then comment on spellings - but we won't keep getting conflicting advice)

the point about it finally being the sub-eds job is a good one.

But haven't we already established that we have been asked to do as much as possible in PR?

I think that it's a good idea, instead of posting reams of spelling crorrections, that someone just writes "please run this through a British-English spell checker"

(as far as I know Brit-Eng is the approved language of the guide)

Well said Sho

'But haven't we already established that we have been asked to do as much as possible in PR?'

Well, my major gripe of mine is the frequency in which a PR'r says such and such a spelling is incorrect, so the author changes it. Then another PR'r comes along and says that the first spelling was the correct one.

Then ensues an argument between two or more PR'rs as to which is the correct spelling...

This both confuses a newbie author and clutters up the PR thread.

IMO PR'rs either:

(i) Should not comment on spellings at all, or
(ii) We have PR'rs who are accredited to comment on spellings, and ONLY they should do so.

well, I'd prefer to go for a third option, because I do agree wholeheartedly that to have conflicting spelling advice is worse than none at all.

So, I prefer the "please run this through a spell-checker" coupled with the sub-ed taking over responsibility for spelling & grammar.

oh and while we're at it, maybe TPTB could let us know which dictionary should be the one which is (for h2g2 purposes) the difinitive one.

Very good point, Sho.

I vote for the OED, myself.

thatwould get my vote too.