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

Dunno, should you?

Tough call isn't it? Do you do as much as you can suggestion wise in Peer Review, with the possibility of putting off the author from entering an Entry into PR ever again, or do you do EVERYTHING in order that it is to the best possible quality when it goes Front Page?

And thanks for those btw Leo

Those geographical Entries are slowly but surely getting picked

I usually get really apologetic the first time I post syntaxical corrections. I dont want to appear obnoxious and antagonistic when I'm really not.
If the person is amenable, I dont grovel anymore after that. (I wont apologize to you anymore, MJ! ) If they get resentful, I back off. Their issue *shrug*.

You offer up and I'm sure people NEVER get moody

I think a lot of the problems with PR do revolve around how things are 'said'. Sometimes what you may think as innocuous can offend.

But that's human nature innit...

But like I said somewhere once before, I think some of the older Peer Reviewers sometimes forget that not everyone is as thick-skinned and open to honest critiquing as they are...

always glad to help with geographical entries! It's a pity there are so many places to go and no info on them. 'Specially considering that this is a guide for Hitchhiking the universe. *guiltily notes half-finished geographical entries in own PS* Glad to know they're getting in.

keep simulposting here.
Yes, was what I needed, and still need.
I guess when you march in all business-like and start saying "change this and that and that" it can scare people who aren't quite as business-like about it as you are.

Personally, I'm used to steel-wool criticism from my friends who never hesitate to critique my papers along the lines of;
"I would say that you don't drive your point home, but actually, 4 paragraphs into your essay I was still not sure of what the point was. You might consider stating a thesis in the intro paragraph, or at the very least, in the conclusion so that someone knows what they were supposed to get out of it. I would reccommend this essay as a great material for a paper airplane."

...which I admit to returning in kind, rather often. Have to switch into a different mode for PR, I guess.

It's finding that happy medium one would assume. And not the one who found the spirit of Elvis in nextdoor's cat.

Sorry, just catching up on the backlog ... and somewhat miffed by this:

Posting 10

>>F1897336?thread=665095&skip=60&show=20

Yet another.

I am losing faith in the system<<

Annie - you pointed out a few wonky links that I missed while subbing that entry (and I responded promptly and have done my best to make sure they get put right before it hits the FP) and so I'm somewhat at a loss to know why this makes you 'lose faith in the system'. Would it interest you at all to know *exactly* how long it took me basically to rewrite an Entry that had spent no less than seven months in PR (some of it still barely in English when it made its way to me)?

Please feel free to compare the original - A3052270 - with the subbed version - A9193179 - if you still feel that those trying to help out the system aren't pulling their weight.

Maybe if the Peer Reviewers on that thread had spent a little less time trying to spare the guy's feelings and a little more time getting it into some sort of shape, the Sub would have had more time to attend to the finer points.

One of the problems with the grammar and spelling nit-picking that goes on in PR is that we the Scouts were *told* to do that.

Back in the autumn of 2003 when the team was more than halved in size and we lost Ashley and Sam from the editorial side. The Scouts were told that the criteria for picking had to change, and that entries from there on in had to be as close to EG ready as possible before they would be accepted as a recommendation from a Scout. The reason for this change was that becuase they now had much fewer editorial staff, they could no longer spend as much time honing and polishing after an entry came back from the Sub-Eds.

At the time I thought the focus was wrong and that they shouldn't be asking the Scouts to do all of this, but that they should be supporting the Sub-Eds so that they were better trained at doing their job.

Unfortunately over time what has occured is that PR threads turn into nit-picking fests, which on occasions mightily piss-off authors and we get a bout of fisticuffs in PR.

so is there formal training involved?

And is the editorial staff beefed up again yet?

There is an editing test that one had to pass before being admitted to the ranks of the Sub-Eds, or so I'm told.

And no, there are still only 2 staff on the editorial side. And one of those is leaving in a couple of weeks time (But he is being replaced. So that's good news.)

That is DIRE. Only 2?!

I almost feel like it's a responsibility to help out... drat.
What about subeds? How many are there of those?

I don't know - twenty, twenty five Sub-Eds maybe - they seem to have enough to deal with the through put to keep the guide running. (As you can probably tell from my approximate punctuation I am not a member of that particular volunteer group. Nor am I likely to be whilst there remains a day of the week with a vowel in it )

As a Scout we quite often get a message from the editors that the Subs have dealt with all of the work that they've been given, and could we please go out and take another pick or two from Peer Review.

As to the staff, three in total is what we've got. And I think that three in total is all we'll ever have. Oh the days when there were eight of them

* does a spot of 'subject line correction' *

The sub-eds do have to pass a test. However, it can't be very stringent because Jims (I think it was) informed me of some mistakes I had made on the test but let me in anyway.

I think sub-eds are possibly the most important volunteer group on the site (though Scouts might disagree with me there) and the group could do with a bit of regular review to ensure that everyone's doing their job properly (but that does take staff reserves). Subbing is something it really does take skill to do - but obviously we're limited because we're all volunteers and don't have the training that a professional editor does.

Editing in general is a very personal thing, and in my experience it's very difficult to trust anyone else's editing to be as good or as 'right' as yours. That's one of the reasons I didn't put my hand up to be a Curator - I'd feel obliged to change edited entries to match what I see as the 'right' style, which is not the way h2g2 should run (though it seems to work fine for ).

I think one thing that is actually better now than in the days when there were more staff, is that the staff don't do as much editing of entries after the sub-editor has finished. This is more satisfactory for the author, since their individual voice is more likely to survive the whole process, but it does leave more responsibility on the shoulders of the sub-editor.

I don't see any problem with pointing out typos etc. in PR but I always leave it for a few days, or till there's been a bit of dialogue about the content first. There's no need to point out errors in a section if the author is going to rephrase the whole thing because of changed content.

Azara

No need to flog a dead horse eh?

All this talk of subbing being a problem, I might throw my hat into that ring. Been an ACE, been a Scout, ain't been a Subbie

But then again, the Entries I put into PR aren't all that great grammar and punctuaton wise, so p'raps not

But I guess a 'can't beat 'em join 'em' philosophy might work for some Researchers

Sooo, scouts only choose entries when subeds say they can handle them?
And then all the subbed entries have to be perused by 2 editors?
And only then do they leak onto the front page 3 at a time...?

Phew! Well, that explains things!

*Resolution: As soon as I quit my day-job, get American grammar down pat, learn British grammar... Then I'll become a subed. *

So why dont any subeds ever offer to become editors? If the subs do their job, shouldn't the editors' jobs be pretty simple?

"Sooo, scouts only choose entries when subeds say they can handle them?
And then all the subbed entries have to be perused by 2 editors?
And only then do they leak onto the front page 3 at a time...?"

That's not quite correct - all Scouts get to pick two-three entries a month, which get passed onto the Subs, which then get back to the Eds and go on the FR.

Obviously the amount of volunteers needed to do this job relies on the amount of entries getting onto the FP every day, which is related to what the staff can handle. Sometimes things need a little speeding up, so the Eds ask for *extra* picks. There are certain times of the year when entries into PR really, really slow down - Summer and Christmas, so it's helpful to get a backlog going sometimes.

I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't change the FP so often, but we should have more entries. So promoting five new entries three times a week would work much better than three, five times a week. Then we'd all get two days on the FP, not just the weekend entries.

As for spelling in PR - I have said this before, but I if there are so many typos that we need to create a long list, then I'd prefer to see the author steered towards a spell-checker so that they learn, rather than have someone else do it for them.

There may still be some left after that, but content should be worked on first, then spelling, as Gnomon and Azara have said, otherwise it's confusing for Scouts.

As for Scouts picking before an author has made changes - picks aren't processed every day - so if I pick something today, an Ed won't look at it today or tomorrow, and maybe not even Monday. Between now and the time they do process it it's possible that someone will post to the thread suggesting changes. It then becomes the Eds responsibilty wether to accept the pick or not. They can delay accepting it, or reject the pick. If there's a four page thread to do with spelling, then the Eds may not have time to read it to see if all the points are dealt with, and so accept. So it's not always the Scout's fault.

Checking spelling is helpful, but when it becomes the main point of a PR thread, that's wrong.

'As for Scouts picking before an author has made changes - ...'

Well, a major gripe of mine is that I've noticed Entries being picked when :

(a) it's obvious that there's still very active constructive convo. going on (ie some work on the Entry still to be done)
(b) Changes have been suggested in PR which the author has not addressed one way or the other. (it's these that should eventually find their way to FM, rather than being picked).