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

Hi, Editors and friends:

I was looking for new responses to my entries to which I had not yet responded and got to my UG entry "Cinco de Mayo". I noticed that it is under 'Prose', and wondered if this was a truly fitting place for entries of this sort.

My first thought, and I still suggest it, was to suggest an additional UG area called "General Weirdness", or "General Weirdness of the Day". So, I thought I should, first, search for 'Weirdness' and see what the search returned.

Is it well known that there are a multitude of entries - written and Researched by: "Apollyon - Grammar Fascist" and edited by: "Post Team" - with undifferentiated titles, "Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being"? I'm sure that as entries in 'The Post', they were an interesting series; but, as part of the whole of the guide, shouldn't they have individualized titles to help the browser to pick one, or find one they want to re-read?

Let me know what you think.

Yours, in hootoo,

Hi Fords, the h2g2 categories are here: C1233 - I think 'prose' is the only suitable choice out of those.



In the UG archives, your story is in the 'Fact Based Articles' archive: A1077833

As for your second suggestion: If you searche for 'Fallen Angels' (just to pick one of the series you mention), the search engine will come up with various guide entries, and 'Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being' comes up twice: once it is the article itself, once it is the archive page. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the quick response, but I'm not sure that I communicated my concerns well enough to be understood.

Entries like my 'Cinco de Mayo' and 'How Pyramids Got There Shape' may fall under the UG and the CAC, but the 'Cinco de Mayo' could as easily (and more accurately) fall under 'Fiction' than under 'Prose', IMHO. What I was thinking is that perhaps the UG should have a section like 'Humour', or 'Weirdness', or 'Fun Stuff'.

To me, Prose conjours up an expectation of non-rhyming poetry.

As to my other concern, I searched for 'Weirdness', and these are the first page of results:
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The following results were found in h2g2
ID . . . . . . Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Status . . . Score
A2910827 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A2869527 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being Archive . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3323710 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3292715 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3090935 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A2961254 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3408644 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A2928332 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3736596 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A557859 Weirdness calls.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3350116 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3513791 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A2869536 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3643193 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3033389 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3189684 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3125710 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3062521 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A3385622 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
A2888544 Thee Incredible Weirdness of Being . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . 27%
No Previous Results | Next results >>
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Sort of hard to tell them apart, eh?

Any response is appreciated.

The archive is in second place. I'm not sure I understand where your problem is, so I guess I'd best opt out here.

I think, perhaps, Ford means she'd rather see results like this:

A35590836 Toubab Travels - The Road Upcountry - 27%
A33024052 The Toubab Travels Archive - 27%
A36222897 Toubab Travels - Tendaba - 27%
A51272787 Toubab Travels - A Nasty Bout of Tout - 27%
A32753856 Toubab Travels - Flying - 27%
A51933062 Toubab Travels - Anyone for Tennis? - 27%
A50479455 Toubab Travels - Return to The Gambia Part Two - 27%
A33780756 Toubab Travels - The European Crocodile - 27%
A49807713 Toubab Travels - Return to The Gambia - 27%
A34362713 Toubab Travels - Twitching - 27%

...where it's a bit clearer from the search results what each column is about.

If so, that's a fair comment, and is something I vaguely thought about before I became Post Ed. (I never got round to suggesting it, though as you can see above we've done it from time to time). I can't think of any reason why we shouldn't try to include a 'subheader' as above in the title of our regular columns, stories and poetry from now on if it makes search results more relevant.

Thanks, Skanks!

Yes, that was precisely the kind of thing I was on about and hoping for. I was about to opt out myself, but I'm very glad that you pulled up an appropriate example!!

I dimly recall that there used to be a time when we'd title Post entries that way, where it was clear that each entry was a different part in the series. I think it used to be done much more consistently in Shazz's time, and that I was kind of intermittent about it. Apologies if I'm responsible for confusion!

(EMR emeritus)

IMO, it does help the visitor, and does make more sense, to differentiate the entries in the title.

I had created a series based on survival tactics indifferent climates, that didn't go anywhere; but that's how I handled it and I think it works much better.

Any chance that they'll be 'tweaked'?

We'll certainly change the titles in the future, and if I get time I'll try to go back and retrospectively tweak them. However, we've published something like 20,000 articles now, so we won't be able to get through them all