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

Entry: Ways of moving in caves - A1086752
Author: Potholer - insensitivity comes as standard, apparently - U92580

Rather like my earlier cave development article, I was trying to write a comprehensive overview article on cavers' movement methods, but it got rather long, and I had to leave vertical techniques for another time.
It seems to be an area diffcult to describe simply in words, and I would appreciate any feedback, especially where people cannot visualise things I have tried to describe.

Looks a lengthy piece so I shall have to wait until tomorrow to discover how you have dealt with the subject of moving with firmly clenched buttocks. This is my enduring recollection of my one (and, I hope, only) experience of the underneath of this green and pleasant land. I cannot imagine how I allowed myself to be persuaded into it after surviving the terror of rock climbing. I suppose I became convinced that that latter was a latent agoraphobia which would not arise if I were underground, quite forgetting that I am distinctly prone to claustrophobia. It turned out to be nothing like the tolerable and almost pleasant Treak Cliff, Wookey Hole or Gloddfa Ganol outings.

Were any canaries harmed during the making of this entry?
If so, I believe a warning label might be appropriate.

Like the good plaguesville I shall await the morrow when I am more inclined to the time and the task; perhaps by then I shall have your answer. If in fact canaries were sacrificed for the greater glory of these underworld adventurs then I shall consider it my moral duty to remain ignorant.

~jwf~

That brings it all back.
Including the part when I managed to get my arm wedged, wrist and elbow, in a tight spot and had hysterical visions of trying to break it to get out of the squeeze.

Off for a nightmare, now.

All of which reminds me of the old adage - Whats ecstasy in caving ?


Peeing down your leg for the warmth.

Interesting read.

For a cold, dry caver, ecstasy is a hot carbide generator clamped between the thighs. Mmmmmmmm.

In the main, my experience in caves has been of the guided kind with paraffin lamps.

A nice entry, clearly explained.

Could benefit with a bit of space between the paragraphs, though.

Regarding spacing, I wrote it as plain text, and just threw a few HEADING and BR\ tags for legibility just before posting to PR.
I'll investigate if 'P' tags make things a bit more readable than they are at present, and change things accordingly.

Cheers - it does seem much better using paragraph tags.
I've also done a quick spell-check and found quite a few typos that are now fixed, and added a little to the dynamic movement section.

You explain the methods of movement really well. It makes it easy to visualise what is happening as one moves through a cave.

My one criticism would be that it ends too abruptly. I feel the need of a paragraph or so at the end to bring the entry to some form of conclusion. A possibility could be moving the first paragraph of the 'Deciding How To Move' section down to the bottom of the entry.


Good stuff, and I look forward to the forthcoming vertical movement entry

Thanks - when I went for another read-through today, I had also thought the end seemed a bit sudden, especially with the work-up to the dynamic movement section, but I hadn't really paid much thought to how to fix the problem. (Also, a little problem with my editor meant I had to do the editing twice and I'd forgotten most fo my earlier thoughts, including about the ending.
When I was writing initially, I only really stopped because I thought I'd about reached the maximum practical length, and thought I'd better just stop if I was ever going to finish.

I *had* thought about a "Caving is dangerous - find a competent local club" kind of ending, but they are a bit cliched, and this is an article about ways of moving, (and quite safe ones at that), rather than a "Why don't you go caving?" kind of piece, so I thought it wouldn't really work.

I think your suggestion is excellent - even without looking at the article to see which paragraph you were referring to, when I read what you wrote and thought about which part of the movement section would work well as a closing, that was the piece I thought of - it does have the right kind of relaxing and future directed tone to work as a conclusion, and it doesn't entirely fit where it is at the moment, being as much about the caver's mind as the movements themselves.

I'll play with your idea and see what else needs tweaking to make it fit.
Cheers,
P.

I think it is definitely better now I've rearranged it to put that paragraph at the end.

I'm a bit unsure about the order of paragraphs in the introduction - there doesn't seem to be a particular direction or structure there, so I'll have to give it some thought.

Shuffled introduction around a bit - moved the 'arms used while running or walking' para to the start of the bipedal section, since it seemed a bit out of place in the introduction.

I'm unsure about the title - maybe "Methods of moving in caves", or possibly something incorporating "Horizontal movement" or suchlike would be better?

Brilliant entry - worthy of Editors' Chocie if only because of the oddball title.

A couple of things: The 'Introduction' header is a bit superfluous - we know it's an introduction, and besides I seem to remember the Towers frowning on headers at the beginning of entries.

Secondly, there's a lot of *highlighting in asterisks* We have perfectly goo tags for that sort of thing, you know.

Apart from the quibbles, I really enjoyed reading this.

B

'perfectly _good_ tags'...

B

Ok - 'Introduction' header removed, asterisks replaced by italicisation.

PS
Is bold text deprecated in GuideML? - my last (first) solo article I tried to highlight first usages of significant words, and they all got redone by the sub-ed.

If it *does* make it to the front page, I hope I'm around to see it - I missed my other article appearing there (assuming it actually did). *sniff*

For emphasis purposes, the Writing-Guidelines suggest using italics. Bold should only be used for list-headings.

B

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B

YAY!!! indeed