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

I think you've caught part of it by suggesting that h2g2 may be more functional. (It's not a completely sharp line, though. An encyclopedia entry on the Bugblaster would certainly note that a person with a towel wrapped around his or her eyes is safe from attack. Information doesn't become unencyclopedic just because it happens to be useful.) Wikipedia's consideration of the differences between the sites -- found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_for_h2g2_Researchers -- agrees that an encyclopedia doesn't suggest great restaurants.

Another important point is that h2g2 is more personal and idiosyncratic. An example given in the Wikipedia article is the Edited Guide Entry "A Dominatrix and Her 'Dog'", A545159. Wikipedia says that it's "great h2g2 content but would be out of place here."

The major difference is in the mode of collaboration. On h2g2, a Researcher writes an entry, others respond in the Conversation, and the Researcher decides whether to make any changes. As I understand it (I haven't spent much time here), the same basic structure applies to the Edited Guide, except that the final say is vested in someone other than the original Researcher. On Wikipedia, by contrast, the principle of open editing means that no one has that kind of "ownership" of any article. Everyone is an editor, and any editor can just make a change instead of merely proposing it. (Each article has an associated Talk page, so discussing different versions is possible and, indeed, encouraged -- but it's not required.) Wikipedians are warned, "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it." This unconventional setup definitely makes for a different experience for the participant.

As for your concern about whether either site is just a "mirror" of the other, I don't see that as a problem. There will always be some similarities. Right now there are differences in coverage, but as each site fills in its gaps, the two will converge somewhat (though never entirely). The main difference is in the process: Do you want to be a hootooite, a Wikipedian, or (as I think a handful of brave souls are) both?

I think the difference is as follows:

You read things in h2g2. You look things up in Wikipedia.

Take for example my entry in h2g2 on Octopuses at A2818659. I could imagine someone reading it all and thinking "hmm, that's interesting". To encourage people to keep reading, I've included fascinating details such as the fact that octopuses will occasionally climb out of their tanks in science labs and go to other nearby tanks to raid them for food. I've also included a lot my own personal opinion on how interesting octopuses are, using such words as fascinating, amazing, and so on.

The Wikipedia article at http://www.wikipedia.org/Octopuses, on the other hand, is much more neutral (although to give it its due, it does describe some octopus feats as 'impressive'). It relies more on links to other sections which the reader should follow if the topic interests them, and has a long and boring section at the end on the exact scientific classification of an octopus.

If I wanted to find out some fact about octopuses in a hurry, I'd to to Wikipedia, not h2g2. But if I want to improve my knowledge of the world, I'm much better picking a random guide entry from h2g2 and reading it from start to finish.

I don't see the difference here as being quite so stark. The h2g2 entry mentions the octopodal (octopussian?) feat of raiding other lab tanks for food. The Wikipedia article mentions that they can unscrew jars, and that an octopus named Einstein learned to open tin cans. Much of the interesting detail in your entry could reasonably be incorporated into the Wikipedia article. No one would contend it was unencyclopedic just because it was interesting. (I agree with you that some editors would want to reword comments like "amazing". You wrote, "The octopus's eye is an amazing organ, because it has evolved, completely independently from - yet has a rather similar structure to - the human eye." A more encyclopedic style would be to say something like, "The octopus's eye is unusual in that it has evolved [etc.]", stating the fact that it isn't common while letting the reader decide whether to be amazed or not. That's a fairly small difference, though.)

As for the taxonomical chart at the end of the Wikipedia article, your reaction illustrates a problem faced by both sites: What one reader finds boring would be exactly what another one was looking for. There's no one-size-fits-all answer. We all just hope that headings, internal cross-references, external links, and a search engine will make a site as user-friendly as possible. Incidentally, speaking of search engines, an h2g2 search for "octopuses" returned your entry in first place with a relevance of 73%. Uh -- 73%?? Your title and subject were exactly what I searched for. What do you need to get a higher rating -- "This entry was written by an actual octopus"?

My bottom line, on comparing these two texts, is that, stylistic differences aside, "Octopuses" is a subject on which the h2g2 entry is superior to the Wikipedia article. On other subjects, the reverse is true. For example, suppose you want to improve your knowledge of the world, not just look something up, and your particular subject of interest is Ken Livingstone. The top listing on the h2g2 search is A287651. This entry (not in the Edited Guide) is a quite personal view of the Labour Party's selection of a mayoral candidate in 2000. The Wikipeda article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Livingstone will strike some people as dry by comparison. Although it's admittedly devoid of colorful phrases like "fixed election circus", it is, I submit, more likely to improve the reader's knowledge if read from start to finish.

The difference between octopuses and Ken Livingstone simply reflects each site's reliance on volunteers. No one can force a hootooite to write an entry on Ken Livingstone that's worthy of the Edited Guide. No one can force a Wikipedian to edit the "Octopuses" article to include your information about the octopus fishing industry. So, for the reader, either site is still something of a crapshoot.

I think you've hit the nail on the head: Wikipedia = dry; h2g2 = .

Gee, I thought I said that it could SEEM dry!

Besides, I have it on good authority that having 'a very "dry" flavour ... doesn't necessarily make it boring ....'

For the participant, as opposed to a reader, the key difference of course is that anything you write on Wikipedia is subject to being mercilessly edited by others, and you can return the favor. That's why I haven't checked back here for several days. I've been embroiled in edit wars over articles relating to the U.S. presidential election. Some days I'd give anything to make the place a little more dry.

Octopi, not octopuses

Can anyone give me an example of Wikipedia doing a how-to?

Definitely not octopi.

That's a made-up word by people who fancy themselves as classics experts but aren't. It's either octopuses (English-based) or octopodes (Greek-based).

Like most encyclopedias, Wikipedia doesn't focus on the how-to. Nevertheless, some articles are detailed enough that they provide the necessary information. For example, the article on the martini tells you about the drink's history, its place in society, etc., but you could also make a martini based on the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_cocktail Even that example, however, doesn't have as much practical advice as the Edited Guide entry (A2181674), which is strictly a how-to.

Wikipedia articles are governed by the principle of NPOV (Neutral Point of View). Therefore, while the Edited Guide flatly insists that a martini must be stirred, not shaken, the Wikipedia article presents both sides of this important question. Both pieces, of course, hyperlink to information about James Bond.

>>Wikipedia articles are governed by the principle of NPOV (Neutral Point of View). Therefore, while the Edited Guide flatly insists that a martini must be stirred, not shaken, the Wikipedia article presents both sides of this important question. Both pieces, of course, hyperlink to information about James Bond.

Nobody in their right minds would shake a Martini. Except James Bond, who does it as a joke. This should be reflected in any reasonably entry on Martinis. But Wikipedia doesn't try to be reasonable, just neutral.

I can approach this issue with complete impartiality, in that I've never prepared a martini (by either method), never drunk one, and, for that matter, never seen a Bond movie.

At least one online reference states: "Shaken or stirred? Today, perhaps with a bit of influence from Hollywood’s action spy James Bond, more martinis are shaken than stirred ...." http://www.svguide.com/w03/w03martini.htm You may well be right that these people are choosing an inferior product because they think it shows them to be cool. Still, it's a significant human behavior, worth including in the article. We report on things even if we think they're stupid. Stupidity is part of the world -- a dismayingly large part, in fact.

The Wikipedia article is based in part on the discussion in "The Martini FAQ", found here: http://www.rdwarf.com/users/mink/martinifaq.html#shakenstirred That source also takes a more-or-less neutral position: 'So, shaken Martinis and stirred Martinis are different, but they are also equivalent, in that neither has a firm claim on being "better." Each Martini drinker will have to decide for him- or herself whether one method is "more equal" than the other.'

My personal preference is for a resource that gives me both (or all) sides of a question. I recognize, though, that there's some practical value to consulting a source that does more filtering than Wikipedia does. There are many Wikipedians who dislike the on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand tone in some articles.

Incidentally, as I understand h2g2, a hootooite who wanted to defend the shaken martini would have to write a separate entry on the subject. This illustrates a significant difference between the sites. The h2g2 reader might happen on only one of the entries, and so learn only one side of the debate. Wikipedia tries to encompass all significant views within one article, which means that Wikipedians waste huge amounts of time on edit wars. Neither of these solutions is perfect.

No. The hootooer is entitled to update the original entry on Martinis, and add the other side of the argument. The update will have to satisfy the people who hang around the Update Forum. If it does, it will be put 'into the Edited Guide as the new definitive entry on Martinis. It's a slow process, though.

Or, more simply, the hootooer (what a wonderful word!) could just make some comments in the conversation forum for the entry (which is considered to be in some senses part of, or at least an addition to, the entry itself).

TRiG.

I think there is one significant and telling difference: you describe octopuses "as intelligent as dogs." Wikipedia says their intelligence is "supposedly comparable to that of the average housecat."

H2g2 is for dog people. Wiki is for cat people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopuses is a working link to the Wikipedia article. The link in Gnomon's post above doesn't work. Maybe it used to, at one time, but it doesn't now.

TRiG.

"h2g2 was founded in April 1999 as the Earth edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the author of the series, Douglas Adams, and his friends and colleagues at The Digital Village. "h2g2" serves as a handy abbreviation for that rather lengthy title, with the advantage that most people are able to spell it."

That's from the Wiki article on us. It was, admittedly, probably written by a hootooer, but the fact that it's been allowed to stand shows that the 'Pedia is not entirely adverse to a little humour.

TRiG.