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

Entry: The Magic Art of Making a Skateboard Jump - A3933650
Author: paudie - U704629

Hopefully this has the right mix of humour and usefullness to make an official entry? Your feedback is most welcome.

To be honest, I have always wondered how this was done. I could never work out how you managed to get the thing off of the ground without either crashing to the deck or falling off. Now I know it's simply a matter of sleight of foot.

Heh! Only kidding.

There's a number of things that need pointing out here. One is that you have a number of problems with headers and footnotes. To be honest, I'm not an expert on these things myself, as I haven't been round for long. Hopefully someone else will be able to help you out with that. Another is "you front foot", which I'm guessing is supposed to be "your". Make sure you read it back before you post it, 'cos then you won't get idiots like me telling you where you've gone wrong.

A good subject, though, and it doesn't take the magic out of it at all.

I'm glad I've actually found where I'm supposed to post the damned thing now, as well.

Good to see you managed to find your way here, Yalson... Newbiness sucks, eh?

Nice read! Succint and straight to the point. Maybe the explanation bit could be done better - I think still didn't get it right (I'll try to explain how I understood it, maybe you find the weak spot):

1. In the initial position you have one foot in the air and one foot on the ground, and the skateboard underneath your feet, the nose in the air and the tail on the ground.

2. If you press your 'up' foot down on the nose you'd be puching up the tail (like a lever), which you're holding down with your other foot.

3. When you jump you release the tail which catapults up. The art is probably to keep the feet *just* in touch with the board. If you jump too high, it will not look like the board is glued to your feet, and you don't know where you and the skateboard will land. Jumping too low reduces the impressiveness of the ollie.

Did I get it?


Comment #2: Don't worry about format. One day you'll eventually learn all the details of GuideML, until then it's perfectly all right to write Entries in plain text, like here. I heard subbies prefer plain text to ill-formatted GuideML. (If you're interested, just search for GuideML and follow the links)

Good luck with this Entry!

IS

What a truly great subject for an entry! Well done on picking such a fab one.

IS is right, plain text that clearly shows what you would like done with it is happier for <./>subeditors</.> than Guide-ML that has serious issues. I always find it easier to go through and put new code in than to take odd code out and sift through for random bits and pieces.

*Dons pedantic hat and takes up the big PR notepad*

' act of getting the skateboard to lift off the ground'
A skateboard, rather than THE skateboard perhaps?

'but it is fact due to the skateboarders skill that has been built up through hours of practice.'
It? What it? Maybe take that out. Also this paragraph doesn't need to be in its own header, it's a bit short for that.

'(3) The front etc. etc.'
Nuhhuh...not liking that! You can't skip on footnotes

'The skater then pushes down with their back foot thus causing the nose of the board to rise. '...and continuing....
You started off talking about 'you' and 'your' and now you've changed to 'the skater'...you need to pick one and stick to it I think, otherwise it looks funny. Also there's often fuss about using 'their' because it's not grammatically correct. Technically it should be 'his or her' but that gets all uncomfy and long. I usually get round it by using 'the', as in 'The skater then pushes down with the back foot, thus causing the nose of the board...' (PS notice the comma between foot and thus)

'should have caused the board'
You've changed tense here.

'(4) Pure physics'
Avoiding explaining? Might be worth it you know...

Perhaps there should be something at the end about practice makes perfect? Is it possible to practice this whilst standing still? That way I could practice on my carpet in the privacy of my room before trying it outside

Does anyone else around apart from the author actually skateboard? I'd like to hear a second opinion to see if there are any secret tips for beginners etc.

Kathryn

I think I've dealt with all of the points you brought up. Should the explanation of the 4th footnote be included in the main body? I'm not really sure where I could fit it in without interupting the flow of the rest of it. Again suggestions/feedback is most welcome.

Hi, good idea for an article took me ages to learn to ollie when I used to skate. You could put something down on how it can be practised initially without moving. Also when I was learning people gave me these following possibly not very helpful tips...

1) When trying to first get the ollie stationary place the back wheels in a crack in the concrete which stops the board flying off

2) Push down on the back of the board with your toes rather than your foot to get more power (?) also crouch

3) Before jumping kerbs or over things practise jumping parking lines as they help you get the distance right

I think the carpet skating covers the practicing on the spot bit, but i'll add that in about crouching and using your toes. Cheers

I think the title needs changing - it sounds like you're going to wave your hand and the skateboard will jump on its own. How about 'How to perform an ollie (jump) on a skateboard' or something similar?

Good work

There's a slight inconsistency in that the 'The Technical Bit' section uses 'his' and 'he' to refer to the skateboarder, while the 'Coming Back Down' part uses 'them' and 'their'. I think you should use gender-neutral words as standard throughout the entry.

"board is attached to the skateboarders" -possessive apostrophe needed: "skateboarder's"

I've changed it to GuideML and I decided to stick with a male skater for the duration of the entry. IS there still some grammatical errors?

I like the title as is, and I think using the male 3rd person singular pronoun throughout is fine.

However, I do think the entry would read a little smoother if the first few footnotes were worked into the text, rather than put as footnotes -- that's a lot of footnotes for one paragraph, and some of those are about pretty key bits of info.


Mikey

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Congrats!

Good skate-based entry-ing!

Thanks everybody. . I'm actually really excited, this is my first entry to be accepted. I'm a real researcher now.

Aw well done! Great to see this go through!

that's neat .I could never get an ollie to work on my board. It's one of those old NASH kind with the brake in the back. Is that because the trucks are way too loose?