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

Every now and then h2g2 gets compared to wikis and in particular to Wikipedia, and people who suggest that h2g2 should be more like h2g2 usually have it gently explained to them why it should not. I agree that it should not.

On the other hand, I think there would be some benefit to incorporating some wiki-esque ideas into some areas of h2g2. For instance, if a "group edit" button could be added to entries so that *if* people wanted to work on an entry together they could click it and do so, maybe tie that to the GuideML that allows you to indicate the other authors so that only those people could edit?

Again, I'm not suggesting that h2g2 become a wiki, just that some function be added to the current structure to allow more than one person to edit an entry, as an option.

"and people who suggest that h2g2 should be more like h2g2"

I think h2g2 should be congruent with h2g2

... Now seriously. I see what you mean. I don't think that a group Editing feature would bring much. We're better off if all is in the capable hands of *one* researcher. Too many cooks, y'know... But that's just my 2cents.

HELL

and while improvements are being considered, how about the ability to edit posts? The pre-coffee ones always need fixing.

Of course I meant to type "more like wikipedia." But is h2g2 *ever* congruent with itself? Its disarray is part of its charm.

Too many cooks is exactly why I think it should be optional, something you turn on when needed. We have many entries with multiple authors, it always falls on one person to do the grunt work and some entries fall by the wayside because that one person gets tired of it, plus the method to copy an existing entry is, while easy, not obvious.

Good point. Turning the 'many cooks mode' on and off seems like a good solution. If the initiator of an Entry wants to keep all the editing powers in his hand the mode is turned off. If all agree that all should work on parts of an Entry mode is turned on.

Sounds good

HELL

Bingo!

Just had a brainwave on how to get people writing for the guide...

It's another idea we could pinch from Wiki...


When an edited entry is produced nowadays it can only link to existing entries, however, in Wiki - they also link to 'placeholder' entries - telling the person reading that no-one's written anything on that subject yet.

Why not create placeholder entries within the hootoo edited guide.


Right now, if someone visits the site and looks up their favourite subject and its not covered, all they'll get is a negative return from the search engine... So they might well ask themselves - did I look for the right words? Is the search engine playing up? etc.
If the guide includes a placeholder entry with just a title then they'd do their search and get directed to an entry, which would just be a subject header and a message apologising because the subject isn't yet covered and personally inviting _them_ to do something about it.

In practice, it could work as follows.

1)PR works as normal
2)Entry is picked
3)Sub-ed does his work and adds the normal links
4)Sub-ed then creates additional entries linked from likely looking words in the initial entry
5) Sub-ed sends finished entry back along with a list of created entries and their associated Axxxxxx numbers
6) Editors see if they approve of the sub-eds 'potential' skeleton entries
7) Editors update a page listing all the 'skeleton' entries (which would work a little like Challenge H2G2 - highlighting gaps in the guide for writers looking for a subject)
8) _All_ the entries are then set to Edited status (OK, this then messes up the number of edited entries in the guide)

Then, later on, writers could be deliberately 'filling in the gaps' (letting everyone in PR know that the entry is designed to be a replacement for skeleton entry Axxxxxx.
And, in addition, scouts and sub-editors should be looking through the list of skeleton entries to see if an up and coming entry in PR could be slotted into an existing skeleton entry or should have its own, new A number.


Advantages
An added invite for people searching the site to write about their favourite subject
An added list of potential subjects to inspire writers
Improves interlinking between entries

Disadvantages
It messes up the quoted number of edited guide entries (Info page)
More work for both sub-eds and editors

Disadvantages:

How does a subbie know if the other subbie hasn't picked the same word? Who gets to do the huge amount of doublechecking?
Often Entries are not about words but difficult concepts. You'd expect that a subbie knows more about a subject than the author of an Entry.

Exploring the idea: When I write an Entry I usually recognize gaps. Maybe the authors should post the gaps themselves and not leave the work for the subbies...

Beginning to like the idea, although I don't like the Wiki stubs.

HELL

"How does a subbie know if the other subbie hasn't picked the same word? Who gets to do the huge amount of doublechecking?"

I would limit the number of links to this sort of entry to a maximum of maybe two per 'real' entry going through PR. And the sub-ed should restrict themselves to 'obvious' holes in the existing guide - for instance if an entry refers to a country or a person or a place that doesn't yet exist - a stub entry could be created, complex concepts that haven't yet been covered by the guide should be avoided.

Who does the double checking? Firstly the sub-ed themselves checks the edited guide for existing entries so they can add links (just as they do today) and link to either stub entries or real entries (which will all be marked as 'edited'.
If two subs working simultaneously come up with the same reference, then that can be picked up when they return their subbed entries and the italics do their final checks (don't put the same subject into the list of available stub entries twice).

As to whether it's better for the author or the sub-editor to post gaps, I'm honestly not sure - as you said, the author may be better placed to recognise holes in his own entry - but there again, they may be the only one capable of filling those holes, so what's the point in having a stub entry that only they could fill in?

Happened to me. I wanted to write an Entry about Molecular Sieves. They work kinda like Sponges. At that time there was no Entry about Sponges. So I sat down and wrote one. If I had the chance to note that Sponges would be a stub, I wouldn't have written it and left it to someone else, possibly more capable than me on this field.

HELL

I have to say I don't agree with this idea. It certainly has merit, and if the EG were only about us, the Researchers, that would be fine. But I'm also interested in promoting h2g2 as a site where non-Researchers can come (funnily enough) to do research, and I think that if I were just coming to look around this site, and maybe get some background info for a school project, I might be put off by obvious holes in the Guide. I think it would be better just to use Challenge for entries that should be written.

And if we think of links that could be added to entries later, why not use Editorial Feedback? I make very good use of it, and sometimes post with very nit-picky things. I'm sure it annoys the Italics to no end, but there you go. I'd like to see some sort of project done where a few people go through all the entries from the early days and add to them some new links to more recently created Edited Entries. It seems like the newer an entry is, the more links it gets, and that really shouldn't be the case.

I suppose it depends on google...

If google ends up rating placeholders highly and doesn't show enough of the text for people to identify the link as a placeholder then it could be quite annoying... But that could be quite easily sorted if the text were written correctly.

For those people who deliberately search _within_ hootoo then it shouldn't make a difference - at the moment the search engine doesn't give them anything at all, if this were implemented it would just give them a placeholder - either way they don't get the information they're looking for - but it's just possible that they might come back later once they've found it and provide us with that information. At least they'll be certain we haven't got the information and not wonder whether they're using the search engine properly


I also see this as a relatively painless way of systematically increasing the interlinking between entries... Whilst I quite like your idea of going through the older entries looking for new links to stick in - it sounds like a soul-destroying job!

I like Whisky's idea in concept, if not the exact implementation.

Even without the stubs, there ought to be an invitation on the search page to write an entry if nothing is found.

And there should be some kind of "backlinks" feature, so that if I write an entry and link to an existing entry the previous entry will automatically link back to mine. In the margin along with "Referenced Entries" there could be "Entries that Reference This One". Only for edited entries though, otherwise it would lead to abuse - imagine a thousand and one "Nighthoover" entries all linked to whatever entry makes the front page.

<>

Très bien!

I hate the placeholder idea (sorry). It's the equivalent of clicking a broken link and I find it really frustrating to follow a link, only to find there's nothing there.

The edit post idea I like - people say that it can be abused to change inflamatory posts after someone has reacted, but to stop a feature because it *might* be abused is frankly a crap idea. Just build in a feature that means you can't edit a message if someone has relied to it, and only allow editing for, say, ten minutes. And then stick an automatic message on the post saying 'Message edited'. Doing it that way makes it harder to abuse, and means people are normally only changing typos etc.

I usually preview, and *still* miss mistakes that I then spot as soon as I've posted.

Oh, and I like the idea of a section stating which entries link to the one you're reading, that's fab! Anything to promote entries once they've left the Front Page is a great idea.

In the meantime you can put the A number of your entry into the search box, and it will come up with all the entries that link to yours. (I think...)

On the subject of Wikipedia, this news story seems a touch ironic...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050805/wl_nm/media_wikipedia_dc

Hmmm. That idea somehow seems a touch familiar... I just can't put my finger on it...

"Wikipedia has attracted millions of users from around the world and published more than one million articles in over 105 languages"

And we have... 7,000 in one language. Perhaps we congratulate ourselves a bit too much sometimes

Ye gods.*blinded by science*

No, i am *not* capable of putting that as a link;"Ye" and "GODS" But i am capable of writing. I won't do so on here simply because of techie stuff; the two skills do not necessarily go hand in hand.

I used to write for & spent at least 24 hrs preparing my article, but was able to send it by email, shazz (bless her!) did the job of transferring it into computersqueak; talk about unsung heroes.

Wikipedia works because you can just wander around happily clicking on highlighted words, but it's basically an encyclopaedia, whereas h2g2 is both a forum/chat and a storehouse of info. The search facility is a heap of c**p though; ever tried explaining it to a newbie? You end up just saying "Don't bother, just chat & i will find it for you"

zdt

They don't have an Edited Guide though, so they could everything that they've got (probably even stubs and placeholders) - how many entries does h2g2 have that *aren't* edited?

This is what happens when you search for h2g2 in Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2g2

zdt*wonders what happens in reverse?*

"For instance, if a "group edit" button could be added to entries so that *if* people wanted to work on an entry together they could click it and do so, maybe tie that to the GuideML that allows you to indicate the other authors so that only those people could edit?"

This account was set up for that specific purpose.