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

G'day, from sunny New Zealand TG. I have just subbed your article on "God".

The edited version lives at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A417025 and will remain there for a couple of days while I finish subbing some other articles.

Please have a look and if you have any feedback post it in this forum, where we can debate it.

I, basically, changed your North American English into Brit English, corrected a few literals and added a few footnotes.

I agonised over the articles title. Maybe "God - A Researchers Thoughts", would work better. Maybe not. Just something to think about.

Loony

Sorry it took a while to get back to you on this... it seems i missed the chance to review the thing. Sigh.

I did want to argue for leaving the title as it is. I wrote a piece entitled 'religion' that was retitled as 'religion - a perspective'. I mean duh, of course it's a perspective... so is everything written here. I find that sort of thing to be an annoying concession to people's puerile sensibilities; it's not as if, when a researcher does an article on 'time' or 'truth' or some other ineffible topic that it winds up being retitled to 'truth, a researcher's humble opinion of the topic but you might have a different one and that's ok too'. I see no reason why this particular piece should be different... it even offers an entymological definition of the word 'God' right at the beginning of the article, which I would think in itself makes it a worthwhile candidate for being the starting point for the official guide entry on 'God'

I was in conversation with one of the editors some time ago, and he was already through the piece three or four times. Most of his comments had to do with length and detail, which I have tried to provide in successive rewritings of the thing.

TG, the edited article is now back on your page. It is awaiting perusal by the paid editorial staff at h2g2. They have the final say on things like title and structure. I did not recommend a title change.

My, perhaps badly put, point about the title was that your point of view is subjective. Someone could write an equally good yarn about God from a different perspective.

I refer you to the article on vegetarianism. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A124589 It was written by a meat-eater and has upset a lot of vegetarians. (Check the associated fora).

This, of course, means that it is not the ultimate guide to vegetarianism - only a subjective view.

In my humble opinion, to be the ultimate guide to vegetarianism, this article now needs to be re-written to take on-board views discussed in the aforesaid fora.

In time, once the God-botherers have had a decent go at your yarn, maybe the same thing could/should happen. Include other views so h2g2 ends up with a well-rounded article on God that people can read and then make up their own minds.

I realise this point of view relies rather heavily on having faith in the mental competence of our fellow human beings.

Incidentally, I found your article well-written and informative.

Loony

I just took a look at the piece, you did an excellent, excellent job with it. Thank you for the time and energy you obviously put into it. The footnotes are marvellous too. I'm quite impressed, I hope you get around to editing some of the other stuff I have waiting in the wings. Nice to see that someone here understands that editing isn't synonymous with 'butchering'.

You are correct about the subjectivity of the piece and the fact that it might stir some debate, but I do feel somewhat confident of my opinions given that I have spent most of my life studying to form them. While I respect that people may have strong feelings about some of the content, though, I think (I hope) that I am at the very least challenging those folks to express themselves in a reasoned fashion rather then just screaming 'heresy!' Fortunately, I think many researchers are here at the Guide in the first place because they prefer DNA's take on reality (humourous, cynical, and irreverent) to the kind of view espoused from pulpits on Sunday mornings.