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

Figures - I ask you to read an entry I've submitted, and you ignore the four or five there, choosing instead to comment on a work-very-much-in-progress that is completely UNsubmitted.

Nice display of intelligence, Johnny. By the way - see that film, if ya haven't already.

Saw it. Read the book when you were still in nappies, whelp.

Groody vecks.

hello? this shouldn't just be a recreation of the hitchhikers guide? Er.. well of course not with a name like 'the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy' it should quite obviously be an on-line encyclopedia with no reference to the anarchy and flippance that exists in that publication. I think there is an element of snobbery here. The Guide (and indeed the web)should be about free speech. The whole point of the guide in the book is that it is unmoderated. I feel there is room for 'light informative' articles as well as 'nerdy humour' articles. But that's just me.

Well said! As I see it, that's exactly the point.

Uhm. An unmoderated forum will quickly descend into hell. There needs to be a moderation system in which editors (and really successful researchers) can distill the manure from the content and build this encyclopedia of conventional wisdom.

Which is what the Guide should be. The rest of the internet is useful for telling where Hudson Street is in New York City, but only the Guide will have information on the folklore of the Street, the best restaurants, etc.

...the bickering about whose country is better or worse...hey guys, we're all dodgey looking aliens of one form or another, lets just make love!!

:c))

right on!

At last you're making sense, Sine. Surely the Guide should, by definition, provide guidance - be it to places, people or things. That's why we'd rather know what roadside restaurants on I-684 serve the best pancakes and maple syrup, where the restrooms are cleanest, or a little local colour about things you'll see on the way - not the material of which the central divide is constructed! Leaven your facts with humour and insight, and the world will beat a path to your pages.

And I don't know what you guys did to piss J-the-G off - he's never like that with me

You've got me backed into a corner on this one with your immaculate scalpel of logic. In my defense, I offer my Merritt Parkway article.

I'm actually off to somewhere right now that'll require my use of 684. I may update it tonight.

Firstly, Bob, the Guide in Douglas' books was not 'unmoderated' - it was very heavily edited (witness Ford's entry on the Earth).

But Global Village Idiot has got it about right. The Guide has a function beyond mere entertainment, and that's what 'official' entries should be striving towards. (I'll state right here that I feel that many existing 'official' entries fall short. I'd hope that our researchers can do much better.)

Our job at this stage is to drive researchers in the right direction. We've tried to do that to some extent with our guidelines for submissions, but we'll be doing more as time goes on.

Imagination, intelligence, wit. The three watchwords of h2g2. You don't need them all in each article, one at a time is OK. An intelligent article doesn't have to be witty.

My dream for the site is that it will become a place where people come to read good writing. Since the internet is founded on words, it's about time we had a place where they are valued.

Consider h2g2 as an incitement to write.

What ruffled my feathers a bit was the tone of some of the criticism. Surely we can afford to be a little more charitable towards each others work. Not everyone is Oscar Wilde. Not everyone deserves an entry in the Guide. But, on the other hand, we could afford to be a little more supportive, could we not?

I've read some amazingly witty and insightful things recently. I've also read some absolute dreck. But if a fellow is trying to be amusing. Let's not flay the poor chap.

I agree. The whole point of attaching forums to every single article in the Guide was to engender comment, criticism and praise, which will (we hope) feed back into better, more useful articles.

For what it's worth, I think the Guide is off to a very good start. I think people are getting the hang of things. I think the H2G2 Writing Team has set a fine example and the editors are doing quite well making the Guide worth searching. And most importantly, I think that if all a person has to do is complain that everybody's articles but his are worthless, then it's bad form for him to do it in a place like this, where so many people enjoy sharing silly-but-informative articles! (Er, all right, drivel then but we're trying, and it's unfair to rule out and ridicule people who simply are not Hemingway as they do make up most of the population.)

For those of you who are being this rather mean person, please lighten up, 'cause it can't be any fun lurking about brooding over how you'd like it to be anyway. Constructive criticism is one thing, but there's no reason to be nasty about it. Jim and the people around him are doubtless working more than they probably should be, figuring out the answers to all the little problems like articles being below other Researchers' standards. So I very earnestly ask you to please try and enjoy yourselves, if not for your own sake then for somebody else's, because I think it's safe to say that you're bringing a good lot of us down. We, as a network of Researchers, are trying, damn it—give us time.

Er, all right, poorly executed. Sounded a bit rude. Infinite apologies for that. Also, I should have paid more attention to which "reply" button I hit because now the thread structure is all mucked up on account of me—the above post by me didn't actually have anything to do with Jim Lynn's last post. Sorry for that as well. And finally, it was a bit lengthy, as my postings are wont to be (I've yet to overcome my stream of consciousness in writing, but someday I shall) so I feel obligated to sum up. I suppose I can roughly summarize that post in this way:

Yeah, well, like you're so perfect, smarty-pants.

And a final apology for the completely non-informative, rather lighthearted and basically self-effacing nature of this particular message, as I'm doing nothing at all to help whatever case it was I was trying to make a point for earlier.

This all I meant really. I seem to be a bit misunderstood (as always ) I, like John T gardener, just fealt that some of the critisism was a bit harsh considering the guide is very young. And it also seemed to me that there was a little bit of snobbery. I didn't mean we should have a load of rubbish put in the guide, just that we should be careful not to over regulate.
At the risk of starting an arguement I'm sure the book says something about the guide being slightly anarchic due to the way it is written. Ford's entry was editted because Earth was considered unimportant. Not because of the way Ford wrote it. It also became alot more in depth in one of the books when Earth changed in cosmic importance (well for a short while). I hope I'm not so misunderstood now... at least not in the H2G2 anyhow...

I'm glad we're all agreed now. Maybe we should have a go at the Kosovo situation...

I'd agree with Jim even if he wasn't in charge . I guess what brought us here was a love for Douglas's Guide - which arguably had the impact it had because it was funny and well-written in a genre which was full of trash taking itself too seriously. If the aim now is to take that formula (not that any of us could hope to match DNA's prose) and add content people can use, this thing will indeed become the resource it should be.

John-the-gardener's also dead right about criticism. There are editors around who have to take hard decisions about what goes in and what doesn't - and I haven't seen a lot of evidence that the dreck is often making official status. Therefore, these people will receive rejection (and, I'm sure, encouragement) from the proper quarters.

As fellow researchers I think we can usefully suggest a change in emphasis or extension of an article's scope, correct factual inaccuracy, even obsess about the spelling and grammar (Spartus ) - and if someone asks you, "Is this good enough to submit?", it has to be okay to say you don't think so (so long as you say why). But I think we're all grown up enough to realise that widespread flaming will just result in a loss of goodwill and maybe get everyone fed up with the whole venture - and that would be SUCH a waste.

Okay, title intended to provoke occular attention(-:

The guide should aim to be informative - and only on occasion wildly inaccurate (At which time, I believe it is reality that is deemed to be at fault). Last time I looked there was more on the map than just the USA and Canada. Europe doesn't have interstate highways, but for some strange reason Hawaii does. If we try to consider our entries as we work on them then hopefully we can give the editors time to figure out how they are going to organise the official content.

As I recall, Europe doesn't have states (well, not yet, but they're working on it). There are plenty of enormous major roads wandering through all of the countries, though, easily on a scale with American Interstates.

Also "... none of us could hope to match DNA's prose" rather misses the point about writing, I feel. Certainly none of us could out-DNA the man himself in his own particular style, but we are all supposed to be writing in our own styles. There are many people who can write just as well, and to measure other efforts against DNA's prose is misleading.

Hi Hrung, glad to see you haven't collapsed yet .

Sorry, it was just a throwaway piece of false humility, and actually I was trying to make almost the same point. Maybe I should have said "don't worry that your prose might not be as polished as DNA's".

You're right, we shouldn't try to write like the Man Himself, and who knows what talent may lurk out there waiting to be tapped? One of the great things about this space is that for some people it might just provide a place to explore their talents, frustrated writers who would never dream of sending something off to a publisher - and some of the stuff people are coming up with is genuinely good. I certainly didn't mean to discourage them.