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

F4864907?thread=3510525

Too extreme? Not forceful enough? Clear? A rant?

Well considering I got told off by Jimster for saying just the same sort of thing in PR, all I can do is . Jimster told me that the ideas in the crystalline quartz thread were not 'scientific' and therefore I was talking out of my arse. He was wrong: they were false, therefore implicitly falsiable and hence scientific in nature (albeit total tosh). I had however lost the appetite for the fight at that point.

You are however quite correct. The problem is that the people who run this site don't actually have the training necessary to allow them to distinguish between fact and fancy: they wouldn't recognise a scientific idea if it hit them smack in the mouth. Like I said, watching this site go soft is like watching an old friend succumb to dementia.

I am going to rewrite the entry on Crop Circles so that it describes what actually went on as opposed to what some people would like to believe went on. I would appreciate some co-authorship, if you're so minded to help me help this site regain some intellectual credibility.

And my response:

F47997?thread=3510525?thread=&post=41240974#p41240974

and I still say well done for kicking up a thread that had died down.

That entry was someone's hard work. Someone who spent time and effort in researching and writing up the entry.

It was the Eds decision to accept the recommendations, so go have a go at them instead of making Serephina feel even more crappy than she already does.




Well done.

I take it that this is a slow handclap that I'm hearing?

There's been too much uncritical reviewing going on recently. PR has become far too much of a cuddly place. I *tried* to put a stop to it by saying exactly what I thought about an entry on crystal therapy. Now, people may take exception to my tone but they can't take exception to the substance of what I say. Serephina is a grown up and she should be able to defend her highly contentious views if she wants them to be accepted into the EG.

Before we set about making people comfortable we ought to try to uphold the aims of this site, which are to promote the best in factual writing. And as long as I perceive fluffiness taking precedence over this latter aim, then I'll happily continue to be a gadfly.

It is true, though, that an entry about a leading Wiccan is a factual entry, even if the Wiccan herself had crazy views. I don't think you can stop people writing entries about things they are interested in.

But well done if you can point any factual errors in them.

Critisism needs to be constructive, not just critisism.

Yes, Serephina is a grown up girl, but it was the EDS decision to accept the recommendation made by which ever Scout it was that selected it.

What you are doing is making her feel like her entries are not welcome. They are well founded (as in research done) and well written.

The guide belongs to everyone and you are certainly NOT the person who decides what can or cannot be put onto the front page. Neither is Serephina.

Go take this up with the Eds directly.

Try

h2g2feedback At bbc dot co dot uk

If some people think I'm being offensive by raking over the embers of that debate, then they can hit the Yikes button. I could always not have indulged in 'kicking up a thread that had died down' but the cetral argument itself - as to whether we should give mystical entries the same credence as factual ones - is nowhere near settled and little conflagrations will break out all over this site until it has, started not just by me but by others like Gnomon.

It'll certainly be a sad day for h2g2 and for Douglas Adams's memory when that Crystalline Quartz entry gets picked, as I'm sure it will.

If it was my own views I was presenting in that entry I would defend them of course, but its not my views in the entry at all, i was merely writing about someone else and their views which as far as you know could be nothing like my own! Is it fair to have a go at me for stating that someone had a pparticular belieef whether founded or shared with others or not? i never said she was right, only what she believed.

As for peer review not doing its job properly, i agreed with that all along. If the way id written something was likely to upset other people i would gladly correct it if pointed out to me in PR as i have done before. As it was the entry was in PR for a long time with barely an comments made and no criticism what so ever. I would like
to learn to improve my writing skills from those here who are much better at it , but this is becoming increasingly dificult and disheartening.

No, I am not going to do that. I am not harassing or persecuting her. Neither am I attacking her personally: I am not leaving nasty messages on her Personal Space or backing her into a corner. I am commenting upon the entry itself: which is what the point of the thread facility is. As it happens, I *don't* think her entries are well researched at all. Her idea of research is finding material that bolsters her belief system and then writing it up, as opposed to finding out as much as possible and then coming to a decision based on the evidence. If she had done her howework properly, she'd have given up on writing about such things as crystal therapy as she would have found out that it was all rubbish.

The argument (related but not necessarily championed by you, Gnomon) that an entry on Wiccan practitioners can be factual is simply a Trojan Horse for allowing other unsubstantiated assertions into the EG. It's about time it stopped.

Astounding. I have spent months coming and going with you, FM and as soon as I think I have a handle on who you are, you chuck me in the deep end again.

Well here's some for you from me too then, FM.

"This debate hasn't been about people being wrong. It's been about ideas being wrong, and still being accepted into the EG."

Address your concerns to the Editors then, big guy. Serephina is a great , but despite that, she does not write Hootoo policy.

You going around stomping all over everything and everyone you don't like is not bringing about what I presume you are after - a Hootoo that harks to some idea *you* have of what it should be and do.

Try to be a little more constructive and do something with all that energy of yours that benefits Hootoo as opposed to simply insult, offend and bray irritatingly and ineffectually in our faces.

I have no argument with you personally, Serephina. I have a lot of argument with your ideas.

If you want to *really* improve your writing and your research, then I suggest you branch out. Read something that challenges your beliefs and try to argue with it. Amd, if you can't argue with it, then change your beliefs.

Here's something which would be an ideal starting point, I think: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/prince/prince_index.html

Does this mean we shouldn't have entries on Dark Matter or Super String Theory, since they are both theories that haven't been proven 100% by modern science. Does it mean we shouldn't have an article on Stephen Hawking since alot of his beliefs in the way the universe works haven't been proven and some of which are highly controversial?

How dare you! I didn't set this site up. This site was set up by Douglas Adams - a thoroughbred rationalist - and I signed up to it because *it* shared *my* values and allowed me to write. It represented good writing that anybody could take part in. It was meant to be *factual*, informative and entertaining. If I give the impression of 'a Hootoo that harks to some idea [I] have of what it should be and do' then that's because that's how it advertised itself when it started. I'm trying to defend the *original vision*, and so I get accused of being a mullah.

I think you really don't like what I'm saying, do you? That the original vision of this site is becoming polluted? Well, let me tell you something: before I submit *anything* here it's checked and double checked for accuracy from a number of sources and I make damn sure that what I'm saying is right. That's not to say I don't make mistakes. But if I am demonstrably wrong then I will make sure that put it right. If half the stuff that had gone into h2g2 recently showed anywhere near the level of diligence that I apply to my own writing we wouldn't be having this argument. And you should be ashamed of yourself for valuing inclusiveness above this. Your supposed to be a SCOUT, for heaven's sake.

you make it sound like I have only written entries related to witchcraft, I haven't.

I'm sorry, Ged: were you Serephina?

damned shared computer..

last post from wrong account

sorry about that..he signed inbriefly to post here n i forgot to change back to mine

Address yourself to the person you speak to, FM. You are confusing us now.

Everything you say need to be said to the editors. You are again spitting into the wind. None of us affect Hootoo site policy.

DNA set it up, the editors run it.

You don't run it, I don't run it, the scouts don't run it.

THE BBC and the EDITORS run it.

Go talk to them.