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

By god, you do love a challenge, don't you?
So Pin, where do we start to help the h2g2 community acheive more striking entries? I understand Shazz is looking for more opinion pieces in the Post. The UnderGuide would of course be interested in helping to promote more creative, experimental writing in the EG.

Let me know how I can help, old friend You're 100% right about the EG's deterioration, and I'd rather be part of the solution than the problem. Maybe both for a little while.

If you want to help, Jodan, you need to persuade the italics. I guess that would mean Jimster for starters.

As you know, I've tried several tacks for getting creative writing into the EG. Some were fairly obviously bound to fail, but trying is important.

More depressing are the ones that should have succeeded. My belief took a huge knock when the twin-Entry approach was refused (it was tried with Babbacombe Lee, remember). The EG-style Entry actually got Front Paged, but they refused to allow a cross-link to the other one - even though it was UG-bound and would therefore have a 'safe'(ie uneditable) version. That, IMO, was a really terrible decision.

The UG was always going to be a two-edged sword. We've captured some good stuff, but we've also made it easy for the petrification of the Edited Guide to proceed.

Did you read that marvellous thing of Farlander's, with the auto-mummifying Shinto monks? Wasting in sealed tombs, sipping at water, turning into husks over months and years, even while they still breathed. When I saw that account, I was chilled to the bone, but the image that it made in my mind was of the death of the Edited Guide itself.

There is almost no lifeblood in its tissues now. It's a pathetic thing of stone, and it's going to die.

The best of us, Jodan, believe in something deeper than the EG. I once entertained thoughts of rebellion, of leading a Scouts' Revolution that threw out the old guard and transformed the EG into a celebration of writing. I didn't realise then how far the decay had spread, or that there's really nothing left to fight.

My most useful contribution is to write instead, and to demonstrate what we're capable of. You're one of those closer to the Towers and to the decision-takers, I guess. It'll fall to a few in that privileged but unenviable position to argue the case for saving the periphery of hootoo, once the stench of putrefaction at the core becomes intolerable. Not long to wait now, I think.

Well, you asked for inspiration and I gave you this. So it goes, eh, Jodan? That's the seal for you.

Pin (very thoughtful tonight)

The trouble is that the italics don't come out from the towers to debate the issues with the public anymore. They get away with it because the conservatives (or are we the conservatives? Sort of reactionary, really) who don't see anything wrong defend the powers.

A scout's rebellion, huh? I don't know about that. The scouts, as a whole seem to think that there's nothing wrong, or that only a few minor tweaks are needed.
If you want to get the community behind you (which we need before the italics will take us seriously), there needs to be a grass-roots campaign. Convincing individuals on a one-by-one basis. None of this melo-dramatic stuff either, nor the exaggerations. People can't listen when they're thinking "this guy is really comparing a website to Shinto monks?" (I appreciate that comparison, though)

We'll need Ben.

You bet we'll need Ben.

(We need melodrama, too, but let's park that for now)

I reckon the a good first step is an opinion piece for The Post. PR opinion has been featuring heavily there lately.

Or a guide to making a creative, original entry for The Post. It's a pretty simple concept to explain after all.

Who asks Ben?

Funny you should mention a piece for the Post.

I had a go already, but it wandered off and went all weird and self-indulgent. It'll come in handy for something else

The PR-pieces are nice antipropaganda. There's nothing quite so off-putting as a proselitysing anorak.

Yeah, who asks Ben?

Well, there's you and there's me. She thinks I'm a shiftless, manipulative, cowardly little sh*t who enjoys nasty mind-games. What she thinks of you doesn't bear thinking about

But I'd say this one's your shot, Mr Figurehead. Either that or call in some serene counsel - Waz, maybe?

I can't write anything for the Post. Everything I've ever written for the Post I ended up regretting for something or other. Something Ben would be good at.

But I don't know what she thinks of me, but I'll give it a shot soon. We'll need Waz too, obviously. I think that's something for you.

You meant Ben for the Post?

Naw. Ben for the representations to the Towers, surely?

We can do the Post. I can do the Post, even, provided you're not going to object to the melodrama.

Pin (and don't bother with the 'Shirley' joke, thanks)

Shirley, you didn't think I would use that joke?

Ben for as much as we can get out of her.

I can help with the Post, though. An encouragement of creative writing editorial, a guide to making your entry creative, or something else?

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Good choice

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Forget it. Oxymoronic

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The only other two options I can think of are :
- whimsy/rhetoric, which is the way my first stab came out (Fun, but not constructive)
- a polemic against the kind of people your being excessively courteous towards in the ImprovePR thread (Fun, but destructive)

So the first idea's right, I reckon. I mustn't be too worthy, though.

I reckon we suggest it to Waz and Ben, and then all four of us try write one. Share off-site, and iterate a hybrid to satisfaction.

I've also wondered about compiling a list of hootoo's "must-reads", maybe 25 or so, to accompany the Post-piece. Such a list wouldn't tread the same ground as the UG (since some M-Rs are in the EG, for starters).

I'm wrong for that job, though. I'm too vain not to be in it

You're right. The best guide to making an entry creative is two words long - "Have fun."

As much as I would love to rant about those people, we do need to be constructive. Maybe another time when I'm tired of building up and start tearing down.

Waz, Ben, Pin and Jodan. Some great things have come from that team. Let's do it.

How about Must Reads in the EG? Great showcases of interesting, readable, factual entries that already exist in the EG. The "Have You Missed?" section used to be a good place for this, but I think it got too big and included some not-so-great entries.

Joint email to Waz and Ben I say.



(of course you'd be in the 25 Must Reads. A1117289 was one of the pieces that made me want to help start the UnderGuide)

You send the e-mail.
I'm gonna draft something.

Dammit... Alright.

Send me the draft when you can.

Hey you two. You've gone quiet on this, is it still a runner? If it's a case of too many cooks, or this particular cook has rocked the boat, feel free to ditch this cook.

You two were on a roll and it's a good idea.

Waz (moulinexing metaphors)

You read the e-mail?

No, hang on - of course you did.

So you know why I've gone quiet, right?

Well now, yes.

Thing is, we've been talking about three different things of which the Post article was just one and not necessarily, reading this thread, affected.

I read your comment in the thread about DNA's Vision and it was spot on.

Likewise the e-mail comment about what's fiction.

What can we do in the end, though? There are cliques and the people in them have to boss things. We try to make a point, we get blanked.

Y'know, I've read that DNA thing with the cheesecake a dozen times and the only thing I'm sure he's telling us is "You'd better make sure this site keeps evolving once I'm dead".

...so what were the other 2 things? Like how to light up Entries entering PR? The way I feel at the moment, the answer to that one is to douse a few low-numbers in petrol

The scope thing does not necessarily come into 'An encouragement of creative writing editorial', though I could understand how it might. So scope was a third issue. The '10 Best' was the second. Until I read this thread I hadn't realised that a selection of 'must-reads' came into the Post article too.

I was re-reading this, A3764306, earlier; BBC content should be;
of high quality
challenging
original
innovative
engaging

low-numbers - perhaps it's a grumpy old researchers thing setting in. There is a certain amount of sighing going on in threads, which is new to me.

You'll get yourself branded a deviant if you're not careful.
You're thinking out of the rut.

The view of this from the BBC's terms is something else that's poorly represented. An example of the closed mindset is the near-universal assumption that, when (if?) the hordes who've just seen the film sweep into h2g2, we're going to have to adjust their perceptions of what the site is about.

I rather think that Auntie might quite like the adjustment to apply to the long-term squatters rather than to the newcomers.

I think the sighing among some of the die-hards is quite refreshing. It's a relief that some people are waking up to the threat of Death by Blandness.