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

Quick idea that I think will be less controversial than most of my others...

I really liked h2g2's old Collaborative entries of the week. Some topics are best covered with lots of experiences and individual contributions. These used to work because the inhouse staff put them together each week. After that, the topics were put up, placed in the FM, and folks have to volunteer to take them on or not. Then the flow of topics stopped, I believe because people stopped volunteering to put them together.

Could we have a page, or a forum of some sort, where researchers can request that a particular entry be put up as the collaborative entry of the week? Not necessarily requesting a particular topic by the h2g2 editors, but if a researcher is writing an entry about something that everyone has an opinion on or a perspective about, they should be able to request that their entry draft be put up for collaboration on the front page (probably with an explanation/instructions at the top of the entry directing people to give their thoughts in the conversation forums). Then that person would put the entry together, credit everyone who helped, and presto-change-o, we have a better entry with minimal work for the italics Even if the researcher in question gives up on the entry, the worst that's happened is that a second talking point has been created.

I know that if this system had been in place, I would have asked to use it for entries like A1904951.

A few more thoughts occurred to me after I pressed 'post' (if you can't tell, I'm just making this up as I go along )

- Collaborative entries are a wonderful way to get people involved in the Edited Guide who normally wouldn't bother. That was one of the great parts of the old Collaborative Entry of the Week. I know my first EG credit came from one of those entries, and it was wonderful to see my name up there in lights for the first time...

- An entry put up for collaboration doesn't have to have a topic that is extremely collaborative in nature, such as A930232 or A930205 or one of the many many 'Tips' entries we've seen. An entry on a disease might cause an insightful, poignant response from someone who has been affected by it that could add to the entry. An entry about a place like the Great Wall of China or something may see a response from someone who's been there and has some useful advice. Essentially, the sort of collaboration that PR would provide if there were more Peers in the system in order to bring a broader range of experience into the collaborative process.

- If there's a single main author behind the entry, it will hopefully be able to avoid some of the patchiness of previous collaborative entries (PR should help with that too). I linked to A930205 in the last but it's actually quite a patchy entry. It's called Great Dates in History... it's got Handel's birth year and a section about a children's TV program, but it doesn't have the year Christ died, the day the US Declaration of Independence was signed or really anything from ancient history (which there's a lot of). I guess you could attribute that to the 'quirkiness' of the site, but I would guess it's really because those are the only suitable ones that the collaborators produced. Having an entry go through PR and having a main author would really help fill in some gaps that old collaborative entries sometimes had. So these could be even better

That's a good idea. I'm planning on starting a collaborative entry on birthdays at some point and that would definitely benefit from this system. Otherwise it would be restricted to anyone who sees it in EGWW.

Really good idea.
Only slight reservation is, are we sure that the resulting Entry (where it takes the form of a collection of individual reminiscences) will be OK for the EG?

Wouldn't have to be just collection of reminiscences, of course, but in most cases, yes. A930232 Stories from World War II was billed at the best Collaborative entry on h2g2 ever when it came out.

I don't want to take this too far off-topic, because your idea's the thing, but...
Do you reckon this is EG-fit, then?
A2213407
(by definition it isn't, because it's in the UG)

That's a whole 'nuther pot of potatoes.

"No claim is made for the veracity of these notes. They represent half-remembered, apocryphal experiences, garnered through conversations long after the event but also long ago. Their only purpose is a testament to a sad and shocking time, because the sadness and the shock, if nothing else, were real and true. "

This does at least suggest that it's not suitable for the EG. I'm off to read the rest of it now.

TRiG.

Read that Entry now (in sections, between proofreading, building a reference list for, and printing my mother's latest assignment). It's fascinating. And excellent.

TRiG.

Thanks.
It's also fact, only the kind that people recall rather than the kind that's written in books.
What people feel is what really happened. I think so, anyway.

But we mustn't derail Jodan's thread...

Ah, yes, back to the subject. Jodan: excellent idea. (Isn't that what the older Talking Points were about? Something like that should be revived.)

TRiG.

Can we not currently suggest Talking Points at A568721?

I am not sure how many talking points ever get turned into EG entries these days (have vague recollections of the italics doing such things, back in the days when they were legion ), do they not just sort of dwindle away into the ether normally? Presumably having gone to the effort of suggesting a TP, the suggestee would then provide the driving force to actually bolt an entry together...

Assuming there are EG entries forged from the TPs of old, the TP Archive would be a pretty cool place to link to them from (error, ugly preposition error) - with a little change in focus, maybe it could become the central collaboration integration location.

vp

There's a difference between talking points of old and collaborative entries of the week of old. There used to be both. But it's possible talking points could be used for gathering collaboration material, I suppose.