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

Entry: Germans - A strange Breed - A776702
Author: If you're not confused by what i'm saying, you havn't been listening - U197518

I originally wrote this 2 and a bit years ago - i have updated my comments and my whole persona has changed in that short time. Comments on evolution of personality and other experiences of a similar kind would be appreciated.

Have you read this Writing-Guidelines?

Yes why? If you don't agree or like what i've written i'd rather here why from your fingers - not by refering me to another page. Interpretation is different for all.

Whether I, or anyone likes it or not is not important in this instance. The Editors of this project/website/Guide have decided to impose certain guidelines upon entries in the Edited Guide. This entry falls foul of several of those guidelines, and since the sole purpose of submitting an entry to Peer Review is to get it into the Edited Guide, the entry has to meet those guidelines. This one doesn't, so it either needs to be rewritten to follow the guidelines, or taken out of Peer Review.

I liked it, personally I can identify with it a bit - though I've never been anywhere near Germany, there are significant German-American communities in cities near mine and the bit about taking a long time to pick a table rings especially true.

Having said that, Oojakapiv is right. It has some potential to become an Edited Guide entry, but it will have to fit the Writing-Guidelines. But if you're unwilling to compromise with your entry, there's always Writing-Alternative, which is a place where entries can be that do not need to fit those guidelines

I already had this discussion with the h2g2 editors when i originally wrote the article. I argued my point on freedom of speech then and i stick by it now. What is the point in writing only "nice" things about topics. If there is something to say about a race of people, then it is the right of that person to say it. I have not said at any point in my piece that Germans are bad people, i have mearly noted my observations and the observations of other races that i have had the fortune to encounter in my journies.

If you are against freedom of speech, you are against the whole idea of h2g2.

Douglas Adams wrote that Vogos write the most disgusting poetry in the universe. Political correctness has gone too far. I know Germans who have read my entry and agree with it them selves - they laugh at it because they know it's true.

The editors allowed the entry to stay in the first instance and i think you should respect that decision they made.

Thank you - your constructive critisism is welcomed. I'm sorry to seem stuborne but i don't like being told that i can't express my view and opinions. I'm not racist, sexist or any other ist for that matter.

I am always willing to compromise - which is why i wrote the update at the bottom of the entry. I have mellowed in my opinion and i was hoping for feedback from others who have had similar experiences and can sympathise (like you self) or disagree on what i have said. Not just assume that whay i am saying is some kind of racism.

Firstly, we don't write 'only nice things here', we look for entries that are balanced.

Secondly, your freedom of speech hasn't been curtailed in the slightest because your entry has been written and it is part of the Guide. It isn't part of the Edited Guide, and in its present form never will be, but it is already a part of h2g2.

Thirdly, if you had this discussion with the Editors before, what makes you think that they will have changed their minds?

Fourthly, just imagining that you have a right to do something doesn't automatically mean that you do.

Fifthly, Vogons are a fictional race and an invention of DNA's imagination so he could say what he liked about them.

Sixthly, the Germans are not.

Seventhly, the argument that a comment about a group of people is okay because some members of that group have agreed with it doesn't stop other members of that group from being offended by said comment. That argument for justification is utterly unsupportable.

Please don't try to engage me in any more discussion about this - the facts won't change unless the entry does, and I have no control of the facts.

I don't think anyone is calling you a racist At least not in this conversation.
I think it's fairly good natured in its attitude. If it had an overtly vicious anti-German tone, I'd probably like it less. But as it stands, especially with the bits where you say they have a heart of gold, it reads like how a relative would engage in some benign ribbing.

Still though, it will have to be restructed dramatically to go into the Edited Guide. If you're not willing to do that, it should come out of Peer Review I'm not disagreeing with your message, just saying that the format and presentation aren't what the EG is looking for right now.

Fair enough - thank you and duely noted. I don't like the tone of Oojakapiv. Hear hare... here. , but hey ho - we can't win em all.

Just wanted to get some feed back and that's what i got.

In that case, could you do us a big favor and go to the PeerReview page and click the 'x' or 'remove' button next to your entry's name? This will remove it from Peer Review. If you want to resubmit it when it meets the guidelines or to a different forum, there's certainly that option in the future

Done. Ta.

I am not German. I have no German relatives, and no financial or other interests there. That said, I think your 'analysis' is specious, and based on the little time you have been there, perhaps a little unfair!
The Germans, as a people, are highly efficient, technically quite brilliant, extremely polite both to strangers and one another in a formal sense, have exquisite table manners, and (until very recently in history), are a self-disciplined nation. Our English disease of itinerant 'yoof' thugs and so called football 'supporters' has gradually, osmotically, 'poisoned' their disciplined culture, manners, and generally superior post-war society; mainly from a certain jealousy of that disciplined superiority.
Consider this: the Germans do not slouch in the perennial (English) 'sofa' eating from overstacked plates of slushy unhealthy grub whilst trying to both balance the plate on fat, Jeaned knees and zap a 'plastic' enemy with two- handed remote controllers! The Germans do not have our 'out of control' classroom 'dumbos' who spend 10 years in school and come out innumerate, illiterate, sexually incontinent, and generally foul-mouthed and aggressive, from too many state, and even the odd few private 'schools'.
Phew! I needed that!

" I don't like the tone of Oojakapiv. Hear hare... here. , but hey ho - we can't win em all"

Well you see, we frequently get people signing up for this website and clicking the little radio button that says 'I agree to abide by the terms and conditions of h2g2', and then complaining about them when they transgress them. It's like voting for a aprty in an election without reading the manifesto and then complaining about everything they do once they get into power.

You obviously havn't been to the same parts of Germany that i have. In fact definatley not!!!!

And what parts are those, then?

It doesn't really matter. This piece is no longer in Peer Review, so we no longer need worry about it.