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

The great golf courses was always going to be a bit tricky as you need some serious wedge to play 'great' golf courses. I suspect most of the community doesn't have that kind of folding money...

The ski and amusement park type of collaborative articles are generally going to be a bit random because people write about where they've been. If no-one on Hootoo's been to Val D'isere, then you have end up with an article about ski resorts that doesn't mention Val d'Isere...

If it had been done as per a normal article, the author would have researched it and added a bit.

Sprout

Anna:

Is there a problem with addressing them here? The conversation is ongoing and there are interested parties involved here, and now you've slogged through the backlog (well done ) we've got the staff interested, which is good. Is it because the thread is in a "public" place, and as someone suggested, it doesn't "look good" to be questioning quality somewhere this popular? If this is the case, might I suggest in return that if you really don't want this discussed, you could arrange to have this thread moved to Editorial Feedback, thus preserving everything in this thread and allowing it to continue somewhere less out in the open...

Also, I appreciate there's a big, ragged backlog, but you've read it all, surely some things sprang out?

For starters, what about making it part of the ACEs job to encourage people to check out PR and to write edited entries? It needn't be a big, time consuming task - some ACEs (no, I can't remember who) practically automate their greetings as it is, so adding a few extra lines to the formulaic messages they cut-paste-and-forget won't be much of a hardship.

I'm sure that now you've posted, others will mention specifics. (hint hint guys).

H.

SEF: "That feedback is often pointless though"

i disagree. feedback is very important. i think all enris should receive quite a bit of feedback from different people before ready for the EG. if feedback is ignored by the author and the entry still gets in the EG, then the EG has lost out.

feedback is what is used to make an entry. if feedback is not listened to, then the entry is not ready for the EG.

the best example of an entry made brilliant from feedback is my own entry on Nothing edited at A925805. i received a lot of feedback, some of it positive, some of it negative, had to do a lot of work and had a hard time with it in peer review, but because i was willing to put the work in, it became a brilliant entry. if you want to know what it was before feedback, i think after about one upate is this version, then look at A862797. the difference is massive, and it was because of the feedback of the community and their additional knowledge that led me to more research for the entry and going through at least 5 different versions, that the final entry was created.

if people are not willing to put in the type of work that i put in, then the quality of their entries is not going to be very great. the community must provide feedback of entries for them to be good.

so, what point am i making?

ok, i have a few suggestions:

1. all sub-editors contact authors:

the best entries in the EG for me are those where i have discussed with the author and things have been changed and added through that. this type of things should go on.

2. community artists contact authors and read the entries:

the prime example i thiunk of of this not happening is the entry Tetris - the Game, edited at A938874. this contains a graphic, and although the graphic is done well, it is done totally inaccurately by someone who hasn't a clue about the game. the author themselves commented about the graphic in feedback immediately. it has 2 faults:

1. all tetris pieces are made up of 4 small blocks, while the graphic contains some with 3, and
2. when a row is completed, it disappears, and there are completed rows in the graphic.

it is faults like these that detract from the entry through the graphic, and the graphic really has a detremental effect since it is inaccurate. for that particular graphic i think it should be r-done, looking similar except with just a few alterations to make it accurate.

now, if the author had seen the graphic beforehand to check it, and the artist ha read the entry, then the graphic would ot have been inaccurate.

3. badges for edited entries - bad idea. however, i think it would be good if the number of edited entries eachresearcher has had were listed in the bar on the right hand side on their personal space.

4. peer review categories:

i like the idea of there being a few categories in peer review which entries are stored in. this would allow people to find the entries they have some knowledge on easy so they can comment on them. this would also allow people to subscribe just to certain areas, so that each new entry in that area they can look at and perhaps comment on.

5. University Review:

this is something that i suggested yonks ago and was told it was being looked into, yet nothing has happened. i'm surprised it hasn't been created alread, since it ain't too hard to just add another review forum.

presently university entries go straight through to the edited guide. this is right. however, i think they should go through a university review where researchers go to check each entry so that they are all factually correct, and suggest improvements etc. this would be peer reviwe except without the need for scouts and selections, just a need for that all important thing, feedback. presently peer review is the only real forum that people regularly comment in, so there's no point submitting an entry for a university project to thw Writing Workshop, but a special review forum for these entries which would just be as important as peer review would be brilliant, and is needed.

6. Co-author thing:

not needed. everyone who contributed to the entry is added to the written and researched by section, and that is good enough for the edited guide, with the sub-editor being credited as the one who 'edited' it.

however, i do think that entries should be able to have 2 people or more with editing rights. this would involve an entry containing a created by section, a written and researched by section, and an edited by section, with there being a box like the researcher box where U numbers can be added to give people editing rights, but if there are problesm in the future then the creator of the entry which is recorded on the page has ultimate rights.


that's all i can think of right now.

spook

Dear Hoovooloo,

I know it's not the greatest answer, but it's administratively easier to answer your questions if you start a new conversation in Editorial Feedback for each issue raised. Plus we can keep on topic in each thread. And yes, some things sprang out, so I'm thinking about them already!

Abi's more than happy to answer your first series of questions.

Anna

F47997?thread=276069

Encouraging Newbies to Contribute to the Edited Guide

As per Anna's request.


- X

F47997?thread=276110

Editorial Process: Image Problems

Whoami?

made my comments there.

This post has been removed.

Hoovooloo, we all know that you write pretty well. I ought to know, I was the sub for the Conkers entry.

Whoami?

Hoovooloo: "'that's all i can think of right now.' Good."

That could be taken as an invitation to shut up. In fact, it's hard to see it being taken any other way. Hoovooloo, that was probably not necessary - demolish Researchers' arguments if you want, but stop short of demolishing Researchers. Please. It isn't nice.

Whoami?

Ok, I'm going to have one last go at pursuading people to like the badges idea, and then i'll give up.

First of all, i think it was spook, said he didn't want badges but wanted the number of edited entries in the User Data box. I think that would be much worse than badges, for a start, it wouldn't take amount of contribution into account, and it would be an exact number, meaning people certainly would write poor articles just to get ahead of someone else.

If the 5 entries a week thing was kept, then the badges scheme would improve the quality of entries, because there would be more of them, as i've already explained. People might right poor articles to try and get the badge, but they would never (in an ideal world, almost never, in this world) get through PR, so the person wouldn't get the badge anyway.

I don't think it would take anything away from the reward of having written a good entry, as people who count that as a reward still would, and people that don't, yet can still write a good entry, would get a reward in a more "tangible" form.

Tango

Hoovooloo

The interest of allowing two people to edit an article would be to allow genuine collaboration.

A concrete case where this would be handy came up recently. I was discussing with Luckystar about writing a collaborative article on Bruges. At the moment, either we start a specific U-page, or one person has to take responsibility for the actual editing.

It would be great if one researcher could start the entry, put down some headings and a few paragraphs. the second researcher then comes along, writes some more paragraphs on the bit they know best, edits the first paragraphs etc. When the researchers working on it are happy, they put the entry into PR.

Writing by committee isn't always a good idea, but it would be nice to have the option to collaborate properly.

Sprout

Spookacious, interesting you bring up the Tetris graphic. We have this extremely big constraint on us artists: we can't depict anything that might put the BBC in violation of copyright. Believe me, there's been some complaining in the past, as to how one is supposed to depict something without depicting the actual "it."

Tetris went back and forth between the artist, the CA team and the Italics quite a few times until we all thought we had an honourable compromise.

There are other examples. Unfortunately we can't always paint whatever we'd like.

Lil

Oh, and we do read the articles we're supposed to illustrate.

sprout:

There's no need for two people to be able to edit the same entry. I'm pretty sure it would be a technical nightmare to implement, and you can already write by committee with a minimum of effort. An example:

A773778

I wanted to write an entry on Dilbert. But Jordan had already started one, here: A732962

I didn't want to step on his toes, and in any case I liked what he'd already written, but he
(a) didn't have the time to finish it and
(b) didn't want to drag it through PR.

So I just started a new entry, copied the GuideML from his entry into mine, filled in the gaps and away.

There was then nothing stopping him from copying that back into his original entry and making more changes, and so on. He didn't, but that's beside the point.

It's not as elegant as working on just one, but if there are just two of you and you're reasonably organised, you can just keep copying and pasting, updating, and so on until you zero in on something you're both happy with.

H.

Oh for crying out loud Hoovooloo, how many times do I have to repeat myself?

I WAS NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT A DISCUSSION ABOUT QUALITY IN A PUBLIC PLACE - I EVEN CONTRIBUTED WHEN THE THREAD *WAS* ABOUT THAT. I WAS COMPLAINING THAT THE THREAD HAD DEGENERATED INTO PETTY NAMECALLING AND HINTED-AT NASTINESS. THAT MADE YOU ALL LOOK CHILDISH, AND H2G2 A PARTICULARLY UNFRIENDLY PLACE.

*doubts the message will get through this time either*

kelli:

If you're replying to post 362, may I direct your attention to the first word?

"Anna".

You are of course quite at liberty to repeat yourself until you're a superintelligent shade of the colour blue in the face.

In the meantime, do I have your permission to address other people on this thread?

H.

Hoovooloo - let me tell you this once:

stop being an arrogant jackass.

when you stop assuming your right, your better then everyone else, and you stop insulting me, and you grow up, then you've stopped being a jackass.

i don't like people like you hvl. i will therefore not be replying to any of your 'rude' and insulting comments and points.

spook

Sprout:

Your idea of having two researchers with editing rights is interesting, but I'd be concerned about one overwriting another's changes - causing more problems that it'd solve.

This happens sometimes on shared documents on networks and it's a real bother to get straightened out...

hvl, your posts are getting ruder and ruder, you really need to do something about that. I don't think what's happened on h2g2 is a good explanation/excuse for your rudeness, so the only other options i can come up with are that either you really are a rude and horrible person, or that there is something going on in RL that is making you this way. I'm willing to give you the benifit of the doubt, so i suggest you take advantage of this, and deal with whatever your problem is, and leave any controversial discussions alone until you have, and you can come back with a rational mindset.

Tango - wondering why he's doing an ACEs job...