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

"Maybe budhist monks can go with out food water and shelter. Maybe they can't."

They can't. My point was they know what the necessities really are, because they have them and very very little else - by choice. And my further point, reinforced by SEF, is that a LOT of people by contrast regard as "necessities" things which are definitely luxuries. Go round any council estate in England, a place where by definition people are at the lowest end of the income scale, and count the satellite dishes. (It was once my paid job to survey council residents' opinions of the quality of their housing, so I'm talking from direct personal experience, not regurgitating media stereotypes as you rather rudely suggest...). Or if you can't be bothered doing that, just walk into a job centre or benefit office, and count the smokers.

"It's pretty ridiculous of you to argue over the definition of "necessities" in this way."

I disagree. It's absolutely central to what we're talking about. The shifting definition of what the herd believes constitutes a necessity is one of the crucial features of modern life. Example: is a cellphone a "necessity"? Most people would say "yes", citing the need to be in touch with their spouse/family/friends, safety concerns, work requirements, whatever. Yet as little as five years ago, hardly anyone had one. They are now ubiquitous, so suddenly they're seen as a necessity - but they're not.

"I'm also going to ignore your initial comment about giving up fun as being unforgiveable, in my opinion that's nonsensical media gibberish that you've regurgittated. I'm not exactly sure for who's benefit..."

Fine, ignore it. It was for your benefit. And it's not something I've regurgitated, it's something I've SEEN happening, all the time, all around me.

Here's an example: twelve years or so ago there was a huge march on London to protest the poll tax. That *mattered*, that was important. There were important civil liberty and justice issues at stake, and the nation was upset. Riots ensued. People cared.

Within the last year, there was a huge march on London, BIGGER than the one protesting the poll tax, and for what? To moan about the government's intention to ban foxhunting. The ancient right, enshrined in law, allowing posh people to have a jolly time and enjoy themselves, was about to be taken away, and incredibly almost half a million people marched on London to protest this. Oh sure, a few of them were there for other reasons, but if it weren't for the foxhunting, they wouldn't have been there.

Nobody has been out marching protesting the end of UK democratic control over fiscal policy implied by possible monetary union. No comparable march was organised against the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, a law which massively curtails everyone's human rights to privacy and a fair trial. Nobody much seems to care about the European equivalent to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a law which will allow a computer manufacture to presume in advance that you are a criminal and deliberately cripple your hardware and software and monitor your internet activity accordingly.

Thankfully, we've managed a bigger march since, protesting something that really did matter - the war in Iraq - but nevertheless the impression is that nowadays the one sure way of getting people out on the street is to interfere with their FUN.

"Your initial comment was that people strike from work because they don't like work."

That's not what I said, and it's out of context. What I said was "It's easy to organise...a strike, because by definition people are only there for the money and don't really want to be there."

And I stand by that. It is easier to organise a strike from unpleasant jobs and jobs where money is the main motivation.

E.g. there never seems to be any trouble convincing miners, car assembly workers, or air traffic controllers to strike. By contrast, despite known grievances, it's VERY difficult to get teachers or nurses to strike, because they're NOT just there for the money.

"I merely pointed out that striking was a fairly serious action. I agree with your new stance"



"I can say that yes, even if people truly love their jobs they'll be willing to go on strike."

If people TRULY love their jobs, they won't stop doing them.

I was at school during a time of deep unrest in the teaching profession. Strikes were common. Oddly, the only lessons that were affected were the ones I hated anyway because the teachers were worthless, talentless timewasters who were clearly in teaching because they couldn't get a proper job. Other lessons, given by teachers in the same union, teachers who *should* have been on strike, were unaffected. Again, oddly, the ones unaffected were the ones I didn't want to miss, because THOSE teachers *wanted* to be teachers, they were talented, motivated, and inspirational, and they weren't going to let their dispute interfere with my education. They gained more respect than the strikers...

"I'm in grad school, and I love it. But we're getting a royal screw job with our current stipend levels..."



When I was at university, there were several "strikes" - I was there at a time when grants were being phased out and loans brought in. Students, even postgrads, went on strike to protest, which was hilarious.

You're in *school* - what do you produce? If you go on strike, who's going to care, or indeed even notice? Who, other than yourself, will be affected in any way?

There's actually a bit of a difference here - if by some miracle one were able to organise all the disparate groups and subgroups and individuals on h2g2 into a single, completely unified mass, and stop them contributing to Peer Review, or even better stop them subediting, the staff would, I think, have a little problem. Not immediately, but eventually.

Several times, I and others have said "if the quality of entries in PR isn't high enough, why not cut the number of entries on the Front Page down?". This suggestion has always been quickly slapped down with the news that one of the central requirements placed on the staff of h2g2 by their bosses at the BBC is to make sure that 25 entries a week hit the front page - regardless of quality.

Now, if everyone stopped contributing to PR RIGHT NOW, I estimate it would take about eight weeks before the staff, completely unaided by anyone outside their office, would run out of material and stop being able to produce those entries fast enough.

This assumes they're a bunch of talentless illiterates - which of course they're NOT. So double that - you're looking at four months before the lack of ANY input begins to bite. Couldn't happen. People *enjoy* writing entries, they motivate themselves. It's *fun*, at least at first. And they're *not* doing it for the money (), they're doing it for many, many different, personal, complex reasons, so there's no way you'll ever get them to stop all at once, or indeed, in most cases, at all. They're more like teachers and nurses than miners or car workers. And for that reason, they'll never stop.

That's all I'm saying.



"If a sub-ed or editor is doing more than merely proof-read and typeset the entries of those who are bad at English then PR has already failed."

Couldn't agree more. Which is why it winds me up when I see Italics posting to PR threads saying "Is this finished so I can pick it?", to authors whose entries are nowhere near ready. I've seen it at least twice, and I don't read more than 5% of PR threads any more, so I'm assuming it's pretty prevalent. I appreciate people may need jigging along - but if they're not improving the entry, surely the thing to do is leave it and move on? Don't pick it because it's 50% of the way there and hope the SubEd can make up the other 50%, because the evidence is that they can't.

Anyhoo, we're back on topic () so I'll leave it here...

H.

Well, let's agree to disagree. I disagree with most of what you've said, I've stated why, you just want to use your little quotation marks and go at it sentence by sentence, which is a waste of my time. I will address one sentence though

"You're in *school* - what do you produce? If you go on strike, who's going to care, or indeed even notice? Who, other than yourself, will be affected in any way?"

I'm in science grad school. So me, and my classmates, produce the scientific knowledge/research that results in the technology that will be used in 5,10 or even 20 years. That's why we get paid - and don't have to pay tuition. We also in our 1st year teach the recitations & lab classes. There's plenty we produce - otherwise we wouldn't get paid in the first place. You see, that's the way the world works. I guess you haven't realized it, but usually you only get paid for doing something, producing something. Otherwise they'd be giving us a free ride.

So, to sum up. People get paid for working. Try to remember that.

In your last section, you also point out how a strike would affect the italics - in essence, after bantering on for days, you've finally agreed with my original point. It's okay that it took you this long, but you should just try to be more polite about it in the future.

dave

"You see, that's the way the world works. I guess you haven't realized it, but usually you only get paid for doing something, producing something."

Excellent joke, do tell me another.

"So, to sum up. People get paid for working. Try to remember that."

Oh, thank you. You crack me up, you really do. Do let me know if you ever leave academe and join the real world, where I'm sorry to tell you there are far too many people being paid far too much and do no visible work at all. I can vouch for this personally, having been paid for the last six months of my previous job and not, to my mind, having done a single thing of value in that entire time (not for want of trying, I might add...). In my case it was because the management of my employer was incompetent, which was why the company was bought out and made 70% of their employees redundant. But I know personally at least three people who admit they're ashamed of the amount their paid (significantly more than me...) given that they don't actually do very much from day to day.

"People get paid for working." Priceless. I really must remember that one, it's a cracker.

"In your last section, you also point out how a strike would affect the italics - in essence, after bantering on for days, you've finally agreed with my original point."

Bearing in mind that at the time of writing your "original point" was made only 21 hours ago, I'm not sure I can see how 'bantering on for days' is possible.

And looking back at your first post, 637, your only discernible point was that ombudsmen was a good idea. I can't see any other substantive points, just some speculation about the motivation for strikes. I certainly do not agree that ombudsmen are a good idea, and haven't implied that I have. I remain convinced that they'd be a sop with no value whatever.

"It's okay that it took you this long, but you should just try to be more polite about it in the future."

It's okay that you can't remember your original point, how long ago you made it, the fact that I still don't agree with it even though you seem to think I now do, or that you've implied I've not been polite.

Never mind.

H.

for the record, I made a point about striking. You said it was no good. Now you've changed your tune.

Of course I remember the ombudsmen. What you need to learn is a concept called "stream of conversation". instead of chopping my responses up piecemeal and responding to each, you should try writing your own piece expressing your points, and addressing mine. Try practicing constructing your own essay - it will really help the coherence of your thoughts.

I have not changed my tune in the least. I'm not entirely surprised that you've failed to understand that.

I tend to quote previous postings so as to be absolutely clear what it is I'm responding to and why. I occasionally also use such quotes to support specific points. Use of evidence to support arguments is a fairly basic tool - I'm surprised you, who claim to be a graduate, have taken against the concept so.

As a concession to your apparent irrational dislike for specific replies, I'll not bother quoting any previous postings here. I shall merely restate my original position, hopefully in terms simple enough for you to comprehend.

Any proposed "strike" of users of h2g2 would have to be unanimously supported by all existing users to have any value. If even a small minority did not support it, it would fail. For this reason, it is unlike strikes in the real world. If 10% of firemen or miners, say, do not support a strike, it doesn't matter - those professions absolutely require a large team to be effective at all. If 10% of active users of h2g2 didn't support a strike, and continued working on entries and contributing to PR, I doubt the Italics would even notice the loss of the other 90%.

And it's worse than that. Even if 99% of users supported it, new members join h2g2 every day, and there could be no expectation whatever that they would care in the least about any issues which may have prompted striking. So the active contributors would see a step change, but would immediately begin to increase again. The longer any "strike" went on, the less effective it would be.

And it's worse even than that - because there is already a pre-existing backlog of entries in PR, and a literate staff capable of writing entries themselves, which would effectively mean that even if every single person currently contributing were to stop immediately, the staff could continue supplying the front page with existing material for months without any outside help - by which time there would be a substantial number of new users filling PR with new entries.

So my position was originally that any suggestion that "striking" from PR could be effective was flawed, in principle and in practice, and anyone bothering to strike thinking it could change anything was wasting their time. That was, is, and will remain my position. I'm baffled as to how someone who can spell "coherence" can fail to see the consistency, nay, "coherence" of this, and instead accuse me of changing my tune.

H.

Have you heard of the concept of steady-state before?

Owch!



I can see that a strike would get us nowhere. I'm going to go back through this thread sometime when I'm bored and make a list of all the things that people have griped at.

Maybe that way, I'll get a clearer picture of why so many people seem far more annoyed at h2g2 than I imagined.

Whoami?

As an afterthought, why don't all those in favour of a strike go on strike, and let the rest of us get on with enjoying h2g2?

Whoami?

Dave, the steady-state is neither steady nor a single state. Though your remark is a good example of which of you and HVL is the coherent one following a stream of conversation.

Whoami, I think you'll find (eg from the backlog) that that _is_ already the situation re individual strikes and the don't know don't care majority. In an ideal world we wouldn't be having to repeatedly explain all this as everyone would get it and the editors would have kept to the stated remit of the guide instead of deliberately sabotaging it and then making up unconvincing excuses.

HVL, the "standard" of an article soon to be on the front page may interest you. Someone else has commented that it might have fitted in well with the original sillyness level though. I'm still trying to decide whether I should keep to any of the daft secrecy rules given that the staff have broken plenty of them (plus house rules and criminal law) and also acted despicably in removing me from the volunteer groups on spurious excuses because they couldn't handle the truth of their hypocrisy. Obviously the staff don't deserve any consideration and I have doubts whether individuals would care about the pre-release of "secret" information.

"the editors would have kept to the stated remit of the guide instead of deliberately sabotaging it and then making up unconvincing excuses"

Could you link me to the stated remit and tell me what they've done fundamentally wrong? I'm not meaning to be rude, just ignorant.

Whoami?

"I think you'll find (eg from the backlog) that that _is_ already the situation re individual strikes"

Then why are there still people here talking about it? If they're all on strike, it'd be more one-sided than it is. Besides, did you not notice the 3 smileys?

"the don't know don't care majority"

I'm not part of that and I'm not on strike or even angry.

Whoami?

You still haven't read the backlog then, Whoami. The existing strikes are from the EG for some people and volunteer groups for others, not from the general chat/discussion side of h2g2.

What would be moot is why those of us in the know should bother continuing trying to explain at all given the way most other people here are giving the impression of being lost causes. I suppose there is always the miniscule hope that one or more of you will finally get it - but that's idealism over realism.

Do you take everyone here who isn't on strike to be either stupid or lazy? While I'd never go so far as to say that those on strike are in fact lazy good-for-nothing wasters - that would be inaccurate, or at least a sweeping generalisation. I'm busy actually getting on with h2g2 life as opposed to sticking around moaning about how awful it is, and surely it wouldn't have been that onerous to sum up what your problem is in two sentences. Since you are demonstrating an abruptness and unhelpfulness that has recently become characteristic in your postings, I'll just go on puzzling and maybe someone else will tell me, sweetly and succinctly, what your problem is.

Whoami?

Also, I have read much of the backlog. Just not all of it yet.

"I suppose there is always the miniscule hope that one or more of you will finally get it - but that's idealism over realism."

I'm not even going to latch on to that for fear of ending up sinking to your collective levels and getting involved in petty squabbing.

Whoami?

I'd certainly be interested to know who is 'on strike' from the Edited Guide.

The problem with reading all the backlog is identifying which threads are considered relevant backlog, and knowing where to find them. Locating and posting to whichever threads they are might then be considered as 'stalking' the more disgruntled contributors

What's wrong with simply posting a list?

Azara

"Do you take everyone here who isn't on strike to be either stupid or lazy?"

That is wilfully misrepresenting what I (and HVL) said. You are already stooping to Amy's level of debate by having to do that instead of having valid points of your own to make. As has already been explained, a proper h2g2 strike would be pointless. Those who are or who appear to be on strike are doing so for moral/ethical reasons of their own and/or because they are actively prevented from contributing in a worthwhile fashion by the staff and their editorial policies. To use a real-world example, a teacher who is unable to teach because the school has been closed due to poor management decisions resulting in lack of money is not really on strike or lazy. In general I'm opposed to strikes even when there is some chance of them working. In this case I would characterise most people as inobservant or deliberately looking the other way. I want people to change things for the better rather than carry on complacently pretending there isn't a problem (which would be the stupid and lazy behaviour).

"what your problem is"

It isn't my problem, it's the guide's problem but you would rather make it personal than to see it for what it is and attempt to deal with it. Entries are being rushed through PR without being ready, properly checked and accurate. Those who actually know a subject and point out important corrections are ignored. Accurate illustrations which are necessary to some subjects are being deliberately blocked or sabotaged in favour of trivial ones. All this is down to ignorance and poor judgement on the part of the staff and others.

"sinking to your collective levels"

That's another inaccurate remark. It would be nice if you could rise to our levels and standards instead.

You see my posts as abrupt because I don't expect to have to repeat everything for those who haven't read the backlog. To do so would almost constitute spam. It certainly doesn't contribute anything further for those who have read. I'm certainly not unhelpful as I'm the one who has been consistently offering helpful alternatives while others have just been saying no or misrepresenting things.

Wow, SEF, way to jump right in and get to work. Actually, if you knew about steady-state, you would have realized that it is extremely relevant to what HVL was talking about. That's why I asked. I figured if you knew, I wouldn't have to go over the basics. Here's the basic idea:

Consider the guide. There is a certain rate at which new people become volunteers/active workers. There is also a certain rate of attrition - for a huge number of reasons. The ratio of these rates determines (roughly) the number of active volunteers currently working on the guide.

Now, for example, if things change in the guide which affect one of the rates but not the other, the ratio is changed - and thus the number of active workers is affected. If you accept that getting articles on the front page is important to the EDS, then you realize the current number of workers is important to them as well. If they were to act in the manner you guys suggest, clearly that would increase the rate of attrition. Like you said, there would be plenty of new people to take their spots. But because it is a steady state process, the ratio would decrease, and the number of active workers would thus be decreased.

Anyway, I love the guide. I think it's great here. My original point was not in any way that I was unhappy. It was just to suggest that if there is a fight between EDS and volunteers, then it would be nice to have a third party arbitrator, independent - an ombudsmen. A mediator. That way things wouldn't get as acrimonious as they are now.

We got diverted onto the strike idea, but I'm not going on strike, I feel fine about the guide. THanks,

dave

Woah! I wish English discriminated between you (s) and you (pl). I was in part replying to just you, for example that stupid or lazy question.

"That is wilfully misrepresenting what I (and HVL) said. You are already stooping to Amy's level of debate by having to do that instead of having valid points of your own to make."

I never mentioned Amy. That was from the second part of my post - which was concerned with defending my opinion. As for "Do you take everyone here who isn't on strike to be either stupid or lazy?", I was pretty much just saying what the tone of your post seemed to me to imply.

I'm not denying that the people who are on strike are doing it for a reason or a perceived reason.

"...who is unable to teach because the school has been closed due to poor management..."

h2g2 was still open last time I checked - IMHO, the Italics' management hasn't been poor.

"In this case I would characterise most people as inobservant or deliberately looking the other way."

I don't believe I *am* inobservant. I'm aware that not everyone is as happy as I am - I just haven't done anything to warrant or simply result in conflict with TPTB.

Regarding 'your problem', it would have been better to ask 'your problem with the guide'. Sorry.

"Entries are being rushed through PR without being ready, properly checked and accurate. Those who actually know a subject and point out important corrections are ignored. Accurate illustrations which are necessary to some subjects are being deliberately blocked or sabotaged in favour of trivial ones. All this is down to ignorance and poor judgement on the part of the staff and others."

Or maybe just the unwillingness of some to play the game and be calmly and politely persistent. Improving the Guide was what this thread was about, once.



OK, there's the bulk of the discussion. Now onto the lower end of your post.

"It would be nice if you could rise to our levels and standards instead."

I'm still contributing to the Guide and working to make it better. I'm still asking questions of the Italics and trying to be politely clear about what I think needs to happen from time to time. Anyone got higher standards to offer than that? Well, some do. But I'd consider that those people are doing what I'm doing and then some.

As for 'levels' - my original question - this thread is descending into personal attacks. I do not initiate personal attacks but will fight my corner to the extent of putting down the insult. Nota bene 'the insult', not the insulter. There's a difference.

"You see my posts as abrupt because I don't expect to have to repeat everything for those who haven't read the backlog."

Not abrupt as in 'short', abrupt as in 'in an unwelcoming tone of voice'. You get angry with people and you become almost overtly rude to them. I'm sometimes guilty of this, but I seem to have more success in restraining myself much of the time.

"I'm certainly not unhelpful as I'm the one who has been consistently offering helpful alternatives while others have just been saying no or misrepresenting things."

I did not, even after reading your posts before the weekend, have any clear idea of what it was in particular that was the one thing you wanted to see happen first. So I asked. Sorry if you find my inquisitive nature unhelpful, extraneous or annoying.

Whoami?

That last post was in reply to SEF and was in simulpost with Dave.

Y'see - there are those of us, like Dave, who may be misunderstood, but who have constructive things to say that are getting buried under our squabbles.

Dave, I think the idea of a mediator is desirable but impracticable. I still feel prepared to talk directly with the Italics and resolve any issues civilly. I trust them to be reasonable with me, and so far this has worked.

Whoami?