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

sorry to pick you up on this ashley, but are you really serious when you say "If an entry is accepted, then there is still time for amendments to be made"?

with the console wars entry it was chosen, subbed, and published as the editer's choice within 2 days, all while having unanswered points needing a response in the review thread.

I don't think that reflects well on anyone, be they scout, sub, italic or the editor who's choice it happend to be.

that was four chances to spot that it wasn't ready yet, and a short enough thread that there was no excuse for not looking at it.

I know of an entry that was picked up by a scout 17 hours ago and is now shown on coming up as "returned from sub-editor" apparently it actually only took 5 hours. I must say, I think it really is a good entry, and it's a brief entry, and it was in PR for two weeks, and I'm going to probably get in trouble cause the author's a friend of mine. It just that your post, xyroth, made me feel obliged to reveal the truth.

There are two things in this thread which made my brain chug. Firstly, deadlines is a deadlines. Leaving an entry in PR for a week or a fortnight and then acting with undue haste comes to the same thing. The chances of an expert in pre-Imperial Roman Archaeology turning up on any _particular_ day don't improve with waiting.

I like the idea of using the clubs though. The H2G2 Community is littered with special interest clubs (I came here via Sprout's page, who cycles here every day). There are foody clubs, musicians, cafes, libraries, cyclists etc. Perhaps Peer Review entries should be cross-posted to these self-elected community groups.

Peer Review remains monolithic with everything in it. The scouts trawl the community for active clubs and dump the entry's cross-post in them.

It would help unify the community/researcher worlds. It would bring interesting posts to the attention of those who have already expressed an organic choice to participate in a subject. It probably wouldn't require much additional work.

Xyroth:

Yes that is what I am seriously saying - an example of this can be found here: F75027?thread=271268

This is where an entry was scouted and then allocated to the h2g2 Editors hours later. Some of you may ask why we do this, and the simple and honest answer is copy flow. We promise one thing and that is to deliver five Edited Guide Entries a day. We need to build up in advance a stock of entries for various reasons - Community Artists, BBCi Front Page Promotion, holidays (both public and staff), etc. All our volunteers do a sterling job and at times we need to grease the wheels a bit ensure smooth flow of copy. Having this slack also allows us to look at other areas of the site such as the discussion on war guidelines, the Underguide and other projects. The entries we usually take are those that are small and have not generated a lot of debate in Peer Review (such as recipes or geographical entries). We are a finite number of Bold Italics which is why we empower the Community with feedback via PR.

As Phoenician Trader noted, we could wait for years for an expert to drop by. At the moment, the system flows quite well, things do slip through the net but they are caught - which reflects very positively on everyone involved in h2g2. The advantage of being dynamic is that we can instigate change, quickly. If we leave entries for longer in Peer Review, instead of incubating, they may stagnate.

Ashley

Things are going to slip through the net, it's just human nature. However, they get picked up *very* quickly (especially the console wars ones, though the author wasn't too happy about it). Maybe, as previously suggested (in a completely different thread many moons ago), there should be a dedicated team of Updaters that Scout the EG for errors and alert the <./>Team</.> (or even change them and re-submit them for approval by the Team)?
Oberon2001

Just a reminder that updating is different from fact correction. There has been discussion and plans are on-going on how we can update the back catalogue of entries (dates, currencies, further information, etc). It's a huge and vital topic that requires a lot of time and thought to be invested

Fact corrections we change as soon as we are alerted to them - which usually happens on the Editorial Feedback page.

This is an interesting topic and now I've read the BL, I would like to add my own .

The basic structure of the EG (and all of its sub-elements) is extremely flexible and it is only what it is (IMO) through the successful operation of the various volunteer schemes. What would h2g2 be like without the volunteers? Probably non-existant.

Therefore to my mind, it would seem that the problems raised by Hoo should be first addressed by the volunteer groups, although how they do it ought to be down to them to agree, based on some sort of guidance from the Italics.

Each group has its own code of conduct explaining what they do, but perhaps they should also agree on some codes of practice, explaining how they go about it?

Some guidance already exists: "h2g2 is the unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything, that's written for the people, by the people. The guide is written by visitors to the website and already it has thousands of entries on all sorts of subjects. The result is a living, breathing guide that's constantly being updated and revised, driven forward by the very people who use it."

I like that idea in principle, Madent!

>>I know of an entry that was picked up by a scout 17 hours ago and is now shown on coming up as "returned from sub-editor" apparently it actually only took 5 hours. I must say, I think it really is a good entry, and it's a brief entry, and it was in PR for two weeks, and I'm going to probably get in trouble cause the author's a friend of mine. It just that your post, xyroth, made me feel obliged to reveal the truth.

Hmm, I wonder whose that is . That entry was subbed by Ashley though (Well, the h2g2 editors but I found out ) and can thus be assured to be of quality. I'd stake my two month reputation on it

You're not in any immediate trouble, but we'll talk on another thread. (Now I know why you've been dodging me )

resubscribing

I just made a note on the thread for my obscure entry that a new little bit of information came to me today (in a book in the mail). I had really been hoping that the book would come before the first week in Peer Review was up. Unfortunately, the book arrived a few hours after the entry got picked by a scout. Kind of ironic.

I have every confidence that I'll be able to work with the subeditor to seamlessly stitch (sorry Jodan) this bit of information into my entry. Hopefully this will be a demonstration of the ability to update things that Ashley has been arguing.

Lurkers must be so confused. It's because my last name is taylor (tailor) and he likes to make bad puns... don't be surprised if you see any Smith (blacksmith) puns either

I'll be interested to know how your incorporation of new information turns out

OK, let me be the first to say that I think h2g2 is working within acceptable standards and that the mistakes that filter through are relatively few, and the mistakes that are caught are many.

There is always room for improvement though.

I have tended to shy away from articles in PR of which I have little knowledge. Hopefully, I can catch some factual errors by doing so.

I favor short articles to long ones. Shorter histories actually tend to have fewer outright errors than longer ones. Sure information may get glossed over somewhat, but in an entry on SLE (lupus), a current example, it's OK to skip a 500 word primer on human immunology. Even if the information is well-written and probably factually correct, if the focus remains tightly on the subject, there is less room for error. This of course, does not remain true to the original article in discussion here. A lengthier discussion of early game systems appearantly would have been appropriate.

Occassionally, I will read an article that I like, but that contains subject matter with which I am not familiar. Until now i have made a general comment in the thread like, "Nice Job. I enjoyed reading this and I learned a lot." From now on, when i encounter these articles, i will make a greater effort to find Volunteers with a greater knowledge of the subject.

If Scouts stick to material they know, or encourage participation by folks that they know to be familiar with certain topics, this will allow the author to have a more expert knowledge participate in the thread.

This can easily be done using the Scout Posts through the user group.
Reading an article that's well written, I can enter in to the UserGroup and post: Great article on Modern Romance Novels, can anybody else take a look at thread #### or article ####.

Subs too, I suppose could use a similiar system (not being a sub, I really am not sure).

Just my thoughts, hope I didn't duplicate too much, I only read 50% of the considerable backlog. . .

Friar

Anna is setting up a list of subs with experience/knowledge on a particular subject which will help .

Great idea.
How many Subs are there at the moment anyway?
Oberon2001

i actually counted them yesterday and i think there is 43.

it means that if an article gets to PR and no-one has a scoobie (unlikely) then you can check the list to see if there is someone who may have a bit of knowledge on the subject. Same goes for researchers if they want some advise about a topic before subjecting it to PR

This idea has been thrown about for the last week or so and the guide pages started to be put together over the last 2 days but it isnt completed yet.

But i am not divulging anything top secret (i hope)

"i actually counted them yesterday and i think there is 43"

Can't we sack one? Just for form's sake? I mean... forty THREE? What are they thinking?

H.

thats what i thought!

But it would probably be me so shhhh!

Odd, I was looking at the <./>comingup</.> page, and 9 entries have been returned from one subed, (several very quickly) The H2g2 editors.

I can not understand how they could have all been thorough subbings with such a substantial workload. Maybe it was a shortage for EG entries? Has the sub-editor mailing list said anything about this?

i know that with 5 entries a day for the front page then we do have to keep to the one a week each rules, the h2g2 editors is (probably) any/all of the italics using that i/d so the entries wouldnt have been 'rushed through' as such.

Too lazy to go count the list, but how many scouts are there?

And do you feel it a struggle to keep to the minimum?