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

We were once talking about letting people comment on Entries with open ID or something and without registering to hootoo. (on pre mod) What about that?

I really like that idea. I think we should encourage as many people as possible to comment on Edited / Approved Guide entries.

Ok, - so it's not going to be a problem for Scouts and Subs, but it might be a problem for reviewers.

It's important that we make people's experience of contributed to the guide positive and lots of people are put off by a bad PR experience.
Some people think that the commentators in PR are the 'official' voice of h2g2, and let a bad experience with one person put them off.

Anyone can comment. How can we encourage the kinds of comments we need from long term users?

I think leading by example is a good idea.. what else?

Clarifying what PR is for before something gets submitted?

A lot of people's "bad experiences" seem to be honest criticism; they weren't looking for much beyond approval and having someone challenge their entry put them on the defensive. That's my impression, anyway.

I agree, Mala. You should go into PR expecting people to point our your flaws and ask you to make changes (in a positive and constructive way, of course).

I also like the idea of having to place a couple of review comments before being able to submit anything. And possibly read through a 'how to comment' guide, pointing out the importance of style over spelling, and being able to say what you like about an Entry as well as what you disliked.

If we go with the Unified Guide Process (where is that diagram?) then we need to acknowledge that some authors / entries aren't really looking for much comment.

Could we have a pop-up when people select an entry for review saying what sort of advice they are looking for?

Ben

No. Have a pop-up asking which category they want their entry in. Otherwise they'll say they want no criticism and still expect to be featured...

""If we had a huge increase in contributors how could we ensure that we maintained our standards under the new system?""

set Mala and 2Legs on them!!!!!

Yeah, category.

And just because someone thinks their Entry is polished and ready to go doesn't mean that it actually is...

We need to encourage good writers to write for h2g2, this way we can continue to produce good quality content which attracts readers. That's how we'll earn enough money to pay for food for Elton so the sever keeps running.



Lets look at the life cycle of a writer.

Starts of new and nervous, or new and confident, isn't very good. Produces work that really isn't good enough for The Guide. With a lot of help they produce work that is good enough for the guide.

As they get more confident they produce better work. They may get to a stage where they can produce work that is good enough for the guide without really a lot of tweaking. When that happens many of them do want to be able to publish without a lot of messing around in PR, so they drift off and start to blog or write elsewhere.

They may also start to contribute to being a Scout or a Sub-Ed and write less.

I know that in PR there is a culture of not picking an entry until it has been commented on and something has been altered at the suggestion of a reviewer. But really their are many authors who don't need this feedback and by insisting on giving it we may be alienating competent and prolific writers.

Yes, but a lot of people think they're ready before they are! And I don't know a single writer whose work can't be improved upon.

This is the sort of discussion that could go round in circles -

"it's blue"
"it's not purple"
"it's blue I tell you"
"you aren't listening - it's not purple"

etc.

The proof of whatever pudding we come up with will be in the eating - in other words we won't really know what works until we try it out. The processes have been frozen in time for so long that we've forgotten they can be tried out for three months and tested to see if people like them or not.

My is that some people want more help than others, Mala's right that some people need more help than others, and sadly those two blobs overlap but aren't always going to be the same.

So the question comes - what do we do about the ones who need help but don't want it?

What happens now?

Ben

"I know that in PR there is a culture of not picking an entry until it has been commented on and something has been altered at the suggestion of a reviewer."

Really? I certainly haven't seen that. I would expect reviewers to take the time to say they don't think it needs improvement though. Otherwise, how can you be sure?

Perhaps PR just needs to have more positive feedback in that case. If something is fit to publish, it is fit to publish. We need to be confident enough to say that.

>>>> So the question comes - what do we do about the ones who need help but don't want it?

What happens now? <<<<<

.... they go off in a huff.

>A lot of people's "bad experiences" seem to be honest criticism; they weren't looking for much beyond approval and having someone challenge their entry put them on the defensive. That's my impression, anyway.<

Speaking as someone who had a mixed experience. Some good some bad. In my own case I can say I wasn't just looking for much beyond approval..very much the opposite. Looking back I think my problem was that what I was attempting to do with the piece of writing, simply didn't fit with the culture of what people in PR expected a EG entry to be. Some of the suggestions simply didn't make sense to me in terms of what I was attempting. It was principally my own fault I can look back and see now, because I hadn't done the research of what EG entries are supposed to be and the 'look'.

You refer to people having bad experiences, and it is your impression that they weren't looking for much more beyond approval...did you form this impression from actually asking them if that was the case? If I was involved a lot with PR, that would be my first question to them if things were looking bad. I would also make it abundantly clear to them what an EG guide article was supposed to be. They'd be told either fit in with the way it is, or clear off. Okay I wouldn't say 'clear off' but I'd spell things out *clearly* and politely...and suggest they did a bit of research on what the EG is first.

Yes, Effers, that's why I'm saying we should make it clearer what PR is for before people go there.

and on the point of saying that an Entry in PR is *good enough* - I have made comments such as this only to find some other pedantic reviewer wants a few commas etc changed. Some reviewers like to be seen as important, and there is no way you could alter this, it is a fact of life.

But then again, we often have Entries which are selected with no more than a few comments. It depends entirely on the author, the subject and the interest it causes. Not all Entries are treated the same.


I wonder about mechanisms for preventing real disasters appearing in Peer Review. The sort of person who thinks their piece deserves a place in the sun never reads guidelines. Would a pop-up prevent this? I think not. I would suggest a short sharp removal system, because at the moment we have to wait for the over-busy Eds to press the right buttons.

I'm worried about implementing these changes and the Unified Guide Theory changes at the same time.

I think if we are going to introduce the Unified Guide (which may well have made your experience much easier, Effers, and I sympthise with you for trying to push those EG boundaries) then I think we need two review forums to start with. I think too much change at once will be confusing.

So the first change would be that things in the Writing Workshop would have their genre clearly marked (Review, Personal Experience, Opinion, etc etc) and would go on the front page, but would not have to adhere to the requirements for being factual and avoiding the 1st person.

That's not a technical change - it's updating a few help pages and working on how people behave and what their expecations are.

Many of my impressions of PR are from when I was a more active Scout back in 2003/4... so I may be a bit outdated.

I think that this is an important discussion..