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

Entry: Governments - A3565514
Author: kim deal - U1269086

Hi, I'd like opinions of this for the Underguide perhaps - I mistakenly submitted it for peer review and was pointed in this direction.

Welcome to the Alternative.

I read your PR thread. There are discussions all over the site making just the points you made. I've made them myself. Battles have been fought, and mostly lost.

h2g2 has to fit into BBC funding and associated politics. Don't need to explain the implications of that to someone who wrote this entry.

Politics change.

As to your opinion piece, I like it.

Did aiming it at the Edited Guide, having read the guidelines shape this at all? I'm always curious about this with refugee entries (the ones that have read the EG guidelines that is).

Oh, meant to say earlier - battles mostly lost, but not all. There are places in h2g2 that feature the sort of entry you thought the EG should want with enthusiasm. The UnderGuide is one.

Welcome again, to h2g2 this time.
Waz

thank you so much - I am glad to find a home!
I came to h2g2 thinking it was intended to be in the spirit of our dear muse DNA and was a bit upset to be so patronised (you may have picked up on that) lol.
I am not incapable of taking criticism but I'm not one to suffer fools, hence the thread got a bit heated and I stopped it.
I read through the guidelines briefly but they didn't influence me overmuch - I always intended to write a piece that I thought would be appropriate for the fictional guide - ie factual but entertaining - I had no desire to write a thesis - I finished uni a decade ago - unlike my first critic, with the sense of humour bypass. The piece is just as I envisioned and while I was happy to be critiqued I was not happy to be talked down to. The entry as I submitted is to underguide is exactly as first intended.
Your email has revived my spirits - I was thinking of not continuing with this - but now I definitely will. Thank you for your support.

best regards
kim deal

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I work every day with both the Edited Guide and the Under Guide and am always finding pieces that would do better in one or the other. Just because I work with one doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the other...although occasionally I do accidently leave the wrong hat on

I'll be along to read your article very shortly as soon as I've got myself a bit moer sorted out and settled, but I just wanted to say welcome to h2 and many apologies for your bad experience. I hope that future times will be better for you.

Kat

thank you very much

regards
kim

Well, I've read it all and I have to say that it's well-written and very interesting to absorb.

Waz, are we supposed to comment on spelling and grammar here or not? I never can remember and then get told off for leaving the wrong volunteer cap on. I don't want to start banging on only to find that I wasn't supposed to and have scared Kim away, or that I'm being over-zealous

Have you considered learning about Guide-ML Kim? I think this article would be improved by the addition of guide-ml personally. I could be wrong of course . If you would like some help putting it into guide-ml, or want someone to do it all for you then I'm very happy to and all you need to do is drop by my Personal Space (by clicking on my name at the top of this post) and leaving me a message.

I think you're right actually kat - and I'd be delighted to learn how to use it - there's no point getting someone else to do it for me - I've been admiring everybody's singing, dancing entries and wondering how it was done. Feel free to comment on syntax and grammar - I spell checked, so think that should be ok but I use a mac not a pc and it doesn't put those irritating little green lines underneath in a document, so you sometimes don't notice that you've written gibberish. Feel free to point things out - prepare for dialogue though - I've got an English Degree - so I think I know it all! lol.
Glad you enjoyed it anyway.

best regards

kim

A well thought out article, interesting and informative. Thanks for the posting Kim, we're glad to have you join the community.

Spynxxx

many thanks.
nice to be read and appreciated.

regards
kim

Commenting on spelling and grammar - sometimes . I started to answer and it got too long for here. I'll post to your homepage Kat.

Kim, since you asked, and please feel free to be any kind of Donna - these are thoughts I had on a reread and others may think different.

Apologies if I'm telling you GuideML stuff you know and had decided against and I'm no expert on punctuation and grammar. I only notice what affects clarity. Actually that's the only time I think it matters.

Blobs:
I like the blobs, very appropriate choices. There are a lot but shame to lose any. Perhaps you could space out the 'now what' and 'anarchy' ones with added line breaks? They're a bit close. Other than that I like 'em. I think the reason blobs are not that much used is that appropriate ones take a lot of searching. The expression on the scales is spot on.

Did you realise there are captions to blobs when you hover the mouse over them? Some of the existing ones don't fit. Not a problem ...but you could have fun altering them. There are lots of hidden messages under blobs .

You could make 'PROS AND CONS:' headings stand out with the tag. Or the bold tag. (By the way, to see the coding for something on a page you can type 'test' in place of the A or the U in the URL. Then copy/paste nick the coding. We all do.)

Proof read stuff:
There are some repeated words which caused me a slight hitch in the read. Eg two 'types' in first two lines. You could just cut the second one. Another eg is the two consecutive sentences starting 'this means' in the final thoughts on democracy paragraph. Effective verbally where you emphasise the second one. In writing does that emphasis need to be given with an 'in turn means'? Dunno.

There are places where you could add crispness with shorter sentences and fewer commas. Eg "The final flaw with democracy...' sentence could continue '...is that political office is usually sought out by greedy, self-righteous egomaniacs who think they have a right to tell everybody else what to do. Being voted into power by several million people does nothing to calm those traits."

In the same paragraph "While in principal, in a democratic society, it should be possible for anybody to rise to power if they have the mandate of the people, in practise, the rich elite - who have been privately educated rather than herded together in the state schools that nobody wanted to pay for, primarily in order to keep the shoplifting down in the arcade." seems to have a bit missing and I think you could cut the first two and the fourth commas out without losing clarity.

You could also shorten that sentence by putting the arcade aspersion (nice one) in as a footnote with eitherside. (I like footnote asides - not everyone does, especially in the EG. I had a bit about varieties of moths found at a nature reserve in an EG entry, added a footnote saying helicopters were quite common too and it got edited into the sentence!)

'satirical cartoonists' - and BBC Radio4 Today hosts

Under Theocracy 'welfare of it's subjects' typo
apostrophe in there.

Under Anarchy 'Pros: Obviously, this sound great' has missed an s.

Other random stuff:

A point that ocurred, when you mentioned national pride and identity was the issue of selfworth under any non-democratic government. I spent my teens in Ian Smith's UDI'd Rhodesia. A mock-democracy perhaps? It was clean, well ordered and more affluent than Zimbabwe today. The ordinary, not politically active, citizen was not under threat of midnight arrest but I doubt they'd trade even their Mugabwean flawed right to vote to go back to those days. I'm not saying that should be covered - it was just you got me thinking and that's where the thoughts went.

I think this post is long enough. I'll stop thinking.

wazz - this is brilliant - thank you so much for your attention to detail - I will print this tomorrow and then edit in most of the suggestions - I agree especially about the 'arcade' bit - I knew it was too long but I didn't want to lose it and couldn't decide - I think a footnote is an excellent idea - I will try the coding, see how it looks and may well use it for a couple of the other more wordy sections. I may expand the 'So now what' section - it is a bit short and the blobs are too close, I agree. I was getting tired when I first drafted this and couldn't be arsed to write more - but I think more a closing review is required - just a few more sentances, perhaps rounding up the arguements on each section. I'll have a think.

and no, I hadn't noticed the blob messages so I will review some of the choices - I take it you can edit what's displayed? If not, I may have to search out alternatives. I will also have to go and look at the thing and mouse hover - I usually use a touch pad, so I don't always notice things like that!

the other message was written before I'd read this one - by the way, in case you're confused....

many many thanks for your help.

regards

kim d

hmm - have just gone and moused the blob and I don't get anything - wonder if this is mac related (not a pc girl) - I will have a look at work on PC and see. How strange!

kim d

waz - I'm totally baffled by the blob thing - what are the messages - I'm not seeing any messages (am I losing my mind - (has this ship sailed)).
erm - can you explain a bit more?
?????

many thanks

kim d

That's weird. We may have to call in one of the site Gurus or Askh2g2.

The code for the second blob is . When I hover the cursor over the blob a little window appears saying "Fyodor Dostoevsky". It takes a couple of seconds but it's quite clear. It disappears as soon as I move the mouse.

You can see where the legend is in the coding. It can be changed to whatever, in this case whoever, you please. Spoils it if you can't see it though.

I'm not the only one who sees them. Truly!

I've had a wee look at the coding and I see what you mean about the caption - whether I can see them or not, I can see how to alter them - assuming it won't alter the display of the blob. The only thing I can think is that this is to do with either browsers or settings - I don't use microsoft internet explorer - I use safari at home and firefox at work.
Strange thought eh?

Firefox doesn't show the tags. I have IE, Opera, and Firefox just to cross-check these things

I'll be back to read all of this later but am tired and knocked out currently.

Kat

hey misus - thought you'd still be in hospital.
if firefox doesn't then safari (mac browser) prob doesn't either because it's also based on netscape.
I've looked on ie on the mac and I still can't see anything either. I will have a look on ie at work on pc. However, I am assuming that the caption written into the code is the tag that the blob displays - so whether I can see them or not I can change them to something fitting.

on a more important subject - how are your stigmatta kat? hope you're feeling ok m'dear.

kd

(Enters Alternative Writing Workshop for the first time. Gazes open-mouthed at the range of unorthodox wonders on display).

What an interesting place! Anyway, to business: Kim, I've had a look as requested, and I like the Entry a lot. There's some very witty stuff in there, and some brave stuff too, like the bit where you explain the redeeming features of fascism!

I have one or two nitpicks. The second sentence under 'PROS AND CONS' in the 'Democracy' section rambles on and on via a seemingly endless succession of dashes, and badly needs reorganising. In the same section, 'Keynsian dictate' should be 'Keynesian dictum'.

I'm not sure that the 'Dictatorships' section really works. Haven't most dictatorships traditionally been fascist, communist or monarchic, and thus covered by the other sections? I don't understand the gag about British Aerospace, but I suspect that it's libellous; and is it actually true that dictatorships are like one-term monarchies? Haven't some dictators passed control of countries to their offspring?

In general, though, this is great. I particularly love the 'Theocracy' bit, which is very funny and all too accurate. Well done!

Hi Om,
glad you enjoyed. I'm inclined to agree with your points about the long winded bits. I fully intend to sit down and break down some of the sentances into more manageable bits of kibble. I've a bad habit of writing convoluted sentances that make sense in my head but not to anybody else. I also think you're right about the dictum re dictate - I shall consult a dictionary and amend accordingly. As for Bae systems - my hub used to work for them in Saudi Arabia - trust me, it's only libel if it's not true.
I can see your point about it being a little repetitive as dictators are often fascists - but I wanted to make the point that one has benign dictators as well as fascist ones - just as one has begign monarchs etc. so thought it deserved a separate entry - albeit only a short one. I hadn't considered the passing on of a dictator's title to a son - that's a really good point - I will actually use that to link the entry to monarchy - as in 'which is how monarchies presumably started....'. This will give me a fantastic means by which to undermine the appointment by God theory of monarchy - which I've always thought of as utter tripe.
thanks again

kd