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

Hey DDD

I'm subbing your Land Rover entry, the edited version of which is at A10357175. If you could take a look and make sure everything's to your satisfaction, that would be great.

Hi EMR!

It looks good, so thank you for that. I have just a few comments.

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I'm the last person on earth to understand the principles of grammar and punctuation, especially when it comes to colons, semi-colons and the like. The use of the colon here looks just plain odd to me. It makes it look as though everything after the colon is a list of things that are 'involved' if that makes sense. Ignore me, I'm probably wrong.

Female entrants. It was a pity that a part of this was removed. I was trying to make it sound inclusive to females and encourage any that may read the article to get involved. Removing the 'encouragement' leaves it sounding like women don't get involved because it is just too hard or male dominated. In my experience, most of the female drivers are far superior in ability to the men, simply because they take the time to plan their strategy and actually think about what they are going to do rather than relying on ego or luck.

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This makes the sentence technically incorrect now. Rules allow interchanges of engines in certain circumstances, so it is possible to fit one of a different variety. The rules are *very* complex though and I don't want to cover them in the Entry. I think my wording demonstrated an obvious infringement without going into huge rule definitions. I understand you not wanting to use the phrase 'GMC lump'; I was never entirely convinced myself, but the information needs to be accurate. Can we re-think this one?

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When I first read this, my mind thought of dozens of zero points being scored, ie, 'scores' of them. I was going to suggest changing it to 'or a score of zero points' but then there is plural and singular in the same sentence. Not sure what to do now. Any ideas?

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I want to link to this Entry A692958 because it is the most frequent part of the drive-train to break. I've changed about 15 in my time and at £100 a pop for a secondhand one it gets expensive! Can we reword this to something like 'Bodywork suffers greatly from driver errors and drive trains and differentials are subjected to such great forces they often break.' with a link on 'differentials'?

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Apologies if I sound a bit blunt, but sorry, I don't like this. It's only changed by a couple of tiny words, but its meaning seems to have changed completely. What is 'the ultimate control'? It suggests it's some sort of magic device that he presses. Or that he's so powerful he can decide when day turns into night. Can we find another way of describing that he is the guy in charge, that the buck stops with him, that what he says goes...?

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Finally, one we both missed. I think we need some consistency on the 'mph'. To space or not to space, that is the question...

Great work, Echo! I noticed you've changed my guideML formatting. Any pointers on where to go so I can read all about the format that is preferred? I've got more stuff coming up and I'd rather do it myself to save all the wonderful subs some time!!!

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I thought that was how it was meant to appear. Now I'm confused.

I thought the bit about the female entrants just sounded odd, really - ideally, women should be welcomed at the event irregardless and there should be no need to stress their acceptability. I'm sure this is not what you were intending, but in some contexts it can come across as sexist to be stressing how acceptable women are at a given event.

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That just goes to show how little I know about cars! I changed the end of the sentence because I thought it might confuse non-car people to have technical terms shoved at them, but if you can think of a way to change the sentence so that it's both not too technical and accurate, that would be terrific.'

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How about 'In theory, an "all-clear", or score of zero points, is possible'?

<< Can we find another way of describing that he is the guy in charge, that the buck stops with him, that what he says goes...?>>

How about 'who is in charge for the day'?

There should be no space on the 'mph', which I fixed.

GuideML for the Edited Guide can be found at <./>SubEditors-GuideML</.>, though you don't really need to worry about this so much as your sub can always tidy it up for you. Your syntax is perfectly understandable, so don't worry!

Let me know what you think of these suggestions.

Hey echo!

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I was trying to ask four seperate questions in one sentence:

What is involved?
Who can compete?
What equipment is needed?
How much does it cost?

I'm not sure how it should be put together with colons and the like.

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Point taken. Unlike myself, you are seeing it from a womans point of view. Perhaps we should remove the reference completely?

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How about 'An obvious infringement would be replacing the standard 3.5L V8 Rover engine with a bigger unit manufactured by another company.'?

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I'd prefer, 'In theory, a competition sheet showing "all-clears", or a score of zero, is possible' Does that work?

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Yep, that'll do!

Thanks again!!

With the four questions (ha! sounds like Passover!) I think it's best if we just go back to the original format with the commas.

I think the female reference is fine how it is, but I wouldn't go any further than that.

Everything else looks good. How's that, then?

That's great!

Many, many, many thanks for all your hard work Echo! I've now got an entry I'm truly proud of.

Seeing as this is my first, I'm looking forward to seeing it on the front page. I take it I leave the rest of the process to you now?

Yup - I send it back to the Editors and it awaits its turn on the front page.

I've just noticed that there are two references to Top Gear in the 'Related BBC Pages' section. Can this be fixed, or is it too late now?

That's because you've linked to it twice - once in the blockquote at the beginning and once in the reference tags.

There's not anything I can do about it at this point, but if you email the italics - h2g2.editorial at bbc dot co dot uk - they can probably do something about it.

Eh? What is a reference tag? It sounds like some piece of GuideML I haven't heard of...

I can't remember putting it in, I don't think I'd know how. Maybe it just fancied being there!

Looking at it again, there are some subtle differences to your finished subbing. I noted the guide entry had changed to 'awaiting approval' with a new creation date today, so I think the hamsters may have been at it!

Hmmm... maybe the italics put in the tag? <./>GuideML-REFERENCES</.>, I think.