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

Further to my post in the 'peace offering' conversation where I put up links to the self-organised group of Southern Hemisphere researchers, I suppose it's probably a good idea to briefly explain the structure of the site. Understanding how h2g2 functions and is distributed should help you in finding the conversation you are look for.

I'll try and explain:

1) Entries and articles,

2) Forums and threads.

3) Random entry.

4) Peer review.

5) The search function,

6) The Tales of Anubi

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Entries / Articles
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In practice these are the same thing. I've included both terms becuase they are used pretty much interchangeably. Anyone from theBBC staff who run the site ('The Italics') to yourself can create a guide entry. Your personal space is your first guide entry.
(You have an edit page button) but somewhere on there will be a link or button that says "create new guide entry" which leads to this edit window: <./>useredit</.> And from this you can create a new entry in the guide. It could be about your pet cats, your neuological studies, even an travelogue about a tour you took round the New Zealand South Island. It's up to you entirely. As an example of how diverse this could be: here is an example of a entry on "the Fracture Mechanics of Spaghetti" A44342651.
This was one entry from an 'entry of the month' competition (prize = kudos) of which you can take a look at the other here: A46816112. I included this to try and demonstrate the diversity of the community's interests is limited only to what interests you and compels you to write.

That covers the making of new guide entries, so from the top-down as it were, what h2g2 is is a collection of guide entries that people have already made. And you navigate from guide entry to guide entry as you move around the site.

Ask h2g2 is a general community conversation and enquiry page. It does literally what it says on the tin.

QI where I spend a disproportionate amount of my time is a quiz game, where we emulate the popular British TV quiz show of the same name. http://www.qi.com/ setting challenging questions to each other.

The Post "newspaper" is a guide entry which archives other entries (stories, poems, cartoons, reviews ) written by researchers fortnightly.

Your personal space is a Guide Entry (specifically a user profile page) You can tell the difference by the letter appending the referrent number in the URL.

If it's a U it's a personal space; if it's an A - it's an article (a guide entry) written by someone in the community of researchers; if it's a C - it's an article (Guide Entry) written by the Italics for the Community. Some pages have special named url ends, The Post is an example of this.

The FAQ: C743
My space: U113478
The Post: <./>ThePost</.>
Ask H2g2 A148907
QI: A22174526


So each guide entry can be about a topic, either a community hub, a newspaper, a quiz, an informational entry or a help page and so on.

Where the discussion go on is in the forums.

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Forums and Threads.
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Again interchangeable usage - Forums or 'threads' Forums of course come from the Latin for places of discussion also are designated by a letter F in the URL of your browser.

Colloquially forums are known as 'threads from the image of holding up a carefully woven and colourful tapestry has loose 'threads' dangle off at the bottom. Threads / forums are where the conversations take place. Unlike other websites - we have no edit function on what we post, what goes up stays up for all to see. So learn to use the 'preview' function it is your friend. Learn also to consider careful what you say, like toothpaste, you can't take it back.

The community is rather grown up and good at self-moderating, offensive posts can and do get referred to the italics and a team of moderators, but it's mostly a hands off approach.

Back to structure: many threads can hang off of one 'entry'.

This conversation is a 'thread' hanging off the guide entry 'your personal space'

The conversations you've started or replied to (like 'The God Delusion' in Askh2g2, or 'hello there' on Alsoran8o0's User space) are threads that hang off of other pages. These appear as a list on your personal space where you can see if there has been any recent activity or replies.

A separate refresh window that updates automatically can be located if you open this URL:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/MP13851734?skip=0&show=25&s_type=pop&s_target=conversation

Every time you join (or start) a new conversation it, and any replies will be listed here. You can unsubscribe from conversations. Some people keep their subscribed conversations routinely pruned, I rarely if ever unsubscribe from a conversation. I never know who might want to get back in contact with me or when or when I might want to find something I previously wrote.

So you appeared in 'The God Delusion' - this is a particularly contentious conversation, as you might imagine it draws a lot of differing views. h2g2 is secular by nature and was founded by a secualr atheist author Douglas Adams - but is a real life community so haas a number of evangelical Christians, mormons etc on it, and as a result we've garnered a fair few forums extolling the virtues of belief and punishment for non-belief.

The more activity there is in a 'thread' the further up the list the forum appars. As a result these religious forums tend to hover around the top of Askh2g2's various threads. But Askh2g2 isn't just about that, scroll back a few page, look at what else people have been asking, you'll find a vast array of questions and discussions to take part in. I remember my first question I ever asked there was "what is the difference between a philologist and a lexicographer?' (The answer is lexicographers, who compile dictionaries, are a subset of philologists, who study language)

But the essential point is the threads are where the discussion takes pace, and these are all listed as conversation on each Guide Entry and vary in type with each Guide Entry.

On the FAQ , the discussions are 'help me' questions or ' how do I?' queries etc.
On the QI entry, the conversations are the quiz questions (I just successfully answered one about Einstein's' brain..)
Ask2h2g2 is a mismatch of stuff,
The Forum is it's more sober and scholarly second cousin: A1146917

So depending on what kind of conversation you are after, or about what topic, depends really on finding the right guide entry, and joining in.


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Random Entry and Random Edited Entry
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So how to find the right guide entry for your interests?

I'll explain about the difference betwene editied entries and normal guide entries in a moment.

Suffice to say that these are a pair of random entry generators. Click and refresh to take a tour of the articles and conversations in h2g2's vast megalithic library of Stuff.

<./>RandomEntry</.>
<./>RandomEditedEntry</.>

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Peer review
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The difference between just a random entry and a random edited entry is this:
h2g2 has a system of Peer Review. In order for a guide entry you write (about cats, neurology, The New Zealand South Isle or fracture mechanics in spaghetti etc) to go into the "Edited Guide" which is like the canonical output of our community it gets put into the process of Peer Review: PeerReview

Most Guide Entries people create (my own included) never go into the Edited Guide, but if you think something you've written is good enough - read interesting, unique, descriptive etc - or one of the scouts spot it and like it, then it can get selected to be scrutinised. Not so much for content - let's pretend and say the article was on neurology. No-one would think to question your expertise on the subject - rather it's about making the article as good as possible stylistically. So expect constructive critique of word and phrases, offering help on how to justify the text or pick a good picture to illustrate it. The ambition is to encourage research and communication and publication of ideas and articles that have a certain standard to them.

To get an idea of the standard of what the edited guide consist take a look at the
Writing-Guidelines and the examples therein.

If writing for the Edited Guide is not for you - not a problem - the community is big and large enough you'll find something to do, but the website as a whole is built around the idea of constructing the edited guide, peer reviewing the content (something you might consider having a go at) and growing the community that is attached to it.

Random entry selects at random a page from *anywhere* in the Guide.
Random Edited Entry selects at random a page from anywhere in the *peer reviewed* pile of entries from The Edited Guide.

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The Search Function
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Say you want to write the definitive guide to 'War and Peace' well use the advanced search function <./>Search</.> to find out if the article already exists. If it doesn't you can go and create it using <./>useredit</.> If it does already exist why not apply to update it? UpdateForum I harbour ambitions to update the article on being colourblind A883523 (which I am) but I'm still researching.


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The Tales of Anubi
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This bewildering level of detail, and open possibility is what greets all new researchers. The experience verges somewhere between the traumatic and the sublime; what with having to pick a name, talk to people with funny names and titles, meet with an ACE for the first time and then have to make your way around the community in all it's bewildering complexity, and that's before anyone's even broached the topic of smiles <./>Smilies</.> or what GuideML is and how to use it <./>GuideML-Clinic</.>

It's a lot to take in at once.

The Post ran a very successful and much beloved series of cartoons by a researcher called Wowbagger (The Infinitely Prolonged) on this very subject.

A856343

I commend it to you. There's probably not a researcher on this who having read this doesn't nod along thoughtfully, going "Yes, that's how it was. Exactly."


Clive.


This site is very addictive. I've been here since 2001. (hence why my U-number is so short) And I used to be an ACE so I kind of know the strings. and I'm happy to help a new researcher find their way around.

B'Elana is your ACE - they should be your first port of call if you have any questions - we are a volunteer service of researchers who help recent addicts get acclimatised to their new lifestyle.

F12759868?thread=6365558 <--- B'Elana's greeting.

Also check under preferences the different "skins" of the site. They are each very different from the other. Personally I prefer the contrast and colour of 'Classic Goo' but not everyone agrees. Choose whichever works best for you.