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

I alwas wanted to keep rabbits, but I'm afraid the cat would think we'd brought her a new toy.

But down to business...my name's Triv, and I'm a guardian angel here at h2g2. We, along with the Assistant Community Editors, take it upon ourselves to make the new researchers comfortable and to let them know that someone's looking out for them. If you need anything reply to this message or start a new conversation over at my homepage.

http://www.h2g2.com/U145245

while you're at it, check ot the guardian angel's homepage. It's got a ton of liks to other resources you might find useful.

http://www.h2g2.com/A300943

good to meet you.

Triv (Patron Saint of Merry-Go-Rounds)

Wow! A Guardian Angel! What a nice idea. I really love this site; thanks for making me feel welcome. Thanks for the offer of help. I am putting the finishing touches to my first article, so perhaps I could let you know when I've posted it and invite comment. I'm OK with technology generally, but am finding it a bit of a learning curve getting around this site - everything seems related/linked to everything else and I keep getting a bit lost. I also have a horrendously slow modem which doesn't help.

Thanks again.

You're quite welcome for the 'hello,' and whenever you've posted your artile let me know and I'll be happy to read it over for you.

What's it about, by the way? If it's something I don't know anything about I might not be able to help, but I'll certainly refer someone else to it that will have a more useful opinion.

Triv

I finished the article this morning, earlier than expected. It's A415108 and it's on the subject of Jet Washes. The guide said "write about what you know", and I found it rather sad that the only subject I could think of on which I am confident enough to write an article, was in washing the car, a task which I hate, actually.

Hope you like it. Do you think I should post it onto the Review Board?

Regards,
Jonathan

It's good, quite good. There are some spelling errors (typos mostly--'of' instead of 'off', things like that) but in general it's a well written, well constructed and rather humorous entry. I live in the states and have never SEEN one of these things, but they seem to be somewhere crazed teenagers (like myself) would hang out and have foamfights.

I think it should definitely be posted in the peer review. It's a well written article (as I'd siad before. err.)


Two words for the wise for you--

One, when you post to a forum and want someone to look at it something, it's often handy to put the link in the body; the reference number alone won't cut it. For your article for example plop this in the forum:

http://www.h2g2.com/A415108

You need the Http--it won't be recognised as a link without it.

Also, when posting to peer review, make sure you put the reference number and the article title in the subject line, and a link to the article in the body along with whatever begging and pleading you think is appropriate.


Two, there are some things in your article that would be better suited for footnotes instead of inline text. Where these are is up to you, but I'm just mentioning it to bolster your GuideML knowledge.


Footnotes look like this:

footnote text goes here  


you need all of that to make 'em work properly.

If you need any more Guide ML help ask me, or go to the GuideML clinic.

http://www.h2g2.com/A187229



Good work dude, and good luck with your first article!

Triv

Thanks for your input. I've noted one use of "of" where it should read "off". There may be more; will check.

There *shouldn't* be any spelling mistakes. The article was written on my Psion 3a palmtop which has a built-in spell check, then saved as plain text onto floppy disk, opened on the PC using Notepad and pasted in from there. It's much quicker and easier than it sounds.

I did think about using footnotes, but didn't really want to go headlong into GuideML at this point. Gotta walk before you can run. I'll give it some thought. I used to be very hot on software and program writing in the early 1980s, but now I'm very, very rusty and quite happy to use a computer as a tool rather than knowing all the ins and outs of how it all works.

Cheers

It's funny how I put computer programming into the same boat as quantum physics.

(bear with me)

To me, physics is something neat conceptually. The way things work (or might work) is wonderfully fascinating, I just can't be bothered with formulas and math and things--it detracts from the fun and turns it into work.

Programming is neat conceptually. I like understanding how, for instance, GuideML is structured, I just odn't want to be bothered writing code for the damn thing. It's a pain to write coherent sentences when you're worring about which tag goes where. It's disruptive to my train of thought. Most of my writing is edited stream of conciousness(ish). Code...bogs it down.

But that's just my obligatory two cents.

Triv