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

Put them in PR, Fiddler. If you do, I'll review them all

Are you sure? Some of them have come from WookiePodiatrist, so are likely to be extremely dodgy.

As far as I can tell, the ones not highlighted are safe...

It is the others, but some have appeared on more than one list.

If you are I am to go!

Just let me know if you are sure, Skanks...

MMF

We can't review them if they aren't in review, MMF. You know the standard expected already, so if/when you feel they are near that standard, put them in and give me a shout

About the bigger projects - one step at a time. Write them and submit them as they come out; no-one will sub or review 400 Entries at a time anyway

I have been warned on that score... Just need to get my head around them...

You can always have a sneak preview on my PS to see what I mean... If you are a real Masochist!



I have offered to do a short entry on the John Lewis Partnership as if I could do such a thing!... but I'll see how much time I have available, and info! There should be a fair amount of inside info available!

MMF

Sorry, MMF - returning to Gnomon's original thread. We need to do something. How about this?

A28763472

That looks like a good start, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with the "I want to join" section. Am I supposed to put my name in the comment box, or my U number, or a comment?

I'm not sure about being so specific about the amount of time/entries etc. That rather puts off someone like me who is committed to maintaining the site but is woefully errratic in terms of writing entries/contributing to Peer Review; it makes contributing sound more of a required task instead of inspiring people to use some of their spare time getting involved.

Is it really feasible to expect a certain quota or steady stream of reasonable entries? Does it matter if there isn't a new entry every day provided there is over a certain time span a reasonable frequency? Not everyone visits the site daily.

I'm not sure about being quite so time-specific either. How about just saying "whenever you can" or something?

I put this in Ask F19585?thread=4748307 to try to catch people who don't normally write for the EG.

I thought it was great Rich - I think it's about getting people to commit to do something, and I specified in my reply what I could do

Not everyone is a writer or can review (I'm very bad at it) but if half the people who hang around this site to chat also *did* whatever they can for the Guide we'd all be busy, busy, busy.

Does anyone remember the survey that was done a while ago of active researchers? Was it TRig who did it? How many did he find?

My mistake, it was Trin, and it was 565 at last count. A9436070

If even a fifth of those wrote regularly for PR we'd be in much better shape.

F16034?thread=4749687

Couldn't help it. Had to prod buttock. I'll try and finish my Radebe entry when I'm on my dinner break actually. Need to set an example!

I tried to rescue a large number of entries from FM and put them into PR, then I became so depressed by the reaction of the Community (they barely noticed for days) that I wondered what the hell I was doing. That's when I took my Novelty Dog Show entry out, and had a small paddy in my journal.

A previous paddy in my journal was the result of me ensuring all my h2g2 entries were copied onto my hard drive (some older ones I only have on CD and they may have received tweaks since then) being ready for the day h2g2 becomes read only.

Yes, reviewing for the most part has become fairly sluggish, because the number of reviewers has dropped. It's another problem to deal with.

Sorry Gnomon, to some extent I appear to have taken over your thread

Teasswill, it's important to remember that the only real use this site is to the BBC is that it produces good quality user-generated content. Without a steady stream of Entries on the Front Page, it's very hard to see a justification to pay two staff to oversee what would, effectively, be a very posh messageboard. So we need those Entries.

Regarding the specific quotas, I think it is important. We've had these sorts of conversations many times, and what generally happens is that everyone writes a couple of Entries then forgets the whole thing. We need something more concrete and long-lasting than a load of journals encouraging Researchers to write, which give a very welcome but short-term boost. The actual numbers in the quota don't matter so much as the maths. In a four week month at three Entries a day, we need 60 Entries to sustain the FP. I'm proposing that a core of dedicated Researchers provide two-thirds of those Entries. Whether 40 Researchers aim for one each or twenty write two each in a month, it doesn't really matter, as long as we get them. We can debate the details, but the fact is that one way or another we *have* to get those Entries or lose the site.

If you can't commit to that many, then that's fine. As I wrote, 'If you aren't able to keep up this pledge, you're needed anyway... We need every member of this site to work as hard for the EG as they are able - or we may not have a site to indulge ourselves on at all.' So if you have a spare ten minutes, please pop into PR and comment on something you like the sound of, and if you're feeling inspired write something for the Edited Guide. My hope is that the enthusiasm of the twenty committed Researchers will trickle down to people like yourself. Even if 20 people did sign up and keep the pledge, we'd still be 20 entries a month short.

I'm also trying to address the problem of a lack of reviewers that Mina and Elentari mention, by making this a key part of the pledge. It is utterly disheartening to spend hours writing and Entry and finding it ignored for several days. I'd imagine many people have been put off by this, and we need occasional and new writers as much as we do the more prolific and experienced.

There are three of us now signed up, even though I was a little tiddly when I wrote the page (as you can probably tell). Two of us are very much lapsed in terms of PR contributions. So perhaps it will do some good...

If you want to sign up, Gnomon, just let me know, or you can fill in the 'I want to join' box with your name and U-number

The question I should have asked is - how many of you would sign up if there was an option to write one a month, if one a fortnight is too many?

Eh - possiby me...

I would, though even that might be a stretch depending on inspiration/RL commitments.

I was thinking that the alternative way to organise it would be for people to be able to sign up for one or two Entries a month. We could then say that the Researchers in the group are contributing x of the 60 required each month. The requirement for people to spend time in PR would be the same, but there would be less commitment for those who are inspired less often or have less time to write; it's the writing itself that seems to be the biggest sticking point.

That could definitely work.