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

I've now read Jodan's.

'Once y'all have got some constructive stuff together, we'll revise the page, eh?' Yeah, but how? How do we go about molding Pin's forging approach, (You know he'd have us all through that mill to knock the scale off don't you?), with your and my clay molding approach, not to mention bd's logical (?) approach. I think sprout, (wave to sprout, long time no see except in passing in the AWW), is somewhere in that mix.

I can't get to grips with the detail until we've sorted this out.

We either come to some unhappy medium, or...or what?
A two-voiced piece? Good cop/bad cop in two different fonts arguing it out?

Thanks Waz.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be, just my idea of what h2g2 could be like.

Do we need to agree any more closely than we have already?

Isn't it just a matter of getting as many people as we can to write sparky Entries?

Stimulating. Varied. Inclusive. If they're not the right objectives, say so. If they are - then why are we discussing conformity?

Those objectives are fine.

It's our approaches to getting there that are different aren't they? The differences in tone where your original has been edited show.

I don't disagree with your criticism of what's currently happening in PR but my inclination is to ignore all that. Set out how things need to be done to get those sparking entries flowing in and forget present and past stuff; keep the whole thing positive. There's a few negative provoking adjectives in there.

Won't more people see the ideal if we avoid what will make them defensive, either defensive on their own account or on their friends' account?

The word 'vindictive' is one I'm really stuck on. Perhaps that's colouring the rest. I need to reread it.
I've seen an apparent supportive enjoyment in putting newbies in their place which comes perilously close to bullying but not vindictiveness. But then I don't read much in PR. When I do it's not long before I see something that makes me go straight out again.

Vindictive, yeah.

It's like taking photographs, Waz. I write what I see. I'm really not given to diplomacy, because it has to come out the way that is.

If you guys want to change the words, make it all say what you want it to say, that's fine by me. I only offered it as a template.

If you reckon that that particular adjective is undeserved, then it's just one of those (rare) things we disagree about.

There's a point to be made that a page encouraging creative, stimulating entries shouldn't make you want to stick pencils in your eyes.

The section at the end about helping is, as DNA called it in the 'Salmon of Doubt', a placeholder. Need revision, certainly.

Pin - I thought I might have some time to dig into your article tonight, but it doesn't look like it. But I'm certainly looking forward to it.

[hey Jodan, you have UGed email - are you sending in this weekend's UG piece or am I? I need to get up early tomorrow if it's me, I'm off to sleep now. Once I've got rid of those pencil images, thanks.]

I'll do it

gd'night Jodan

>> "Being nicer to newbies is a fine thing when they are genuinely creative. Is the derivative DNA-lite stuff really creative - do we really want to encourage it in AWW? In principle, there's no reason why it couldn't be as good as any of the other stuff we get, in practice, it forms a large chunk of the poor and badly thought through material. What do we want PR people to do with these entries, concretely?"

I don't think that this is a real problem. The mostly harmless entries are... well, mostly harmless smiley It's been blown out of proportion lately. It was an example of wrong entries in the early days (when it was a problem) and became a classic example for scouts to talk about, but somehow it went from being an example to being an epidemic without much in between erm <<

if we ignore them, people will keep submitting hypershort, one idea entries in imitation of adams. if we blow this up, we'll lose potential writers. so, how about we create a space for people who want to write adams tributes to congregate, and collect their pieces? an adams tribute (however creative or not) will feel much better if it's a bulk of stories. so if we made a group just for this, people can probably collaborate put their pieces together safely, and without fear of "oh no, not another one!"s. perhaps a running competition in the post, or something. that would safely siphon off and contain all this excess tribute-making energy... and we don't have to push the problem towards the PR people, either...

ing...

looks we need some good ol' design analysis techniques. We have here a problem, with many facets, and many potential solutions. We also have some criteria which tell us whether what we're doing is valuable/useful/desirable or not.

A Questions, Options, Criteria style analysis is extremely well suited to this, methinks.

Here's how it works. We identify, from the broad problem, specific questions that need to be answered. We also decide on certain criteria we need to keep in mind (criteria being things we want). We then throw up options (answers) for each question, and identify, for a given option, which criteria support it, and which criteria argue against it. Consider:

Question: What shall we do with AWW entries that directly suggest EG entries?
Option 1: Keep them as they are, and convince PR people to accept them
-- Criteria for: Changing boundaries, Changing PR
-- Criteria against: Changing writing styles, Encouraging multiple perspectives
Option 2: illustrate to the writer why something like this would be wonderful for EG, if written appropriately, help them write it, and inculcate an attitude of always thinking carefully about where they want an entry to be
-- Criteria for: changing writing styles, encouraging multiple perspectives, sustainable effort
-- Criteria against: speed of resolution

where the criteria mean:

Changing boundaries: changing definitions of what good entries are
Changing PR: changing how PR works, so that they are better at getting EG entries out of non-suitable ones
Changing writing styles: changing how people write so they can write for both UG & EG if needed
Encouraging multiple perspectives: showing how there can be many points of view, and aspects to the same "fact"
Sustainable effort: an initiative that can be sustained through many little contributions over a long period of time, as opposed to something that needs a few core people to work
Speed of resolution: the time required to change an entry to suitable forms, or to change the general attitude in pockets of writing/evaluation

each question will throw up some others that examine specific bits of the options. sort of like asking a question, and looking at all the questions it gives rise to it. so, in this instance, one possible question can be:

Question: how can we help people convert entries from the AWW style to EG-compatible style?
Option 1:...
-- Crit for:...
-- Crit against:...
...

this leads to more and more concrete solutions, with reasons at each step why that solution should or shouldn't be considered.

phew. i know that sounds like a bit much (it's just an example, i'm not even sure i've got the criteria right), but it's now much clearer than doing this through a crit/discussion, isn't it? well, at least it helps me think about it...

if it helps, i do an analysis based on what i understand till now, and send diagrams of them out by email. besides, it's always nice to have pretty pictures to back up one's theories

what do you guys think?

Pin, since you have my email, would you mind shooting me an email, so i can send out a sample analysis to you, and you can forward them to the others?

~ db

Whoa... that was a long read! Both the entry and the backlog. Both were very interesting though.

I'm afraid I don't have much to add to the discussion. I know too little about the way things work in PR. Other than the few times I've had entries there.

I liked Pin's entry. Yes, it's quite long - and I can't see it getting into the current EG - but all I can say is that I found it far more interesting to read than anything on the subject that _would_ get into the current EG could possibly be.
And wasn't that our point to begin with?


I haven't started working on my Jerusalem draft yet, as I've been writing a paper the last couple of days, but right now I think I might turn these rewritten sections into a separate short entry; if I do, I'll post a link here and you lot could tell me if I'm anywhere near the mark.
I reckon if I am, when I put it in PR I'll probably have an easier time because they don't have any preconceptions about me (whereas I suspect that when they see 'Pinniped' they probably go 'oh no, not again').

Hey db

Hope you're not offended, but I didn't send an e-mail.
Reason being, I don't really do that kind of analysis

In fact, who needs any kind of analysis here?
When are we actually going to do something?

(Lady P : make sure you do post that link. Waiting with great interest)

I think a decision tree is called for.

Now you're talking!

Who're we going to lynch, then?

The inventor of decision trees.

I off to reread this thread, and PROD, and make sure I've got the right ends of all the sticks.

Pin and all: no worries. i just presented a structured form of thinking in the hope that it might be useful. if it isn't, oh well...

as for when we're actually going to do something, i thought we haven't made up our minds on what to do yet?

i for one think that the most effective thing to do now would be to encourage people submitting to AWW to create EG suitable entries from their submissions, if possible. that's something that doesn't need PRODcasting, doesn't involve politics, and is a good ol' grassroots movement. at least, i'm going to start doing that right away...

~ db

awesome, Waz, give us a summary, won't you?

Will you all please just stop analysing everything?

I'm here because I was persuaded that firing off like I do wakes up the enemy and wastes ammunition.

So, what's you're alternatve, you lot? Do SFA by the looks of it.

Pin (genuinely p*ssed off)

hmm. ok. things to do:

1. make the changes to PROD that sprout (and others) suggested
2. find a list of entries that describe what we're talking about by sunday evening; incorporate them into PROD
3. Monday: put PROD out for public consumption
4. start finding/writing entries that challenge boundaries/lie on them
5. encourage people to write EG-style entries (care of db)

~ db
{understanding why Pin is pissed, and willing to take the risk of going forth without a completely rock solid plan (in his eyes)}