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

"The statistics of the UG appear to bear this out. More than two-thirds of its content was originally submitted to the AWW by someone other than the author."

Really? Two thirds seems rather high to me. Did you do some sort of analysis of the archives?

By the way, you're doing a much better job with the archives than you think. Better than I did most of the time

Yep. I totted it up from the archives.

Funny thread that one, isn't it?

It says it all, that the postings can pour in about an administrative technicality, but the comments on actual writing are a relative dribble.

Let's hope Frood doesn't lose his new-found hope, getting into those sterile bickerings.

I've an idea that the acquired formalities of PR have developed in order to avoid the practice of peer review in its proper critical sense. It's as if the denizens are frightened of a real two-way process. Maybe they're just too unsociable to assimilate anything from the writer's viewpoint.

It's all turned into a kind of ritual form of criticism without communication.

It's all very complicated, my friend That's an interesting theory. I, myself, am scared to death of reviewing poetry so I try to read other things first. I imagine the PR'ers have found that they're scared of a certain type of reviewing as well.
Guilty of that too, probably.

I think your post really cemented our point. The bit about it being two thirds is staggering and I don't think there'll be any deal where researchers' rights to submit others' works to the AWW is revoked.

Did you like the way Whisky bowed out? Apparently the AWW'ers have become something to be feared! Maybe that was one of the helpful consequences of PROD?

Yeah, PROD probably helped. I think you're right about the AWW too. And even if the self-post system was imposed, we could still get round it (as Mikey was trying to say) by creating new Entries.

The bigger issue is the mindset, though. I can hardly believe that devotees of the EG still beat their breasts about it being the central project, whem it's such a pathetic travesty of the original concept.

My biggest fear is that Powers assessing the future of the site might base their value-judgement on the PR-crowd. Exclusive self-importance doesn't add value in any terms useful to the BBC, but there are a lot of people here who can't see that.

We could, but I don't think newbies would, and I'm not sure that non-miners would feel able to (one of those invisible status things that people who aren't "in" imagine... it's unfortunate). I think that we'd get less entries into the AWW if we weren't allowed to post others' works.

The Powers in the Even Taller Towers are unpredictable though. Can't be reasoned with because we don't know them. But Jims and Nat have been slowly but surely strengthening the position of the site within the Beeb. Really focusing on that in a way that I don't think the pre-petunia eds ever did or ever had to do.
The UG and AWW are well represented within the community. I'm still in good with the italics and they'll be more likely to resist changes if they don't hate the eds we have. In fact, I think Jims gets along rather well with Ben and Waz (Tube too, but not much lately) and will get along with Frood.

What'd you think about the Frood selection, by the way?

Frood is .
It's important to lead with people who have all-round experience and a balanced outlook, so naturally I think it's a good selection.

Yeah, that was partly my thinking.
He's doing well assimilating himself into the Editor role.

I just hope we don't drain the life out of him