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

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that the time is nearing: your Star Fleet entry has nearly made it into the edited guide! I've basically finished my sub-editing job, and you can look at how it now looks at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A784073 before I send it back to the editors. Don't hesistate to contact me if you have any worries of queries, and congratulations!

Ah, I'd not italicised the names of shows, right? I'll have to remember that, I think I remember reading it but it must have slipped my mind. One question - can you explain your reasoning for italicising "X Bomber"? For the most part it's the name of a spaceship rather than the Japanese name for the show, so I'm not quite clear why it needs the italics when other ships like "The Skull" and "Dai X" don't have them?

Just looking at it again, there's a problem with the link to "DVD" that you've added in the final paragraph - there's a space character before the Article code which breaks the link. The article number is correct, I've tried it manually, but that's why it doesn't show up on the list of references sites...

Oooh, strange, that worked before. I'll get onto it... As to my mad italicisation (is that a word?), the style guidelines - http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/SubEditors-Style - say that ships are suppose to be italicised, so I've done The Skull as well. Was Dai X a ship or just a robot? Sorry, I've never actually seen the show!

Cheers again!

Ah, right. Erm - Dai X was a robot that could fly which was made up of three smaller ships which I'd call collectively the Dai X fighters. Heh. Now you're stuck, aren't you!! I think those are the only named ships, the enemy's big ship was always just "Makara's battlecruiser" or similar, no name as such...

Sorry, one more - the Death Ball is also mentioned, but it's a sort of hover tank rather than a spaceship. Can you point me to a reference for the "ships must be italicised" rule - is it intended to apply to fictional ships, or just real world ships? I'm thinking perhaps it's only supposed to apply to proper nautical ships...?

Oooh, I wish I could edit previous posts! I've read the entry on italics now and I don't think it's intended to refer to fictional space ships - just to real world ships. In the context where it's mentioned things like "The Daily Telegraph" would get italics - it's real world titles, rather than made up ones. Hopefully it won't be too much hassle to change them back, it does make things look a little, um, slanty?!

The only place where italics would be needed is in that final paragraph where X Bomber and Bomber X are, in that context, names of TV shows. Hope that's doable... Although I notice that in this article, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A577037 , Millennium Falcon gets italics but Slave 1 doesn't... I suppose it's open to interpretation, but in this instance I wouldn't use italics, personally.

Hi,

I chatted to all the editors today, and a policy decision was made. Basically we concluded that spaceships (including fictional ones) are ships, and therefore should be italicised. I think the thinking was basically that, given this site is based on the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it should respect science fiction, and its extension of current norms.

Anyway, that's what the conclusion was. Hope that helps!

Cheers again for the article, it should be up on the front page soon!

That's good - best to have a unified approach to it. Looks like my article has had more impact than I thought it would!

Oh, don't worry. We were /always/ making this sort of decision on the sub-editors list in the old day. But of course the new sub-editors invariably come along never having taken part in the discussions and do something horribly wrong...

I just had a look at the Stargate entry - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A765597 - correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't the title be in single quotes as you've done for Star Fleet? Same as for its use in headings? Just thought it might be worth mentioning...

Hi, just wondering when the editors might finish the entry? I thought perhaps with the current Captain Scarlet entries on the front page my Star Fleet one would follow quite naturally, although I appreciate there're only so many new articles that can get on at a time...

I have no idea really: your guess is as good as mine. Though they don't usually take very long once they get to the pending stage. My guess would be that with the arrival of summer holidays, there might have been a bit of a surge of subbed entries.

Sorry not to be able to be more specific...

Well well, it looks like I guessed right, unless you put a word in! One follow-up question - should I now delete the unedited article although it's "not for review"? Or will that happen automatically? The two are so close there doesn't seem to be any point keeping both around...

It's really up to you. People don't tend to delete the unedited entry, though whether that's merely due to laziness I don't know.

Congratulations on having your (first?) entry on the front page!

Thanks; it is indeed my first entry! It looks as if a Terrahawks one may also be called for... Looking at other edited guide entries using search, there don't seem to be duplicate unedited entries for them so I think I'll now delete the original...