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

I like collaborative entries. Who're you going to write it with?
Unfortunately, I don't know anything about B&C other than the basic plotline and what's been on the History Channel every now and then.

Unfortunately, the fact that I wrote an entry doesn't quite mean I have the energy to devote to actually researching an entry. Don't tell the Peers, but I did little-to-no research on that one. It was mostly from memory, except when the memory was a little hazy. Now, if I could find another subject that requires no research, my output would double this year.

Great to see it in PR, Jodan.

A very good Entry too, better than I remember, It has a nice balance of poignancy and indignance.

I won't be commenting in PR, at least not yet, because the crit will flow better without me.

Do you want crit from me, anyhow? This one might already be just as you want it. Let me know.

Pin

Of course I want crit. I'm not really happy with it yet, but I think I will be before the process is over... one way or another.

OK. Three observations for now.

1. Sort the tenses, as h5ringer suggests back in PR. The italicised text wants to be simple present tense, and the plain face simple past. I'd go further, making the italicised account emotional and the plain face part impassive. They will counterpoint each other perfectly, as long as you're thorough.

2. The date comes in a little late for me. It's hard to remember after repeated readings, but I think it probably needed a skip-back for orientation the first time, and that's not good. You worry about getting the Centennial reference in the right place. It would be part of my first sentence.

3. The title is a bit obscure. A 'Five ways to die' subheading somewhere would work, but for the main title 'ideal tragedy' is a gift.

These are relatively superficial comments. I could suggest wholesale changes, but I won't because this is yours, and you should make it as good as you can in the form you conceived it yourself before considering anything major.

Yes, I need to go through those again I went through the first four sections last night, but I get the feeling my frazzled mind is just letting them slip past. I don't know if I agree about the emotional italics and impassive plain... There are some emotional things that would be damned difficult to fit into a narrative format. It's an interesting idea.

I'll work the date in earlier. That shouldn't be a big problem.

You're right about the title.

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Like which?

The bulk of the narratives are made up of information from first person accounts that I dug up. There are things like the red and black tint of the river which I got from third person accounts, which I would not feel comfortable inserting into a narrative. I have no evidence that something like the red & black tint was even noticed by any of the figures in the narratives. I was pretty careful about keeping the narrative within the confines of the first person accounts. If someone challenges me that I'm fictionalizing the event, I can provide sourcing for everything - every bit of dialogue included.

I'm just trying to tread lightly here, as it is a new format for me. Maybe I'm missing something.

No, that's .
I was forgetting your scruples about veracity and applying my own.

Scruples? Nah. I'm just not comfortable yet with anything other than the basics.

By the way, I'm thinking that now might be a good time when people might be most receptive to changes in the way PR selects and reviews entries. My feeling is that the real wall blocking the acceptance of a lot of unconventional entries was Jims, who isn't working the levers anymore. I think Natalie is more inclined to let the community make decisions for itself as to what it wants to see in the Edited Guide. This may be a good time to spark debate and push the limits. I've talked to Rich about this, a bit.

I've just reread the old PROD manifesto. It's interesting because the conditions, I think, would be less hostile to that sort of attitude, and all of the arguments all make the same amount of sense. It's been about two and a half years, if you can believe that. I'm in a revolutionary kind of mood. Spy posted something to me that's gotten me thinking...

Yours to command, sir

Remember though that there are some implacable Low Numbers too. I have mixed feelings about a straight recycling of PROD. On the one hand, I can't see us saying it any better. On the other, going down the same road implicitly means losers as well as winners. (With a new campaign, it's possible that nobody would argue now, meaning a clean start. With PROD, several already have argued)

I think you're right about Charlotte as the main opponent. It got personal too - I taunted her a lot and she obviously disliked me. That hurt us last time. You have to be sure my involvement wouldn't be toxic again.

Charlotte's disappearance might also help this Entry (Ashtabula) too. Your premise seems to be that a dramatic treatment must be OK when every fact is demonstrably backed up. With Ms Church on station, the same tactic was rejected with Orgreave, even though the backing up was provided by a definitively-reliable judicial record...

I think Ashtabula will make its way through, if I had to guess. It's made it this long without any controversy.

Maybe we could write it better than PROD. It's an excellent statement of values and reads very clearly to me. Maybe not specific enough. I can recall a lot of questions as to what was actually being proposed.

Have a go at a new draft, then. I have to say, though, that making it all more specific doesn't seem very appropriate. Most of the problem with the EG/PR is that it's unnecessarily prescriptive.

Did you see this?
F48874?thread=4771925&post=55476865#p55476865

langsandy's Entry was Mined and the QA suggested it might be tested against PR because it might be EG-fit (and therefore not UG-fit). The early posters, at least, never noticed the quality. All they saw was a conformity deficit.

It'll go into the UG now, but the treatment was depressing.

Back in your Journal, you seem to be attracted to trying Rousseau out. Or, if you'd prefer patriotism, Whistler's Mother would be an alternative.

I'm ready when you are. Say when.

I had not seen that thread, no. I haven't read that entry yet either, but I will (I was hoping for a short nap this afternoon) I'll trust that it's of a high quality for the moment... the reaction is very interesting. Not depressing at all. Gnomon's reaction is really encouraging, I think. The initial reaction to that entry was what I'd expect, a knee-jerk kind of thing to someone who they thought simply didn't know what the EG is all about. The correction near the end is very encouraging.

I think that the biggest thing we have to do is get people to ask the question 'Why Not?'. This entry isn't for Peer Review. Why not? This sort of narrative doesn't belong in the EG. Why not? The fact that some Peers are willing to ask this question without much prompting is a good sign.

However, I'm not sure langsandy is the right person to make that point. I'm not sure you are, either, for very different reasons. The best person to actually talk an entry through PR, in my mind, would be Waz, but I doubt she's interested or has an entry to write.

"I have to say, though, that making it all more specific doesn't seem very appropriate. Most of the problem with the EG/PR is that it's unnecessarily prescriptive."

What I mean by specifics is basically laying out what we'd like to see change. Not a new version of the Writing Guidelines, or a new list of ways to act in PR. We need to state what we're after. It seems like there are a few paranoids who seize upon the vaguer statements and think that PROD and whatever this PROD II thing is, is a Trojan Horse for some vast conspiracy. If we're going to write an article or submit an entry to PR, we should make sure that our intentions are known. We're not trying to manipulate anyone. We have a point to make.

langsandy wasn't wrong in this context. It wasn't a stunt.
He would be wrong for a systematic boundary-push, though, because he's not motivated. His enjoyment of the site has nothing to do with PR and little to do with the EG.

Have you asked Waz?

As for the other thing, OK, but I seem to remember we weren't more specific because we didn't all agree. One thing that will always come between us, I suspect, is that the scope I want to see in the Edited Guide would remove the need for a separate UnderGuide.

I know it wasn't a stunt. I agree.

I'm writing Waz now.

Yes, we certainly don't agree on that. So what do you want to see? I think I've said what I want to see. Maybe not. I want a content-focused PR and a guide that values quality and is open to all formats (within the context of an 'unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything'). The details are a bit more painful, but they'll fall into place eventually.

I want to see an Edited Guide in which quality writing of any and every kind is exhibited. Simple as that.

Well, we've got that out there in the open. That's good. I had been worrying that the unspoken knowledge that you and I differed on where the limits should be would hold me back. Hopefully you can agree that my aims are a step towards fulfilling yours, even if I don't believe we should go that far, as a site.

My favorite historian, Joseph Ellis, wrote a book recently and I'm just working my way through it. He's a great writer, who focuses on the American Revolutionary saga. Whenever I read one of his books, I become absolutely submerged in that world. So I was thinking about the Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton, one of my heroes, wrote them alongside some of his friends (James Madison and John Jay). It was a series of essays written to convince people to support something specific - in this case, the ratification of the Constitution.

I've started a few essays. The first one is here. A29157591. You like powdered wigs?

Neat.

I just love the way you always resort to reason. I just hope you're not forgetting that Hamilton deployed it in RL, rather than on the not-exactly-rationally-grounded-madhouse we call the internet.

If you think a little unreasonable rhetoric will aid the cause, let me know.

People are people.

If you want to be a Paine, go ahead. I'm all for it.

(Thomas Paine, of course )

Hey, how about Paine as a collaborative Entry?
No. He's already got one.
B*gger.