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

I've made the briefest of outlines of the Volunteers page. Could you sweep your eye over it and alert me if I've done anything blindingly stupid?

I know you've not got much time, and it is still a work in progress. I'm having to cut back on h2g2 time myself. Life, eh.

Hi Vip,
Yes, yours makes sense. Of course, the volunteer scheme depends very much on the editorial processes. My ideas of editorial processes demand very different kinds of volunteers. I think I'll try to publish something onsite this week about this. I've already started writing it, but then I got to the boring part, and wasn't able to finish

Oooh, I look forward to it. You are definitely right; volunteers are there to aid the editorial stuff, rather than shape its formation. That's partly why I haven't attempted to get this live yet (apart from the fact it needs more meat on its bones yet).

Give me a shout when you'd like an eye over it.

And only now do I realise that I forgot to link to it in my initial post. Sorry about that.

Well, here are my thoughts A82271775.
I should say, of course, a bunch of ideas I've stolen, collected and edited.

I was just about to post this tome onto the main volunteer thread, but the first person I wanted to read it was you, given I've turned things upside-down a bit.

This still, of course, doesn't solve the problem of the specific word 'Editor', but we can replace that word with anything else later. Not bullfinch though.




~~~~

*puts up her hand*

While I hate to bring this up, I had forgotten one very important aspect of this whole process when I was writing it up. We're losing our BBC Editors, but we're expecting to vote in volunteer Editors to replace them. This was one of the first things that was decided, all the way back in A81133670.

We'll have Editors who concentrate on the Community side, so the name ACE makes sense. We'll have Editors who concentrate on the Editorial processes, so the Sub-Editor title makes sense.

We don't have to re-distribute the Editor workload unless it turns out not to be working later down the line. It was my assumption that this work needed to be done by other volunteer groups that really drove the way I wrote the document.



This doesn't solve the problem that there are potential bottlenecks where only the Editors can control certain parts of the process (e.g. assigning work to Subs) but that can be changed and the Subs given greater freedom to get on with things. Most have been doing the job for many years and probably have their own ideas about that (please speak up! ).

I do wonder why the Subs and Curators were separated out, but there must have been a reason. I assume it has to do with trust and control of Edited/Approved content. Whether or not that needs to be maintained I don't know. My heart says no, let's merge, but that's not necessarily the same thing as reason.

I also wonder if it makes sense to keep the Scouts and Sub-Eds separate or not. If we are wanting to keep some kind of selection process for the Showcase because of the potential volume of high-quality Entries in the future, why do we not have that same selection at the beginning of the process so Subs don't have to read everything that comes through PR?



What I think it does mean is that in our short term plan there is very little need to change anything. Our new, elected Editors may inherit a large workload to begin with, but hopefully we will be there to support them during the transition.

Once the transition has sorted and we are operating quite normally, we can start to iron out the inevitable bugs in the processes and really work on the most clean and seamless way we can get small, then medium, then high volumes of qualities Entries in the Guide.



Any current Sub-Eds - please pipe up if I have mis-represented you. I am not a Sub and never have been and I don't want to assume something that is incorrect.

I think all of my relevant opinions are in the document A82271775. It addresses the need for Editors (in the sense that we currently use the word). All of those volunteer proposals are made with the assumption of there being staff/Editors. (this is one of the many problems with naming Editorial Volunteers "Editors" - we already have Editors, and will have more in the future, so it gets confusing).

Of course, I don't share many of your starting points - such as the need to have Editors allocate entries to Sub-Eds, or the need for a group of "Sub-Eds" in the first place. In consequence, it's really difficult for me to make suggestions within your framework. Additionally, I'm getting really tired of saying the same things over and over again, but being ignored or misunderstood.

I certainly agree that the Sub-Eds should have total control over the process, up to and including allocating Entries between themselves (if this stage is needed for that Entry), and pushing the 'Approved' button.
I'll re-write my paragraph relating to that area.

Sorry for asking you time and time again for stuff. It's just that with so many dissenting voices finding a medium is proving to be impossible to either get, or to articulate due to the problems with names.

Getting rid of the Sub-Ed role, for example. So many people see that as the reason why h2g2 is great, rather than a stage that strips authors of the responsibility of making their Entry a high enough standard. They are totally opposing opinions.

I am reading A82271775. Trouble is, as soon as I start altering it to suit some opinions, the further is swerves from the original. And if I don't alter it, we're not being democratic and we're changing things unnecessarily and without consulation. Lose lose.

I'm going away to start again. Talking about changes of changes of changes is clouding the whole issue and I need to clean all that away. Your reply has shown that. I am very glad I didn't post it in the main thread.