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

... and welcome to h2g2.

I'm one of the <./>ACEs</.> (Assistant Community Editors). We are a team of volunteers who try to help new researchers for the guide find their way around. You can click on the link I made with that acronym in order to find out more. To find out more about anyone, click on the link made by their nickname (eg at the top of any conversation postings) to go to their personal space. Lurking is quite acceptable on h2g2.

You seem to have found the <./>Smileys</.> and the Guide-ML. Perhaps you'd be interested in looking at the <./>GuideML-PictureLibrary</.> for some larger graphics. Saying that you are an organometallic chemist made me think at once of some sort of android. There is a rather fine picture "blob" of one which is numbered B624058.

Here are a few more links you might like to try. A660340 is a list of "Clubs and Societies" on h2g2. <./>Askh2g2</.> is a good place to start or join a random conversation. You could try the infinite improbability drive on the "Front Page" if you don't know where you want to go or <./>search</.> if you do. Have a look at how to <./>Contribute</.> to the Guide in case you do find some time. See other guide entries too important to be merely a number at <./>NamedEntries</.>.

Above all, have fun and don't panic. If you do find yourself tempted to panic, click the "h2g2 Help" link on the left. It may help.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there are probably other things I should be doing, but I'll be back if you call for help (ie reply to this message or post on my space).

Hello SEF , absolutely right (re: converstaion elsewhere), it was a pleasent surprise to get a welcome message from yourself. Still trying to figure out how to get round this place and work ML but getting there. Got a couple of entries in the pipeline, don't know when they be finished but I'll let you know so you can cast your expert eye over them for advice etc. Anyway, I'd bets pop down stairs and try and find my elusive supervisor to try and figure out what I'm mean to be doing exactly
Bye

I am the collector of lost researchers. With a bigger shopping trolley or bus I could probably catch even more.

Morning SEF how's you today. I've added my first guide entry if your intereseted in taking a look on my personal space. It's not finished yet, needs links putting in maybe a little tweaking here and there and isn't for review yet but I'd be grateful for any comments you might have. Thanks

I've only had a quick look at A986556 so far. First impressions are that there are some sentences which are unnecessarily complicated. It is usually possible to explain something without using technical jargon. While it is not necessary to aim low, there is no need to exclude too many people. Also some sentences are very long and could easily be split. I expect you'll catch things like "chemist ability" instead of "chemist's ability" on the next pass.

I assume you made your own drawing. I'm sure our p-orbitals were less spherical but there probably isn't a pointy blob tool in the way most packages would have a circle one! The image cheat will be very blatant if/when you do submit it for PeerReview. I'd been keeping this quiet and dodging all round the issue until recently.

Have you made sure you're not duplicating an existing project? I can't see anything similar in the chemistry category C56 at a casual glance but I haven't checked the h2g2 University. Or is this for them?!

I've been looking at how to simplify parts of it though but if you look at some of the guide entries, say, on quantum mecahnics, they can be quite complex and leave me a little, but anyway, point taken. I'm afraid the picture isn't mine because I don't have my own website to put one up on. Might change that and see if I can get some space on the uni server, then should be a simple matter (I hope) of using chemdraw. Anyway, I wasn't sure whether to put it in the final version, was leaning towards not putting it in. I'm pretty sure it's not impinging on anyone elses stuff in the edited guide and in the university (which is very thin on the ground, only one project on organic chemistry). Did a bit of searching and thought it was a major gap that needed filling. It was meant for the guide rather than the uni. Anyway, cheers

Overall I think it's great that you're adding more science to the guide. It certainly needs it. There are lots of holes to fill, eg crystallography wasn't touched at all until one article on growing silicon wafers. After looking at the h2g2 process I decided not to contribute to the Edited Guide myself in any of my specialist areas. This is mostly because I find it totally unacceptable that someone else can come along and ruin my good English or content with their poor grasp of it or of the subject. I do have my own website to use though for stuff I think the internet in general hasn't covered well enough.

I'm only saying be careful not to throw in jargon just for the sake of it. Be careful with copyright on other people's images. You can put a link in rather than the picture itself even if you do draw your own one. I'm also not happy about the way some things (particularly science) get illustrated round here.

What do you mean about the way things get illustrated. Is this a bit of an art-y kind of community on the whole? Anyway, I was certainly surprised that there were no entries on molecular structure and bonding in the chemistry or physics sections seeing as it's bread and butter fundamental stuff. There's bit and pieces on atomic structure and Hunds rules and the Pauli exclusion princple and some vague mentions of VSEPR but other than that...

I know that the editors are allowed to slightly change the content for grammer and spelling and tweak the ML coding here and there but are they allowed to change the core content of what you've written? Anyway, as far as crystallography goes I have some experience with small molecule Xray diffraction and can explaing the gist of it but don't have a solid grasp of the subject. (Hope my internal doesn't grill me too much on my crystal structure come viva time)

Anyway, I've tried to make the beggining of it much more open with more explanation, still might have another go at it later, but left the complexity of the end half mcuh as it was. By the time it's reached the reader will hopefully have taken in what's said before and apply it. Anyway, speak to you soon

The whole of the BBC is a bit arty if anything at all! It's one of the main complaints on the Science MBs in case you hadn't noticed. Quite often I see people pointing out mistakes in <./>Feedback-Editorial</.> which have been introduced into their work since leaving their custody and arriving on the front page. These are mostly trivial but it is obviously worth checking through one's own stuff to see what someone else has seen fit to change. Some of the editors have a rather odd idea about punctuation but the more major content changes would be from internal discussions which might not involve the original author. You'll just have to find out for yourself I suppose.

Crystallography would require a lot of diagrams to make much sense - especially the bits I like. So it would be a major battle to get them included and done by someone who actually knows the subject (ie me) as opposed to getting some pointless and dreadful cartoon (in the unlikely event it became the main front page topic in the first place). The last scientific subject was ruined that way. The computer/maths ones do at least have a larger sector of the h2g2 community - for obvious reasons.

Science only interests some people if it involves scary monsters (the enduring popularity of dinosaurs) or rockets etc. Pseudo-science like UFOs, ghosts, conspiracies, astrology or witch stuff is more prevalent round here as far as I can tell.

I agree, crytallography would be damn near imp[ossible to explain to someone without picrures of spots in a diff pattern and pictures of unti cells and relationships between the two etc etc. The whole of chemistry is pretty much like that requiring lots of diagrams.

I hadn't really noticed that people were overlly arty on the Science MBs, more bloody ignorant but those are usually the ones asking rather than answering. The creation board however is something in it's own right removed from the mainstream scince board.

Well, I'll see what happens once I've got part two together and put them both up for review at the same time.

By the way, if you really can't get web-space out of the university, quite a few people round here use angelfire. It is free but loathsome to view because of all the consequent adverts. When you click on someone's link to their home page on there, you tend to get about 3 extra windows popping up as adverts. The TABLE cheat might avoid this though.

Well I can't get any space through the main uni server but have applied for some through the SU's IT service, they'll give me 5Meg which doesn't seem like a lot picture wise. I can then use chemcraw and it's pre-drawn orbital templates, though you're right, it may expose the back door by using the table thing and make them block it up. But then I was thinking about getting some webspace anyway, knowing how to use it is always a useful skill.

Happy birthday.
Actually that's just the packaging - I'll have to see if I can put anything in it later.
...it might be a lot later though.

Thanks SEF I've reached the grand old age of 24, well that's what one of the UGs said to me on Friday. Oh God, that just reminded me, I'm teaching them again on thursday, oh well, it pays well

...and you think that's old! Just wait till the long slide into senility gets you. Where's my walking stick? Time to start acting like a proper OAP soon (where soon is an undefined variable). Though of course it's more probable that I'll be acting like an improper OAP (hitting or tormenting pigeons, gardeners and chefs etc as in "Waiting For God").