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

I just had a look there:

A85719298 Saving the Best for Last Competition Archive (Normal) (3 Hours Ago)
A85716930 The Acrostic Poetry Challenge: Pedantic (Normal) (4 Hours Ago)
A85700153 Saving the Best for Last Competition: Untitled (Normal) (23 Hours Ago)
A85699732 Saving the Best for Last Competition: A Biter Bit (Normal) (23 Hours Ago)
A85698742 Gheorgheniplex: Meditation is Also Good Exercise (Normal) (Yesterday)
A85698599 What to Think About when your Brain is on Hiatus (Normal) (Yesterday)
A85698409 Eating Out with the Phoenician Trader: Marks and Spencer (Normal) (Yesterday)
A85697068 Around the Day in 80 Worlds: Coalescing Galaxies (Normal) (Yesterday)
A85696726 The Island Games (Normal) (Yesterday)
A85683432 Criminal or rich? (Normal) (2 Days Ago)
A85683126 The rudest people on Earth (Normal) (2 Days Ago)
A85682640 Japanese Worcestershire Sauce (Normal) (2 Days Ago)
A85661724 How to Do Large Cube Roots in Your Head (Normal) (2 Days Ago)
A85640240 What to Do when You Fail to Survive Death (Normal) (3 Days Ago)
A85610919 Test Cyrillic Characters (Normal) (4 Days Ago)
A82254143 Priory Country Park, Bedford (Edited) (4 Days Ago)
A81437600 Cold Weather Adapted Cats (Edited) (4 Days Ago)
A83645526 Henry Bessemer and the Development of Bulk Steelmaking (Edited) (4 Days Ago)
A85585549 Announcements 13.06.11 (Normal) (4 Days Ago)
A85584216 The h2g2 Community Consortium Membership Roll (Normal) (5 Days Ago)


Of those 20, ten have been created by Post Team, seven yesterday, two today. The earliest non-Post entry was created five days ago. So without all those post articles, we'd probably have had twenty new entries in ten days. Subtract the Edited Entries and you have 14 new entries within ten days. Eight if those were submitted to Peer Review.
I guess it could be worse.

I've been working on recycling old entries for about the last 3 years. When they're all used up I'll start creating new ones. But I understand that most people would create a new entry to cover a new topic. We definitely need more people writing.

Rather than counting the number of new entries, you should go into Peer Review and see what it's like in there. It looks reasonably healthy, but not good enough to support the five-a-day I'd like to see when the site is under new management.

I've just been over there. And for my stats I sorted the PR submissions by date, so entries which have been created a long time ago (like Nosebagbear's) have been counted (although they've not been created within the last ten days).

I think there might be another issue - that the most obvious topics to write about have already been chosen, and so unless you are both creative and confident it is a stumbling block at the outset.

Is it worth while advertising a few areas where the mostly harmless Entries could do with a revamp? - and really clear to understand guidance on how to do an Update. The method we have now limits Updates to people who are confident with GuideML, but I think we could manage a way to be more supportive to someone who knows the topic well but needs a bit of extra support in PR.

Make a list of obvious gaps in the Guide?


How many EGEs are there at the moment? Is there another large number looming that we could work towards?

The comingup page looks as follows right now:

This page shows what's coming up, and currently going through our editorial process.

Recommended by Scouts

These Guide Entries have been accepted from the Scouts, but haven't been sent to a Sub-editor yet.
ID Subject
A84012040 The Phantom Time Hypothesis - Tree Rings and Jesus' Underwear
A84330786 The Mathematics Behind Digital Technology
A75489169 Odiham Castle, Hampshire, England, UK
A81628941 Spence Broughton – a Famous Corpse
A79867147 Winchester Castle, Hampshire, UK
A80886478 The Size of Things
A80421103 Drugs from plants
A82698042 Gerald, the pornographic elephant and his 'Groupies'.
A83096012 The Queen Victoria Blast Furnace Explosion, 1975
A81340887 This is a test - please ignore
A77671920 Walking The Isle of Wight Coastal Path - Project Page

With Sub-editor

These Guide Entries have been sent to a Sub-editor and are being edited.
ID Subject
A52917159 Hidradenitis Suppurativa
A55752294 Disability
A61837095 Operation Thunderbolt - Raid on Entebbe
A75449659 The 2004 Isle Of Wight Festival
A77191978 Southampton's QE2 Mile, Southampton, Hampshire, UK
A81872319 Brain's Faggots
A81461333 Walking the Cinque Terre
A80779512 John Updike - a Character Study
A80874390 Arthur Dent and 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven'
A81840350 Old Town Lunenburg World Heritage Site, Nova Scotia, Canada
A651917 Polaris - the North Star

Returned from Sub-editor

These Guide Entries have been returned from the Sub-editor and are awaiting final polishing.
ID Subject
A44326730 The India-Pakistan Conflict Part 1: Origins
A53569506 By Golly, it's the History of Golliwogs
A56209188 Driving Safely - Assessing Sharp Bends
A82248681 Paul the 'Psychic' Octopus
A82144370 Hampshire Earthwork Castles
A82826139 St John the Baptist
A82128774 Avvakum Petrovich, Russian Priest and Martyr (1620-1682)
A82143254 Arabian Horses - Drinkers of the Wind
A81505901 Wolvesey Castle, Winchester, Hampshire, UK
A83345132 'The Lost World' - The 1925 Film
A83468073 Influencing the European Union
A82908796 Dinosaur Provincial Park World Heritage Site, Alberta, Canada
A83311571 Surviving an Internet Blockade
A83646156 The Mysterious Treasure of Thomas Beale
A83646589 Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'
A83645553 Grand-Pre National Historic Site, Nova Scotia, Canada
A84731033 Ways of Looking for Work in the UK

Some of the ones that have been returned from the Sub-editors have been sitting there awhile. There are problems with a few of them, likewise one of the ones in the Sub-eds list.

It's a worthy notion aiming for five new Entries a day, but I'd like to aim for one good one for each of the 7 days per week to begin with. Better to have an achievable goal. At the moment there seems to be a bit of randomness on how many hit the FP per week and which one stays at the top, in that big box and which ones stay in the list at the side. ( I'm referring to the way it appears in Barlesque)

I never look at barlesque.

But yes, I know it is random, a friend noticed it a few times.

It's not motivating the way it is.

It looks as if people are finding things to write about.

But creating, say, a page with suggested areas for EG expansion would be a great idea.

Suggestions:

Gay history
Civil rights pioneers
Certain historical areas - I'm supposed to be working, so I don't have time to check, but off the top of my head, I'd say a reader of the EG gets the impression that Roman Britain was way important, but that other periods were not.
Musicians who lived before the Age of Rock'n'Roll
Operas
Great explorers
Important English-language writers...bet there are gaps, has anybody done one on VS Naipaul? How about other Commonwealth writers?
etc, etc.

Challengeh2g2 used to serve a similar purpose. People would point out holes in the guide and then "challenge" other researchers to fill them. It was reasonably effective for a year or so, as I recall. Perhaps in the future, that page could have a running list of gaps or "challenges" tacked on?

Have we all written about our home town/county/state/country?
our favourite holiday resort/activity?
our favourite restaurant/dish/recipe?
our favourite hobby (after h2g2)?

The challenges were a good idea. The one I took up and wrote an entry about gets the most hits on my blog page. Funny, because I'd never have guessed that.

Great list, Icy. I've lived in a few more places that probably don't have entries. (And if I ever get out the other side of US history, I will write about them. )

The Challenge idea is great, too. We definitely should revive that.

I think suggestions will make it easier for newbies to get into the swing of EG writing. That's one worry out of the way of the pre-writing process.

The Challenge was the entry I had most fun with, as I had to research an area I had little knowledge on, and which became three entries eventually.

* Icy! *

If it was to be revived, could there be an 'I completed the h2g2 challenge' award?

When I completed mine I received a t-shirt and an enamel badge, but they wouldn't hold such caché now.

Having said that, I have a UP project of 15 entries and one other entry in the system so things must be fairly healthy!

My local area? Might be worth doing an overview, followed by additional entries, but I couldn't face another UP at present... and there is a fair bit to write about, just on Brentford.

all and have a weekend.

MMF

I got a t-shirt, too. And a mousepad. It was a subject I'd not normally have written about, but I enjoyed researching it a lot.

Personally, I would NEVER EVER write a University Project again, though.

I remember.

I enjoy writing the UP's, but they are tiring. However, I'd restrict my next one to no more than 5 entries.

Kew, at 15, was huge, but my other UP, at a possible 30, is just too daunting to finish in the near future. That's probably why it isn't going anywhere , unfortunately.

The bones are there, but it's more a cemetery than a skeleton.



But I know what you mean. And I've still an Icy-inspired entry to start!



MMF

Just write and submit them one at a time. They can be linked together afterwards. GB did that with the Astronomy Project.

Let me have a look at Icy's list:

Have we all written about our home town/county/state/country? check
our favourite holiday resort/activity? check
our favourite restaurant/dish/recipe? check
our favourite hobby (after h2g2)? others did

That's me off the hook then.

. I agree. Just hate being beaten by a few words strung together.

Now what did you say?

Have I written about:

My home town? 30 entry UP wip.
County? That'd be bigger than the town.
State? Yes, I'd be in a right state if I took the Kent County challenge.
Country? I'd die before it's completion,even writing continuously, daily.

My favourite holiday resort? Does Kew count? A79768921
Activity? Could do bird-watching, I guess. But it's already been done. A471205.

My favourite restaurant? Tricky, as I don't have one.
Dish? Ah. My own special Rhubarb Crumble recipe, maybe?
Recipe? Yes, Tomato and Lentil Soup. (A60769704)

My favourite hobby (after h2g2)? Is that different to activity? That'd have to be washing then. Like this entry? - A55673878.

So four ticks and six crosses? No coconut for me then.

Or as my teacher used to say. 'Can do better!'

Let me get Copenhagen's Elephant Hunt out of the way, and I'll see what I can do.

MMF

I find that when I do get round to putting up an entry it is a rapid response that inspires more. If you write something and it is responded to (whether positive or negative) quickly and finds its place - if merited - within a very few weeks then I am heartened and want to write more. If it languishes in Peer Review or with the subs for months, by the time the email arrives I am thinking 'Oh yes, h2g2, I must have another look at the site someday soon(ish)'. I have moved on in the meantime. That could be why you get a more enthusiastic workforce on The Post. Contributors get to see their efforts 'published' much quicker and thus maintain an interest and want to keep writing. I know myself that, having put bits and pieces in other places, it is those sites that respond quickest that keep my attention and persuade me to contribute more, and those that offer the slowest response that I return to least.

I guess it's a quality/quantity judgement but I would think it a tall order to generate seven quality entries a week on the site without coming to rely on a small clique of regular contributors which would be off-putting to the occasional contributor or newbie and, in time, wearing on the quality front (same-old, same-old).

I would be cautious about laying down topics {home town etc). It is wit, charm, exoticism, dry humour, intelligent writing, zaniness etc etc that we need here, not a rival to encyclopediae.

Good points, Pheroneous.

I agree the turnaround time is a good stimulus.

I think the purpose of a set of challenges and/or suggestions should be, not to limit choices, but to help jump-start the thinking process for the kind of writer who finds that useful.

For instance, I wouldn't write a guide entry about my birthplace, which is Memphis, Tennessee. I'd write one about the Pink Palace, a quirky sort of museum there, or the Peabody Hotel's long-standing institution of ducks in the lobby (and how this was mentioned by William Faulkner), or its ludicrous Civil War naval battle, or why that area is called the Mississippi Delta when it's not at the mouth of the river, etc, etc.

I'll bet anybody would find this sort of thing a jumping-off place for fresh ideas.

>>It is wit, charm, exoticism, dry humour, intelligent writing, zaniness etc etc that we need here, not a rival to encyclopediae. <<

I agree, to a degree, but I am driven / inspired to write the 'definitive' entry so that there is no need to look elsewhere. Everything one needs to know, in one place.

UnfortunatelyI cannot do 'creative writing'. If I could I'd be an author or a poet and I can only write about what I know or am interested in.

. Just beyond my feeble little pair of grey cells. Just have to leave that to others then

MMF