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

Calling MR "stupid"!

Really, I'm almost wetting my pants.

I had planned to stay out of this since I'm not an artist. But I can't not defend MR. Tango, that remark was uncalled for and went far beyond any provocation.

Tango, insulting your discussion mates does not score points in convincing them that you are in the right. Especially not with this group. Tact and courtesy will take you much further.

Ladies and d'E, in Tango's defense, we know that his response was typical of the way things are done on other threads. Instead of holistic responses to what the opposition ~means~, sentences are chipped out of the opposition's response, framed in quotes, then used for target practise. It's the fashion, and it's thought quite logical and devastating.

I'm using opposition in the debate sense.

Now Tango is intelligent but he's young, and apparently his online debating experience is limited to what I have just described. He doesn't realise he's in a room full of Ph D students and professionals at the top of their game. He is still a student. Please give him time to acclimatise to his new surroundings.

*turns to Tango*

Tango, we don't do name-calling here. MR has reminded you of the distinction to be drawn between observation of an action and observation of character.


So let's not pick out sentences that we think we can demolish and ignore the larger sense of the argument. Let's stay up on the meta-levels of responsibility and malfeasance. Since CA's are the subject of this whole situation, we might even talk about art.

I look forward to seeing Tango's article as I'm still not clear as to what exactly is going on. But neither is Tango, presumably, hence his wish to investigate further.

My actions are always well thought out, and i always do exactly what i plan to. Therefore if you insult my actions, you insult me. There is no difference.

Tango

I've looked through most of the pictures on the pages Amy linked to. There are not enough dog pictures, if you ask me. I bet all the CAs are cat lovers

Tango, if all your actions are well thought out and reflective of your goals and morays, then I would agree with you. But if you are human and make mistakes, I have to take issue. Smart people do stupid things. That's a general statement, and not meant to apply to you in particular.

You're quite right, d'E. I am indeed guilty of drawing more cats than dogs. I'll take steps to redress the balance. I don't think I can fit a dog into the graphic I'm drawing at the moment but I'll choose more carefully when the next worklist comes out.

There is always <./>B3210867</.>, which I drew for boots' column in .

While you were looking around, d'E, did you see anything that would prompt you to investigate what was going on in the CAs?

Tango, you need to take an epistemology course before you graduate. And d'E is right: there is no such thing has a human who doesn't make mistakes, but unfortunately there are far too many humans convinced that they never make mistakes, and that's why war is still a part of the human condition.

I have found through experience that if someone gigs me about something, it's better to stay open to the possibility that they might be right, at first. But I make sure the matter is investigated. If it turns out that I'm wrong I don't lose face because I showed myself to be cooperative. If I'm right I gain face without antagonizing the person who gigged me, which means they are more disposed to cooperate with me in future. I only lose face if I insist I'm right and am later proved wrong. Then not only am I proved wrong but also to be an a**h*le. Who wants that?

And the above paragraph is NOT a fatuous generality. I am currently engaged in photographic research on a very famous image, and I am constantly coming up against rather people who initially think I'm talking rubbish. Historians, collectors, authors, academicians, and now even lawmen are talking to me.

If I respond by explaining to them that I am never wrong, just how far do you think I am going to get with my research in the long run? I'll answer that: I would get nowhere! I have listened to all of these people, learned from them, gone off and done some more homework, and in the long run greatly strengthened my case by demonstrating that I have incorporated criticisms, researched some more, and been able to demonstrate that my theory holds against their objections.

THAT is science, Tango, not starting from the premise that I'm always right and arranging the rest of the world to fit.

I recommend Sun Tzu's book, The Art of War. It's about succeeding in life by picking your battles.


And you are pushing the discussion away from the matter of the CA's and over to talking about generalities.


You haven't answered as to who drew your art submissions if you can't draw. Or whether you were in fact acting alone. You haven't told us what the accusations are that you've decided to investigate, however illegal your methods or damaging the consequences for others. You haven't told us what's wrong with our art.

Perhaps the insistence on being right is part of being young. I remember being young once...and if I met my 18 year old self in an alley, I would probably beat myself up. I was snotty, rude, self-righteous, and far too puffed up with a sense of my own importance.

I've come down a peg or two in the last dozen or so years.

Lil, you made an excellent suggestion, and it might answer some of the questions Caer and I seem to have...I've perused the CA page, and want to ask the following, because some of these weren't clear:

who decides which CA will do the art for a particular article?

are people who are reliable (i.e., fast, dependable, and relatively talented) given more assignments than others who may not be? or is there a regimented list?

is there any weight given to time in service?

if a piece isn't suitable for an article, is it retained for possible use later?

I never said i didn't make mistakes. I make plenty of mistakes, and i usually laugh at them afterwards. What i said was that my actions are always entirely my responsibility. If i do something stupid, it is because i am being stupid, if i do something brilliant, it is because i am being brilliant. Therefore, if you call my actions stupid, you are calling my stupid. If that is true, then i have no problem with it, if it is false, i will not be pleased. If i wasn't clear, then i'm sorry, it seems that was one of my mistakes. In fact, i often make that mistake: I know what i mean, so i assume other people will. And not talking in real time makes that even worse.

Explanations of my accusations etc. will be in my article, you will have to be patient. I don't want to answer much now until i have had a chance to get everything together so i don't make any mistakes.

Tango

Tango, I'm willing to concede that you were misinterpreted. I had another look at your post and your explanation of its meaning makes sense, but probably could have been differently expressed.

In answer to Caer and MR:

The assignment of art to an article is entirely voluntary: The Italics post a list, saying, here are the next n articles that we want to use as editors' picks, and here are the deadlines.

And then we artists post, saying, for example, I want to do Art of War, and hope that we were the first person to post for it, because earliest post wins the assignment.

There is absolutely no weighting of one artist over another. Amy has probably done more than anyone else because she's volunteered to do more than anybody else. She certainly has an advantage over me in terms of working method, in that I rarely can think of an illustration in less than 48 hours, whereas she has an ability to produce under incredibly short deadlines. Some CA's have only turned out a couple of artworks because they are busy IRL or they're laid up.

The result is that we tend to volunteer for what appeals to us or what we think we're better at. There are even exchanges between artists where they discuss who wants to do a particular piece more, and those are pretty much of the 'Aprés vous, Alphonse' variety.

In the beginning of the scheme, technical diagrams used to go to someone who wasn't actually a CA, but complaints were made, and that person consented to become a CA, where they now participate in critique and produce technical illustrations as needed -- which illustrations now go through critique.

There was one case where the CA's voted not to use an illustration because the CA was no longer a member and we collectively deemed the work to be unfinished. By unfinished, I mean that it hadn't completed its journey through art critique.

And there was one case where a work was turned down because it was thought to too closely resemble a copyright photograph on the web. That has happened more than once and in all other cases the artist has scratched the submission (however reluctantly) and produced something else for the article that was subsequently approved. But in this one case the artist reacted with great indignation and accused opposing parties of slander and imputation of their integrity, even though the BBC legal department backed the decision. Ultimately, someone else did the artwork for that article.

Understand, it is possible for an illustration to get through that might violate rules if no-one gigs it in time. And we don't all participate in critique all the time. Amy has her stretches of illness, I've had a lot of distractions this summer, and all the other CA's can say the same. We're humans, we're volunteers.


There have been occasional cases where no-one has volunteered for an article. In that case, the work is turned over to the in-house artist who used to do all the stuff, or else the Italics pull some pre-existing and use it.

I can't think of a case where an illustration was shelved and then used for some other piece. But I don't know everything.

The people who volunteer to become artists have to produce artwork for two articles chosen at random from the existing Edited Guide, articles that don't have artwork. If the applicant joins the CA list, his test works are blobbed and attached to the articles permanently.


There have been mistakes. On the italic side, there might be a blobbing error such that the wrong piece of art is seen on the front page. When that happens, the CA's all gather together and keen tragically until the error is fixed.

More commonly, a set of artwork (one or two main pieces for goo and white backgrounds, 2 circles for goo and white bgs and the little square communicate image) doesn't get proper technical critique before it goes to the bbc servers.

This can happen if we only have a short critique period between the art coming to Yahoo folders and the actual deadline, and I think we have all been guilty of that at one time or another, being late with our art, I mean. And sometimes we've been asked to supply artwork at very short notice.

In the early days, some of us took a while -- I'm a guilty party here -- getting our techniques right for the circled art. I turned out some circles with nasty fringes until I got matting nailed.

I suspect that the talk of poor art has to do with technical issues as opposed to content. And it has to be remembered that
1. Every CA is using a unique combination of graphics apps and hardware tools, and
2. Every CA has a unique way of doing art.
This means that hitting a standard can take longer because we try to respect each individual's style. This is art, remember.

Thanks for the questions, MR. I'll have a go at answering them .

In general, a list of titles is published on the Yahoo group and the CAs choose which one(s) they fancy doing. In the case of arguments, the person who posts first has priority although Yahoo tends to deliver messages in a random order making that tricky to sort out sometimes.

We each do as much as we feel able - some of the catalogues are not kept up to date so it's hard to get a clear idea of how much each artist does. I'm the most prolific of the artists but that's partly because I've been in the scheme since the beginning and I undertook the first trial batch of titles by myself. I usually hold back from the choosing process and hoover up all those that are left unpicked.

There is no weight given to time in service. The testing process - which up to now has sorted out all the technical issues before membership - means that everyone is equal in terms of their ability to do the job. The only difference for a new user is that their first batch of work is checked very carefully - by dragging the images into a graphics program and bumping the magnification up to 400% - rather than the cursory, informal inspection we give give each other's work the rest of the time.

The aim is for everyone to have their fair share of opportunities and tasks but some things, like setting the test or checking someone else's work, are time-consuming and complex. As with all volunteer schemes, some folk are more inclined to volunteer than others.

If a piece of work isn't suitable it's nearly always because there are copyright issues but there have been other editiorial reasons. The CAs have to accept that each piece of work they do *might* not be chosen. In practice, artists are usually cooperative if altering their work to suit. One advantage of these matters being decided on a closed Yahoo Group is that rejection, if it happens at all, happens in front of a very limited number of people to whom the same thing could happen next week. It would be certainly be possible to save a piece of work for future use.

Oh rats! A simulpost. It was bound to happen.

I would have posted my answer long before but I got a DNS error twice, and only managed to clipboard my post before having to go all the way back to my personal space and reapproach the conversation by which time Tango had posted.

So the whole process is very democratic, on a first come first served basis in selecting the art work and then to ensure standards the CAs have a critique system much like guide entries.

The procedure seems to follow the standards, guidelines and house rules as applied to the site and the BBC.

I've got the gist of that now and it all seems fair enough.

Now we just need to see Tango's article to see what the exact issue is. Although I shall miss it as I shall be away for a week.

But I see our responses agree, however much more prolix I managed to be!

I think that was where I was going...art is a wholy subjective thing. I personally can't figure out why Jackson Pollack canvases sell for so much...*I* could do that! Other people see it differently. That's why there's art.

I guess I will have to wait and see what Tango says, but from the page, and your answers, I can't for the life of me see anything untoward or conspiritorial going on with the CAs.

But then again, I can't draw worth beans. I can do stuff in black and white, because I see the shapes, but add color and I'm lost. Not to mention that most computer graphics programs make absolutely no sense to me!

"Now we just need to see Tango's article to see what the exact issue is. Although I shall miss it as I shall be away for a week."

It may take me that long to write. I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the weekend, but i'm not promising anything. I have to read a lot of offsite backlog, as well as search onsite for certain info.

Tango

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