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

Hello SashaQ

Congratulations on being awarded the Scavenger Badge! To celebrate, may I interview you for the next issue of Super Market?

If so, are you able to answer these questions:

Would you like to tell me anything about any the articles that you have been involved in rescuing?

1. How to make Nearly Bourbon Biscuits
2. Speedy Bacon and Mushroom Pasta
3. The Guy Paul Morin Case - a Canadian Wrongful Conviction
4. Rickenbacker - the Guitar Manufacturer
5. Plato - Eminent Greek Philosopher and Writer

(Such as what made you decide to turn the article on Plato into a project?)

Would you only rescue articles about subjects you know well?

Have you approached a Flea Market Rescue any differently to how you write an article from scratch? Is it easier or more difficult?

When you write a Flea Market rescue, how do you decide what to keep and what to edit, and how much of a right do you feel that you have in making decisions about the article?

Would you recommend doing Flea Market rescues to other researchers?

How do you think you would feel about being on the other side, about someone else making changes to an entry you had written, if someone tried to rescue an entry you had abandoned?

Is there one that stands out as the most fun to write?

On the other hand, was there one that proved to be the most difficult to complete, and if so, why?

How much revision do you think proper in a FM Rescue?

Are there any questions you think I should have asked, or anything else you'd like to say?

Are you considering doing another Flea Market Rescue in the near future?

I hope you're happy for me to interview you - if you have anything else you wish to add, anything you don't want to answer etc, or you think all of my questions are rubbish and you'd rather answer ones that you've thought up, then please feel free to say!

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Thank you - it is an honour to be interviewed for Super Market!

I shall look at the questions now!

I don't think I'd go quite that far, but if you're happy to be interviewed, that's good enough for me

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Would you like to tell me anything about any the articles that you have been involved in rescuing?

1. How to make Nearly Bourbon Biscuits
2. Speedy Bacon and Mushroom Pasta
3. The Guy Paul Morin Case - a Canadian Wrongful Conviction
4. Rickenbacker - the Guitar Manufacturer
5. Plato - Eminent Greek Philosopher and Writer

I had been looking in the Flea Market for a while, as I had previously put my name down to rescue the Vegetables Entry, but I used that as inspiration for my own Entries on specific vegetables first, and somebody else took on the rescue while I was otherwise engaged.

I then noticed a recipe Entry in Peer Review, and thought that was a nifty idea. I checked the Flea Market and found two recipes that were very nearly ready for Editing, so I polished them up.

Having done two rescues, I then decided to aim for the Scavenger Badge, so I rummaged round a bit more and found The Guy Paul Morin Case and the Rickenbacker Entry which captured my interest.

I like badges so I had been thinking of doing a University Project for a while as well, but didn't have any inspiration. I found the Plato Entry in the Flea Market and I could see it needed a lot of work, but I also saw that there was already an Entry on one of Plato's books (The Republic). That gave me the idea to create a Project to introduce more of Plato's books in detail alongside the Rescued general overview of Plato himself.

Would you only rescue articles about subjects you know well?

No - I didn't really know anything about the first four Rescues I did. I didn't know much about Philosophy, but I was familiar with some of Plato's work already.

Have you approached a Flea Market Rescue any differently to how you write an article from scratch? Is it easier or more difficult?

It is quite a similar process, as it still needs initial research and then writing up, but it is a bit more challenging to work with the existing text, especially when trying to trace where statements came from without the option to ask the author.

When you write a Flea Market rescue, how do you decide what to keep and what to edit, and how much of a right do you feel that you have in making decisions about the article?

I first read the Peer Review thread and then go through and try to trace where statements came from. I try to keep as much of the original text as I can, so that the other author's work is still there, but if there are major decisions to be made about facts in the Entry, I have to make them - I leave a message on the author's personal space to give them opportunity to comment if they can, but I can't do more than that.

Would you recommend doing Flea Market rescues to other researchers?

Definitely! It is very satisfying to work on something that didn't quite make it through Peer Review first time and see it Edited at last. It introduced me to topics I wouldn't have thought of researching myself, too, so it is a very interesting and educational process.

How do you think you would feel about being on the other side, about someone else making changes to an entry you had written, if someone tried to rescue an entry you had abandoned?

If I had abandoned an Entry, then that would be fine, but I think it is definitely important for rescuers to ask first - like with my version of the Vegetables Entry, it might not be abandoned, just slow in the making... The Vegetables Entry went successfully into the Guide, though, so that was excellent (it wasn't an easy Rescue).

Is there one that stands out as the most fun to write?

The Speedy Pasta - it was my first Rescue, and I loved the enthusiasm that the late Gandalfstwin had for his dish, so I was very pleased to do just a little bit of work to his Entry and see it proceed into the Guide.

On the other hand, was there one that proved to be the most difficult to complete, and if so, why?

Plato - I checked the statements and found that a couple of sentences had been directly copied from one of the source websites listed at the bottom of the Entry I worried at one stage that the whole lot would have to be dumped as a Rescue, but I managed to salvage several paragraphs with a bit of careful rewriting in places. Overall, though, I really enjoyed taking the Flea Market Entry as inspiration and then using library books and the Gutenberg Project to study the subject in depth and write it up in a new (and hopefully enjoyable) way.

Are you considering doing another Flea Market Rescue in the near future?

There are a couple of Entries with potential that I found during my rummages but haven't done anything about. For now, though, I'm just enjoying admiring my excellent new Scavenger Badge

I'm doing research into the Flea Market ready for SuperMarket H(s,Q), and thought this would be the best thread to use to discuss related matters with you...

I found this A22999701 that the old h2g2 Editors have on their page - what do you think it is?

Just quickly popping by. It looks like the 11 churches mentioned in the banner at the top were compressed into 3 Edited entries:

A14639105 Church Tales: Part One
A17595354 Church Tales: Part Two
A17595408 Church Tales: Part Three

I can't help but feel that it would have made more sense if they had become 11 Edited Entries in a project. That way they could be classified and linked to easier. I'm not sure what the logic behind the Church Tales arranging was.

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Aha! I see. I was vaguely aware of the Church Tales Entries, but didn't particularly know what they were, and that makes sense that the Entry I found was the Eds' work in progress as they put them all together instead of accepting them as individual Entries.

A bit sad for the authors, that they didn't get Solo credit for their Entries, and it would have been good to have more than 3 separate Entries in the Guide, although some of the 11 are longer than others, so that probably explains why they were all amalgamated...

Fascinating

Here's another fascinating thing I found.

In the Alternative Writing Workshop, the Entry here F74130?thread=156173 got picked for the UnderGuide, but the review conversation wasn't transferred to the Entry like Peer Review threads are...

That is interesting. I must admit I'm not entirely sure about the AWW – is it just me, or does it seem a bit of a dumping ground at times?

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Yes - certainly the earliest Entries before the Flea Market got going seem to be "not suitable for the EG, so we'll put it over here instead"...

I know I put something in there that I wasn't sure if it was any good as a short story, and it got good feedback but didn't go into the Post or anything, so it's still there...

I found this one A767946 which the Miners wondered if it should be cleared out Back to Entry and it is still there too...

Fascinating...

I've started a conversation on Trello about it, so if you can comment there when we get a chance. I don't like the idea of any part of h2g2 being a dumping ground if we can breathe some life into it.

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More fascinating stuff from the early days...

I suspect there was a time when the Edited Guide didn't accept Recipe Entries, so they were put in The Post A690815 instead. Definite potential for crossover, as I see this one A666669 was also in The Post A900370

Trying to find rejected Entries, I see that people were sent e-mails rather than messages on their personal spaces before July 2000 so it's not easy to find the rejected Entries by searching on site...

I searched for Editors Rejected and then Entry Rejected

Here are threads that mention Researchers who received rejections
F615?thread=429
F627?thread=3953
F7190?thread=4189
F3824?thread=6004
F12936?thread=24358
F37693?thread=67692
F32217?thread=66792&post=628174#p628174

I hope that helps in the quest to rescue Entries

That'll have to do for now, because I'm getting a Bad Gateway, but it was interesting reading

I couldn't resist carrying on with this...

F11500?thread=21764
F12387?thread=13132
F36526?thread=71482
F615?thread=9016
F9721?thread=6201

Ah yes, I remember the days when there were no restrictions on having something in both and then later appear in the Edited Guide, and the 'Submit for Rejection' button where you would click the button and then hear nothing for about 20 weeks before getting a 'yes' or 'no'.

Sadly a lot of the conversations don't specify which entry they submitted to the Guide – they often say 'my first entry' but the first entry they've submitted might not necessarily be the first entry attached to their user page… I was amused to find me in one of those conversations

I'm not sure what to do about the Recipe entries that were in the Post – perhaps we should run it by Dmitri to see what he thinks about them going to the Flea Market. I think if the original non-Post version of the Recipe exists and hasn't been ticked 'Not For Review', if it has a Peer Review conversation attached, I see no reason why it can't go into the FM. It is still courteous to run it by Dmitri though.

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It was interesting reading about the Submit for Rejection button - I saw one person posted gleefully to say that they had submitted an Entry containing two lines of text, so they were very hopeful of rejection... (the poor Eds in those days, having to wade through those sorts of things as well as Entries submitted in the genuine hope of being accepted rather than rejected...)

I think my thinking was that if someone posted to say they had received a rejection for one Entry, it meant that they had submitted all their Entries at some point (or at least were not unwilling to submit their Entries)... I didn't do much digging, though, just found the links for starters, so I'll have another look and see if I can find any more details...

I was amused to find young Bluebottle in conversations too

That's a good idea to ask Dmitri about the Post Recipes, as he may know more about the history of that page I think the ones I was thinking of wouldn't even need to go to the Flea Market, but would just need subbing into the Writing Guidelines

It's good to know that we'll have something to do once we've finished looking through all the Alternative Writing Workshop. Did you notice that I accidentally clicked on the 'Recommend Entry' button rather than 'Submit for Review', so one entry hung around the Scout Recommendation page for a few days

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Threads looked at so far:
F615?thread=429

Still on list:
F627?thread=3953
F7190?thread=4189
F3824?thread=6004
F12936?thread=24358
F37693?thread=67692
F32217?thread=66792&post=628174#p628174
F11500?thread=21764
F12387?thread=13132
F36526?thread=71482
F615?thread=9016
F9721?thread=6201

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Doing some more while procrastinating...

This Entry A374339 was recommended and rejected according to F43126?thread=67087 so looks promising (the other Entries Dr Funk submitted were Edited)