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

It's my latest hare-brained idea - essentially, I'd always thought one of the main tenets of the Guide should be entries on places to go and things to visit and what life's actually like there and that...

So I've just created a homepage for it over at A1286886.

If anyone would be interested in joining up and help me get the thing off the ground, to paraphrase Kevin Keegan, I Would Love It.

It's probably best to join up over at the page but to keep discussions about the thing here, for now, until we get it good enough to give it some sort of semi-official launch.

Well, now that we have some members I've added one of those popup membership list thingies, pinched from Ormondroyd's homepage for the Virtual Supporters Club.

I will shamelessly nick code from just about anybody...

If you've got any bright ideas about how to improve the look of the page, please do say!

I've added the guidelines page, and thought I'd call it 'the Map Room'. That's partially in reference to a joke from an obscure historical comedy called Chelmsford 123, but we'll gloss over that for the time being.

The question is: what do we put in there? I thought we could do a-by-no-means-exhaustive list of categories of information that you could consider putting in a geographical entry - a header and a little paragraph on each category, maybe.

Obvious stuff like: History, geography of the place (the bit in guidebooks they call 'orientation'), transport links, eating and drinking, nightlife - there must be loads, most of it obvious but quite hard to remember all at the same time.

The Royal h2g2 Geographical Entry Society
What a great name.

As for the map room, what about the different types of locations people may be writing about? Inhabited, Uninhabited, and partly inhabited? Are you thinking about a template researchers can follow if they are feeling writers block, or perhaps a source of insperation?

I was thinking also that there are certain manners that are different in different countries. Example, in Japan it is very impolite to blow your nose in the presence of another. Would this go under culture?

Ebert

would entries on individual attractions in a geographic location be considered geographic entries?

and as a resource for potential writers would it be a good idea to create a page or section with links to examples of geographic entries? (or we could just link to jimi x's entries page )

Thanks, Ebert. I only hope the Royal Geographical Socity don't sue me...

Anyway, I've searched the Picture Library, and found a load of Maps to put in the Map Room... they kind of clutter up the place, actually - but hey, it *is* the Map Room.

It'll improve once there's more text in there.

Good thinking about Inhabited, Uninhabited, or partly inhabited - I'd only been thinking in terms of towns or cities or pubs or whatever, I hadn't even thought of that. That's the value of collaboration for you.

I think sprout did an entry on a range of mountains in Slovakia quite recently.

Templates... hmmm. I'm not even sure what I think about that. It could be a great idea, but it might just result in a plethora of identikit entries.

One of the groups I want to make the Society friendly for are people new to h2g2 that want to contribute to the guide, so I'm wary of providing too strong guidelines - I think if we provide a good strong list of possible areas to consider writing about, and say something like you don't by any means have to include them all or have them in the order listed here, but if you include most of them you won't be going far wrong.

'Culture' - an excellent suggestion.

broelan - yes, and yes.

Particularly about Jimi - one of the first people I asked to join! Although I only started the thing in earnest today, so we'll have to be patient about who turns up.

Maybe we could have a directory of links for all geographical entries (maybe the 'C' numbered ones for each country) and a place for members to vote for their favourite entry?

We're probably talking extra pages here... a links page and some sort of clubroom perhaps? What do you think?

Right, I've added everyone so far to the pop-up list, done a little edit to the main page, and am now hard at work in the Map Room - A1286921.

If you've got any suggestions for sections, or would like to write one, or have a suggestion to change what I've already got, post it here. I'm not precious about the stuff I write. Well, not much.

Well, as promised, take all the and you want, just watch the carpet...

I've been beavering away trying to get the map room shipshape. But there are bound to be things I've forgotten, or bits of what I've written that can be improved. One of my main worries is that I'm focusing too much on criteria for an entry for a town or city. What do you think?

I think I'll have one of these in the meantime.

Help yourselves to , , and the rest of the , I'll be back in a bit.

I reckon a list of 'geographical' entries would be a good idea- for a start it would publicise what's already there, and for seconds it might inspire people to fill in some gaps...

the map room is looking nice, six

i can't think of any off the top of my head, but if we're going to set this up aimed at the beginning writer it might be advantageous to include some examples of how different types of geographic entries focus on different things.

for instance, an entry that briefly touches on attractions in a given place, one that focuses on an area's history, one that features a specific attraction, one that covers several areas thoroughly and so on sprinkled throughout the text where they're relevant. that might also serve to demonstrate that there isn't a specific formula to writing a geographic entry

Looking good But you mentioned examples in history. I wouldn't think of history as geographic

An h2g2 Royal Historians Society might be a neato sister group...

'lo all! I went and did it. The Royal H2G2 Historians Society
All interested parties see A1310149

Number Six steals code, I steal the title Anyway, if TRHHHGGS proves to be a success, I'll be interested in making these two societies some sort of sistersd

To steal the title properly, I reckon you might want to make it the Royal Historical Society...

Good luck with it, I'll be over shortly.

Although I would say that, if we're talking definitions, we've usually thought of any entry about a place as a 'geographical entry', even if it focuses on the history of the place... geography is about places and history about people, I reckon!

OK, I've done a little more work on the Map Room and created a links page - both are linked to from the main page.

On the links page, I've linked to the C-pages indexing the continents for the moment - that should be a maximum of five clicks away from any geographical entry in the EG.

I've also come up with some examples of different types of geographical entry - I've tried to have just one example of each researcher's work, knowing full well that you probably could do the full range just from Jimi's oeuvre! I think I may be able to link the examples directly from the Map Room, given time.

Invariably, my name crops up quite a lot as sub-editor, but hey, that's how I came to know about them.

There must be some kinds of geographical entry I've forgotten for which we could provide examples - any suggestions? Maybe a good one on a river, lake or desert, or a smaller town or a village? Or any thoughts on the examples that are in there so far? If we know better ones, we must put them in...

Don't be reticent in suggesting your own work - just by being a member here probably means you're among the leading authorities on how to write an h2g2 geographical entry anyway

Right, that's my lot for tonight... a quick cup of (decaf, of course) and I'm off to bed.

"The Royal Historical Society" sounded too much like it was recording the history of h2g2. You guys can pull it off, because you can't exactly map a website

What I got as the definition for geography (bless dictionary.com) is "The study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity." and that's the way I've always thought of it.