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-
- Project Galactic Guide Guidelines & Rule-thingies
-
- Completely Revised & Expanded by Paul Clegg, January 2nd, 1993
- Steve Baker helped, too!
-
-
-
- ----- Part Zero : Preface -----
-
- Upon reviewing several articles that managed their way into the
- Guide's archives, an action precipitated by a combination of
- sheer boredom and having just finished reading "Mostly Harmless,"
- I've come to notice that many of the article in the current archives
- fall short of perfection on several counts, not the least being
- several grammatic and spelling errors, but more importantly a general
- discontinuity of ideas.
-
- The original plan for PGG was that it was to be entirely factual, based
- on real things. Due to popular demand, however, we elected to include
- both completely fictional and not-so-completely fictional works as well.
- By doing so, we have greatly increased the number of articles we receive,
- although I think there are more fictional and not-so-completely fictional
- articles as there are completely real articles.
-
- And even then, some of the completely real articles aren't as completely
- real as they had seemed at first glance.
-
- The problem I first wanted to address was the referencing of fictional
- ideas within "real" articles. If an article is to be designated as
- completely real, then, gosh-darn-it, everything in it should be
- completely real. As an example of what shouldn't have gotten into
- what has already been done, refer to the article "Bluffers Guides, The",
- where it refers to a "Jagulon-Beta". There is no Jagulon-Beta, and it
- should not have gotten its way into a "real" article. Likewise, there
- are several "semi-real" articles that aren't fake enough to even qualify
- as "semi-real" (example: Melbourne, Australia), and some that probably
- should be real with a little concentrated editing (example: Infinity;
- just drop the quotes from Adams, change the reference to "PGGBs" (which
- should've been spelled out anyway), and you've got something that qualifies
- as a "real" article).
-
- So the real trick now is to come up with some hard-core, definitive,
- but general pointers as to what should be real, semi-real, and unreal.
- There are also some things that need to be cleaned up in the realm of
- article titles, summaries, cross-references, and indexes. Hopefully
- I'll be able to address them all.
-
-
-
- ----- Part One : Article Categorization -----
- (or, "Is It Real, Semi-Real, or UnReal?")
-
- Project Galactic Guide categorizes its information into one of
- three groups: Real, Unreal, and Semi-Real. The purpose of this
- is to allow people to discern between articles that are real
- (and possibly actually useful) and articles that are primarily
- for entertainment value only. Let's deal with them in a few steps:
-
- Real. A Real article is an article that is written about a
- real thing, person, place, occurence, what have you. Everything
- about the article is real. All the words are real words
- (exception: you can use "hoopy" as much as you want), all the
- people are real people, and all the places are real places. If
- the article is mere speculation, it's still real, so long as it
- doesn't definitively break any of the rules previously stated.
- But it should be real.
-
- UnReal. An UnReal article is an article that is written
- exclusively to be a piece of fiction. It can use references to
- real things as much as it'd like; it's still UnReal. UnReal
- articles are just articles that people might get a good chuckle
- out of.
-
- Semi-Real. Now it gets tough. What exactly constitutes a
- Semi-Real article? Articles that get the designation "Semi-Real"
- should contain PRIMARILY Real stuff, and include only sparse
- references to UnReal stuff. A Semi-Real article should have
- some useful information within it, even though it's clouded with
- entertaining tidbits of fiction.
-
- When you, as a field researcher, begin to write an article, have a good
- think about what KIND of article you plan on writing, and do it BEFORE
- you write it. While a good, satirical UnReal article may be funny, and
- fun to write, the best, and by far most useful, article is a Real article.
-
- Things written by Douglas Adams are NOT real (well, most of it isn't,
- anyway). Don't use references to "the Great Prophet Zarquon" if you're
- writing a Real article; that automatically changes the category to
- "Semi-Real". This also brings up another point that needs to be discussed
- later on: the use of quotes.
-
-
-
- ----- Part Two : The Article Format -----
- (or, "What The %-Thingies Mean")
-
- As of January 2, 1993, the current format for the "header" of
- an article is as follows:
-
- %t Title
- %n Identification Number
- %s Summary
- %a Author
- %d Date
- %x Cross References
- %i Indexes
- %e Entry Start
- This is a sample entry.
- %e Entry End
-
- %t Title:
- The title should be no longer than 76 characters. In fact, if
- you have a title that is anywhere near 76 characters, you
- probably came up with a really bad title. The title of an
- article is NOT the same as a movie or book title. The title of
- an article should be similar to the name of an encyclopedia
- entry. As a result, a title should not be, "Paul Clegg, The
- Hoopiest Frood In All Of Creation", it should be "Clegg, Paul
- Jason". Names of people should be written in last, first middle
- fashion. Places should be expanded all the way out to the
- planet. If you're writing about a city, then your title should
- be "City, State (if applicable), Country, Planet". We have to
- think ahead here. Avoid using "The" as the first word of the
- article; if it's necessary, append it to the end of the title,
- such as "Earth's Crust, The" as opposed to "The Earth's Crust".
- An article's title IS like a movie or book in that the first
- letters of ALL the words are capitalized. For simplicity, do
- NOT make exceptions for the small words.
-
- %n Identification Number:
- The ID number of an article contains information on three
- different things: First and foremost, it contains the flag
- detailing the "reality" of the article; this letter is either R
- for Real, U for UnReal, or S for Semi-Real. This letter MUST be
- supplied by the author of the article. The decimal number
- before the letter is the number of the editor who edits the
- article. As an example, editor number 1 is me, Paul Clegg. The
- number that comes after the letter is the number of the article
- is the number of articles of that reality type that particular
- editor has edited. For example, I have edited articles numbered
- 1R1, 1S1, and 1U1. Which were the first Real, Semi-Real, and
- Unreal articles I ever edited. 1R7 was the seventh real article
- that I edited, and so on. Field researchers do NOT need editor
- ID numbers; these numbers are only used so that we can figure
- out which editor missed what typos and then scream at them for
- being so stupid. (BTW: We can always use new editors!)
-
- %s Summary:
- The Summary line of an article should be short and sweet, and
- just a little more informative than the title. If you feel the
- urge to use a subtitle, this is where it should go. To continue
- the previous example, the summary for "Clegg, Paul Jason" might
- be "The Hoopiest Frood in all of Creation". A summary should
- be, at maximum, 76 characters long, and should NOT be more than
- one sentence. A good guideline would be that if your summary is
- longer than your article, switch them.
-
- %a Author:
- This is where you, the field researcher, gets the spotlight.
- You get to put your name (use your real name, please), and your
- e-mail address (if you have one). The format should be straight
- first-middle-last, followed by TWO spaces, and then enclose your
- e-mail address in normal parenthesis. My name appears on my
- articles as:
-
- Paul Jason Clegg (cleggp@rpi.edu)
-
- %d Date:
- This is the date on which you wrote the article. The format
- for the date is yyyymmdd, expanding on single digits with
- leading zeros. A correct date is 19730728 (July 28th, 1973).
- The reason for this is quite simple: You can easily tell if an
- article was written after another by comparing the two dates in
- this format. The one with the larger number was written last.
- [Note for discussion: Perhaps we ought to change this to the
- date that it was accepted into the archives?]
-
- %x Cross References:
- You can have as many LEGAL cross references as you want in your
- article. Each should be on a separate line containing its own
- %x marker. Each line should contain the TITLE of an ACTUAL
- ENTRY, copied character for character out of the Guide. As a
- field researcher, don't feel pressured into adding cross
- references, as the editors should add as many cross references
- as necessary. In deciding on which EXISTING articles should be
- cross referenced, read your article, and think to yourself, "Now
- that I've read this, what would I want to know in more or less
- detail?". If you write an article about about a place on Earth,
- then make sure one of your cross references is to "Earth".
-
- %i Indexes:
- Indexes are what your title might otherwise be known by. Short
- forms of the title should NOT be included if the characters
- match up on a one-for-one basis starting at the beginning.
- Thus, if the article title is "New York City, New York, United
- States of America, Earth", then "New York City" and "New York"
- are NOT good indexes, though "Hellhole" would be (just kiddin'
- people). You are free to use as many indexes as you'd like, in
- the same manner as cross references; one index to a line, each
- one beginning with the &i marker.
-
- %e Entry Markers:
- These indicate the beginning and ends of the actual text of the
- article. One marker is put on an otherwise blank line just
- before and immediately after the first and last lines of the
- article. Consult the Project Galactic Guide Text Formatting
- Guide for details on writing the body of the article.
-
-
-
- ----- Part Three : Article Content -----
- (or, "The Good Stuff Inside")
-
- What should go into an article is, in the case of Real
- articles, substantial information written with a witty style,
- or, in the case of Semi-Real and UnReal articles, somewhat less
- substantial information written with a witty style. While it is
- encouraged a LOT, witty style is NOT required; if you don't
- think you're very witty, don't be discouraged; write a normal
- article and submit it; besides entertainment, the point of the
- project is to culminate all sorts of information.
-
- Don't quote Douglas Adams left and right. I'm currently
- awaiting feedback from Mr. Adams himself on the legality of the
- whole project as it is. If you must quote him, use a footnote
- to designate which book, page number, and his name; this applies
- to any books or sources you might quote from. If you're not
- sure about it, ask an editor BEFORE you try sending in your
- article.
-
- Articles don't have to be long! We want information, and lots
- of it. If you don't have the time or urge to write a long and
- involved article about something, don't! You can always update
- your own article (or someone else's) later on.
-
-
-
- ----- Part Four : Field Researcher / Editor Relationship -----
- (or, "Your Editor is Your Friend")
-
- When you've completed your article, you e-mail it or send a
- hardcopy to an editor (one of your choice, even!). A list of
- editors and their addresses may be found at the end of this
- document. The standard procedure is (or should be) this:
-
- 1. Editor receives article.
- 2. Editor reads article and decides if it's really worth
- putting in the archives (usually is).
- 3. Editor edits article for spelling mistakes, grammatical
- errors, and other problems.
- 4. Editor sends an edited copy of the article BACK to the
- author to make sure they didn't alter its true meaning or
- purpose.
- 5. If the author is satisfied, they contact the editor and tell
- them to put the article in the archives.
- 6. If the author is NOT satisfied, the author makes some more
- changes and the whole thing goes back to step 1.
-
- The editors are NOT held responsible for any informational
- errors in the articles they process; the truth to an article is
- the sole responsibility of the field researcher who wrote it.
-
-
-
- ----- Part Five : Conclusion -----
- (or, "Wake Up Guys, It's Almost Over")
-
- That's about it.
-
-
-
- ----- Part Six : Editor's List -----
-
- Editor Number 1:
- ----------------
- Paul Jason Clegg
- Send Electronic Mail to: cleggp@rpi.edu ONLY between September
- 1st and May 1st.
- Send Hardcopy Mail to:
- Paul Clegg Paul Clegg
- 1795 Washington Avenue 1003 Buck, RPI
- Vineland, NJ Troy, NY
- 08360 12180-3590
- (All year) (Sept 1st through May 1st)
-
- Voice Call: (609) 696-0463 (All year) (518) 276-4601 (Sept 1st
- through May 1st)
-
- Editor Number 2:
- ----------------
- Steven William Baker ("Steve", or "Texas Bob," is preferred)
- Send Electronic Mail to: swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu
- Available Year-Round at the above Email address
-
-
- Editor Number 3:
- ----------------
- Michael Bravo
- Send Electronic Mail to: mbravo@octopus.spb.su
- Send Hardcopy Mail to:
- 189810 Russia
- Zelenogorsk
- Privokzalnaya ul., 7-61
- Bravo M.E.
-
- Michael is the Russian editor; please only send articles written in
- Russian to him.
-
-