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.