H2g2 - Volunteers

Volunteers

There are twelve different kinds of volunteer on the site, with varying responsibilities. Any researcher can apply to become a volunteer; if accepted, they gain a badge for their Personal Space, advertising their status as a member of that particular group. They are traditionally described in alphabetical order:

• ACEs are responsible for welcoming new users and assisting them in becoming active and experienced members of h2g2 (ACE is an acronym for Assistant Community Editor). No statistics are publicly available, but this approach ensures that a large proportion of initially active Researchers continue to contribute. Aces are also expected to take a responsible role within the community, encouraging discussion and debate.
• Aviators create audiovisual (AV) content for h2g2. Video clips have been produced to accompany Edited Guide entries, and both video and audio content have been produced to accompany articles in The Post. The Aviators host their material on an external site, h2g2aviators.com.
• Community Artists contribute the art that illustrates entries. The volunteer group provides graphics frequently to meet the requirement for a photo or illustration for new Edited Entries. Artists are always credited on the pages they have illustrated. Since h2g2 separated from the bbc, the artists and the aviators have managed to provide illustration for every singe edited entry.
• Curators are responsible Researchers who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to the Edited Guide. They have been granted the power to edit Entries in the Edited Guide. They work with the Italics to keep the Edited Guide tidy and up-to-date. Their duties include correcting typos which have slipped through the editing process, cross-linking newer Entries to older ones and removing broken links, and taking care of requests for minor changes which have been posted to the Editorial Feedback forum.
• Gurus help Researchers with technical issues, such as with GuideML, a custom markup language designed to allow additional features (such as formatting for headings and subheadings, and graphical emoticons), whilst removing unwanted HTML tags (such as JavaScript and embedded images and sounds).
• Photographers work to provide photographs mainly for older Edited Entries, although researchers submitting entries through Peer Review can alert the photographers to the new entry and request a suitable photograph be added. All photographs supplied by the photographers must be entirely their own work, i.e. not sourced from elsewhere on the web.
• Post Reporters are those Researchers who have contributed regularly to h2g2's The Post (see below).
• Scavengers are those Researchers who have 'rescued' at least five entries from the Flea Market (see above) and used them to produce Edited Entries.
• Scouts are responsible for the running of Peer Review, and make sure that quality work does not languish there for too long. They keep an eye open for entries that have received a favourable response from other Researchers, and recommend two or three entries each month for inclusion in the Edited Guide. The picks are reviewed by the in-house team and then forwarded to a Sub-editor.
• Sub-editors check and edit Entries to be added to the Edited Guide. Once they have finished working on an entry, they submit it for a final check by the in-house team, following which the Edited Entry is posted to the front page for a day. The Sub-editors were h2g2's first volunteers, were originally hand picked, and used to do the jobs of scouts as well as sub-editing prior to the creation of Peer Review.
• University Field Researchers are Researchers who write groups of entries based around a common theme, aiming to provide a comprehensive guide to a specific subject. These projects often become quite involved and may take months to complete. Once finished, the projects are usually featured on the h2g2 home page for a whole weekend.
• UnderGuide volunteers are responsible for the running of the UnderGuide, and include Miners and Gem Polishers. Miners are analogous to Scouts in that they recommend material from the Alternative Writing Workshop (see above); Gem Polishers are analogous to Sub-editors and are responsible for sub-editing material for inclusion in the UnderGuide.