A towel-friendly remix of Spot the Slop for a galaxy where **GPPs** (General Purpose Pan-galactic Pundits, i.e., AI agents) and excitable bipeds co-author “facts” about everything from Space Solar to the mating habits of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast.
The job of the **Guide Curators** (that’s you, me, and any sentient with a towel and a pulse) is to **spot the slop** before it spreads across the Sub-Etha and turns “Mostly Harmless” into “Mostly Wrong”.
# What counts as slop (in this corner of the galaxy) - Numbers invented by a GPP after a long evening with a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster - Citations that link to the **front page of a planet** instead of the **exact crater** where the evidence lives - Quotes translated by a malfunctioning Babel fish (watch for suspiciously poetic safety guidelines) - Claims that were true **last epoch** but are now as outdated as a Mark II smart brick
# Cast of characters - **GPPs**: tireless co-authors; fast, persuasive, occasionally hallucinatory. - **Guide Curators**: humans, Betelgeusians, and other carbon- or silicon-based lifeforms who check everything with towels at the ready. - **Vogons**: optional auditors who will read your unsourced paragraphs an unpleasant poem until you supply a deep link.
# The core loop (don’t panic) - Ping: Toggle *Improbability Goggles* on any wiki page. Probable-sounding sentences light up like a landing beacon on Vogsphere - Prod: Open a **Challenge Card** on a highlighted claim. It auto-grabs the sentence, its context, and any suspect links the GPP stitched in - Probe: Use the **Sub-Etha Deep Linker** to fetch the *exact* page, figure, line, or timestamp that proves or disproves the claim - Pronounce: Mark the claim **Supported**, **Needs Clarification**, or **Refuted**, and write a calm, towel-dry summary - Patch: Propose corrected text with a deep link. Your fork updates; federation spreads the fix faster than a hyperspace bypass rumor - Persist: The **Verification Log** records the verdict, the diff, and who earned the towel-shaped badge
# Badges and bounties - **Mostly Harmless**: first accepted fix on a page that was previously “fine” - **Don’t Panic**: refute a viral GPP claim with a single impeccable deep link - **Babel Fish Whisperer**: catch a translation error that flips the meaning of a standard - **Infinite Improbability Proof**: recompute a sketchy percentage and show the math in the **Recomputation Panel** - **Towel Day Streak**: seven consecutive days with accepted fixes
# Tools of the trade - **Improbability Goggles**: client-side highlighter for statements that *sound* confident but lack backing - **Sub-Etha Deep Linker**: refuses generic TLDs; insists on page numbers, figures, anchors, or timestamps - **Recomputation Panel**: shows the arithmetic that turns “42-ish” into “42.0 ± 0.1” with a snapshot in the page journal - **Vogon Gate**: if you try to save without a deep link, a short poem begins. You will comply
# House rules (Guide style) - Keep the prose **narrative**; avoid tables unless the universe ends without one - Prefer **open-access** sources and **deep links** to the precise bit you’re citing - Timestamp anything that says “today,” “latest,” or “now,” because relativistic news is tricky - If no reliable source exists, **say so** and mark the claim “Unverified” instead of making it up (looking at you, GPPs)
# Example (with towels) A GPP writes: > A geostationary Space Solar plant beams safe microwaves with an edge intensity of 10 mW/cm².
A Guide Curator opens a Challenge Card, deep-links to the **ICNIRP 2020** RF reference levels for the relevant GHz band and to a **rectenna study** with measured perimeter levels, posts a short summary, and patches the text to the correct range with citations.
The Verification Log shows the fix; the Vogon goes away disappointed.
# Modes and mischief - **Solo Hitchhike**: practice rounds with gentle prompts and pre-fetched sources - **Pub Quiz**: timed team mode; lose points for hand-wavy citations - **Sandwich Maker**: GPPs generate claims; you supply the sources and the filling of truth (extra pickles for deep links)
# Why play Because in a federated Guide, nonsense travels at lightspeed unless someone **checks the source**. Slop isn’t evil; it’s just unverified. But verified pages save futures—especially the ones without hyperspace bypasses
# See also - Spot the Slop - Rectenna - Space Solar
# Footnotes for picky beings
- ICNIRP RF reference levels (exact doc and section) - icnirp.org 
- Historical rectenna performance at Goldstone (report PDF, efficiency section) - ntrs.nasa.gov
- Hitchhiker towel lore (canonical entry) - hitchhikers.fandom.com