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

Hi, R5 You seem awful quiet but I see you in the users window quite frequently...
So I just thought I'd stop by and say hello...
Hell
Joanna-who-has-planning-her-future-using-cherry-stones in-common-with-you,-although-they-never told-me-I'd-wind-up-here

Hi Joanna

Thanks for stopping by and my apologies for being so slow to reply. Where was it you wound up?

As you can probably guess from my number I work here at TDV.

R.

Wind up here, at Durham, studying physics, and posting this
Are you still Researcher 5 because you like the number, or have you not gotten around to choosing a name?

Joanna

I'm still Researcher 5 because 5 is a lucky number. I'm happy with that for now.

I love Durham. The first big love of my life went to Durham to read Geography - if my memory is correct she was at St Aidan's ( might that be right?). I only ever saw the city in the Winter but one of the most memorable experiences of my life was evensong at the Cathedral by Candlelight.

Are you enjoying h2g2?

Best

Robbie

Fair enough

Aidan's college sounds right... thats about as far as it is possible to get from my college, though... right up on the hill!
I love to go to evensong, and I've been very lucky as my college choir sang an evensong last term and Matins this term I *love* to look at the Cathedral at night; There again I'm lucky because I have a view of it from my room...

I am definitely enjoying H2G2, since I'm now an ACE

Joanna

Joanna

I'm sorry I should have known that you were an ACE - but I'm really interested.

What do you like about h2g2? What makes it different ( if anything) from other web sites?

...and I remember the climb up the hill very clearly!

Best

R.

Well I only started getting into the internet when I went to uni, before then I could never get regular access. I'd never found a net community before H2G2... I spent a term searching and searching for random things, but then last term I was *always* H2G2ing. much to the distress of the other people in the computer room who wondered why I was so obviously always at the same site) I've only just been made an ACE though, they put the badges up on friday.... and I have to confess to regularly reloading my page to check if its still there

But everyone here's real friendly. I've made some very good friends from the 3 months I've spent coming to this site. Its funny too, I put a stat tracker on my page (Its not there atm due to tecnichal difficulties) and I've had hits from Chile, Portugal, Sweden, Finland... Singapore.... And its like Wow! People from all over the world can see some of me, and I can see some of them, even though the chances of me making it to some of these places seem slim.

I bet you remember the hill, they're not exactly easy to forget... when I came back to manchester after the Michaelmas term, all the things I'd thought of as "hills" before seemed like teeny gentle slopes.... everywhere's so flat!

Joanna

The international element of the site is something that I'm very excited about. Peta emailed me today to let me know where all the new ACE's come from and its an increasingly international group. As we gather at h2g2 to build the guide a really interesting community is growing.

Thanks for taking the time to let me know what attracts you to h2g2. I hope that with this simple idea of building a guide together and being part of a community as we do it, it can be a place which people feel they are a part of at many stages of their lives.

The kind of things that somebody in their early twenties might want to contribute will be different from somebody in their forties, but because h2g2 is a guide to "Life the Universe and Everything" all entries are welcome.

I do remember the hills! I also remember pulling in to the Station in the mist and hearing a little boy say to his mother "spooky dooky" as he looked out over the platform. Spooky Dooky stuck me then as very apt.

You should write an entry on the ghost in Castle ( is that right Castle is a College isnt it?)!

Best

R.

Castle is a college, officially University college. The ghost's called the Grey Lady, as I recall... although preliminary research suggests the Durham area is teeming with Ghosts called the Grey Lady... hmmmmm... I went on a tour of the castle with a friend last term... they said the level of the staircase that the ghost haunts has changed, so she no longer walks at floor level... spooky dooky *does* seem apt, too...

Something that seems amazing to me is the fact that this *is* a community.... its such a marvellous idea... I wouldn't have believed in web communities otherwise.

Joanna (who thinks that the station ought not to be up so high, or at anyrate should re orientate itself so that she can work out which side to go to for trains going south without getting hopelessly confused)

PS Bluebottle (U43530) and I were wondering what would happen if the internet lasts say for a hundred years, and h2g2 with it. People would be able to see the things we cared about in our journals, our opinions on everything, what we did in our spare time, how we "drank" in a virtual "pub".... They could get to know relatively normal people from today in a way that isn't really possible for us from previous generations... admittedly the internet isn't available to everyone in the UK yet, and h2g2 is probably slightly biased toward Douglas Adams fans.. and countries in Africa don't have good net connections yet... neverthelss its a window into our lives.

Joanna

PPS read all about Durham's ghosts at http://www.h2g2.com/A288399

One of the things the I love about h2g2 is that we are building something which should last. I hope that h2g2 will be used by our great great grandchildren and onwards down the years until one day it really is a galactic guide.

As we get smarter about how we categorise entries and how we make it easier for people to 'tell" h2g2, h2g2 should become more and more useful. I'd like h2g2 to become part of peoples' lives, an easy place to 'tell" whether its something small or very considered, and a great place to be part of a Community.

One idea we've been playing around with is to create a "University Rep" for h2g2 - with an official status, like the Sub Editors or the ACE's. I'd like to be able to ask people with real enthusiasm for h2g2 to help us encourage new members to join.

Any thoughts?

Best
Robbie

Do you mean an on site role? Just generally concerntrating on helping out students onsite? or an "in real life" role?
With an onsite role, you'd probably do as well to just categorise the ACEs some.... as I recall I said some of what I was interested in when I was becoming an Ace. You could, for example on the aces homepage, give a list of what each one is interested in, which categories, say... or even on their individual homepages, either encourage them to state explicitly what they're interested in, or have a section for it underneath the badge, say... I can't see any reason why the Aces you have wouldn't have quite a wide range of interest, although you'd probably find that there was a bias toward Douglas Adams/Scifi fans... so for example you could list me as a science student...

The trouble with just randomly encouraging new people to join is that they don't stay, necessarily. I've posted welcomes to lots of people who've probably never given them a second look; I'm not mature enough to quite know what to do in the event that I find someone's article that I don't really like... If you had a uni rep, would you want them to try to encourage people to sign up at the Fresher's fair, for example? I can't see how you'd work it. You could advertise to students more, its not like your url is hard to remember, but as for having someone irl to help;..... I could tell people its a wonderful place, I've made friends with people across the country and across the world, and they'd give me a suspicious look right back, like I was trying to evangelise them or something. Or at least thats what I'd be inclined to do... I think that as h2g2 is online its better to have things like the Aces scheme to help people stay...

I wouldn't want to encourage my friends to sign up; I haven't. Not because I wouldn't like them to be on the site, and share, but I'm afraid I'd have to "nanny" them....they're suspicious of the concept of an online community; you hear horror stories of bad things happening to kids with people they've met online, they think its a little cultish. And I don't know how to tell them what h2g2 is... I never seem to think of telling them to log on and see for themselves at a relevant time...
If they found they're own way, then good, and if I thought that once I'd got them past the "register" page I could let them get on with it... but as it stands you do have to put in effort to get a good h2g2 experience, you have to post to fora, hopefully active ones, before you care about whether you come back or not. Once you "leave your homepage" as it were you'll soon be addicted.... (in the event that people actually write themselves an introduction in the first place...)

I'm not making my thoughts clear, there just seems to me something slightly *wrong* about having someone irl to get students to sign up.

But I'm still not sure I understand quite what you mean, anyway....

Joanna

Joanna

Thanks very much for your thoughtful reply. You make alot of points and I'm going to take some time to digest what you say.

BTW I know it wont matter to you very much but I thought that I ought to let you know what I do here at TDV. I'm the Chief Executive here and one of the founders ( along with Douglas) of the Company - that why I'm asking all these questions.

I really appreciate your time both as an ACE and bothering to reply to me.

Robbie

I had wondered what your position was, thanks for telling me. It explains why you so obviously have a vision for the guide...

But as for bothering to reply to you... thanks for reading it all... I always have an opinion... its nice to be asked for it

Joanna

Hi Joanna

The question of "vision" is an interesting one. I want to try and make sure that as far as possible we all share a vision for the guide - especially the ACE's and Sub Editors.

When you became an ACE did you/ would it have been useful to receive some information about what we are trying to do at the strategic level here at h2g2?

Internally we have done a fair amount of work on being clear when we talk about h2g2 about what the goals are, what the benefits are, why people might enjoy it and so on : some clear core messages which every individual here then brings their own personality to.

I was partciularly struck by your comment about peoples' suspicion of communities on the web. Thats an important issue for us to address. I think that one of the distinctions here is that h2g2 is a Community with a purpose - the gradual building of a guide to "Life the Universe and Everything" - suitably ambitious and always evolving.

Some people who may not like the 'pure" community aspect might find that having a place to simply share information in a structured way is appealing.

I think alot about how "transparent" with all that we plan we need to be with our members and much of what we plan is in response to our members in the first place. This should become a really virtuous circle. As the Guide grows and the business strengthens,we should be able to provide information when you want it where you want it, in an approrpriate medium, we should, as the Community membership around the guide grows, also be able to provide a growing range of benefits ( economic as well as social ) to the members as well.

I very much hope that h2g2 can become a part of people's lives over a long period of time, delivering real value and benefit to them.

Thanks for listening!

Robbie

Hi Robbie,

It would be very interesting to know practically what the next step is. Because the ACEs, judging by the mail I've been getting on the list have lots of ideas of what may or may not be a good thing to do, but with more information would probably be able to suggest things that can work. I know that the final idea is for a guide like in the book, but it would be interesting to know what your plans are for things like improving the search engine, and stuff, and what your projected time frames are.

H2G2 is a community with a purpose, I saw it on tv last year, and was impressed immediately by the idea, I don't recall hearing about the fora from Tomorrow's World, though, I listened and thought, "wouldn't it be wonderful if I had something to contribute. But I probably don't..." But then I found this place, and found that I d
I agree with you that the idea of having a place to express long, perhaps complicated ideas, perhaps in the form of an entry, and then have others pick up on points that seem relevant to them so that it is interactive, with other people is *very* appealing.
Have you done any advertising campaigns? and are you planning on doing any more to the internal structure of h2g2 before you do? Because its all very well to atract new people, if what they expect isn't met, they won't stay, and will be very unlikely to come back.

I would be interested in the strategy too.
(But then again I want to know everything.)

Joanna

Joanna

To take one of your points first - does it feel to you ( and the other ACE's you know well) that there is at the moment a clear and simple path for expressing your ideas for improvements, or is it fairly adhoc?

I want to focus on this first as one of my jobs is to keep an eye on how well our organisation works and its fascinating to be working with a group of people like the subs and the ACE's ( I think that the total number is now well over 100 people from all over the world). The boundaries between us all our very porous ( so different from a traditional company where there is a clear divide between the "in house" team who make the product and the customers who by it).

There are many improvements planned, especially to the search facilities and the different ways of being able to access the rapidly growing body of information in the Guide. Much thought is going into how we can make the "tell h2g2" part of what people do easier.

Its also important to constantly think about how we can improve the Member's experience when they are not contributing to the Guide - ie the Community experience.

Look out for us again on Tomorrow's World next week - the WAP serice on mobile phones is featured.

Best

Robbie

Hi Robbie,

I guess if any ACE has an idea they'll post it to the ACEs eGroup, since that way Peta'll see it, and other ACEs will get to comment on it too, so it seems a good procedure. Although ACEs don't get to talk to the subs on their list... I guess if they did the amount of email would be even more overwhelming than it currently is Unfortunately people don't tend to use the ACEs homepage to chat, because then everyone would get the chance to have their say.

I never thought of how different h2g2's organisation is to other companies... the "all over the world" bit is such a good thing...

What's your company policy on people "in house" posting to fora?

Joanna

Hi Joanna

We dont have a policy re in house posting - anybody who works in the building can post away to their heart's content.

Thanks very much for your reply - you mention that the volume of mail is overwhelming. Can you let me know a little more about that?

What kind of mail is it? How many "roughly" do you get a day/week?

This is important because I am aware that all the ACE's and Subs are volunteers and as the site grows we have to be sure that we dont take goodwill for granted and that the ways of working we have now will "scale".

I'll probably be off-line now over the weekend but look forward to continuing out chat next week.

As ever I am very appreciative of the time you are spending to answer my questions. I can work to support Peta and her team much more effectively as a result.

Have a good weekend.

Best

Robbie