The Vice's Advice
Created | Updated Dec 6, 2007
It's been a while, hasn't it?
The h2g2 Post is celebrating its eighth anniversary with this edition. It was already a hootoo institution when I joined the site and has remained a vital part of its fabric throughout my time here. There has been a lot of change throughout the years I've been here. The UnderGuide debuted in September of 2003 appropriately enough with Why I Hate Sheep. With the new year, the
UnderGuide will be entering its sixth year, which is remarkable to me. I joined the site almost exactly when the first rumblings of an alternative guide began in the early part of 2003, and after a few months, I got involved in those discussions. It was an incredible revolution, and in less than a year, the AWW was no longer a dead-end and serious creative writing was given regular front page billing for the first time.
What will be the next revolution to change the nature of h2g2? Will we follow a new path and focus on our strengths by promoting a new approach to our Edited Guide? Or will we continue on the current path, striving for a greater quantity of entries and a consistently inconsistent quality of entries? In my view, there are great entries in Peer Review and the Edited Guide, but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. When I see scouts declare an entry 'done' and then pick it depending on when it was entered into the review forum, with no regard to picking in order of quality, I don't believe much is being done to encourage our best writers to continue to submit their material.
To answer my own question, I don't know what the next revolution to affect h2g2 will be. I don't know that there will be one. That's what scares me more than anything. This week, the Vice's Advice is to make an effort to write something fresh and intelligent. Write something stimulating, creative and unconventional. If you don't believe that you're capable of that, at least try. There is incredible talent hiding behind overly modest persons and the unconfident.
The h2g2 Presidential Election 2005 Archive
