My Vision
Created | Updated Mar 17, 2005
Someone called Douglas Noel Adams once had a dream and, as you're all hootooers, I think you can guess what it was. It was to create a collaborative encyclopaedia, the Earth Edition of the Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything. And, as he said in his Welcome Message, he wanted the whole world to 'Help us build it'.
That was six years ago. Sadly, Douglas is now dead and we are left to carry on in his absence, to fulfill his dream as best we can. And have we succeeded? It's very difficult to say.
Some Researchers would, I know, argue that the takeover of h2g2 by the BBC has made it into another corporate franchise and not a collaborative effort at all. I would disagree. I certainly came to the site after Rupert, so I don't know what it was like in the old days, but it seems to me that it hasn't made one sodding bit of difference. In fact, I think that over the years the standard of the Edited Guide has improved greatly, and whether that's a direct result of Rupert or not, it's certainly a wonderful thing. I am even appalled at the mediocre quality of some of the entries from, say, pre-2001 that I come across, as they are often short and undescriptive. If it's the BBC that's facilitated the change (and I'm not saying it is, necessarily) then I thank them for it.
Then there's the whole impending h2g2 Mobile release, which you may have heard about via the Italics' Announcements page. I see this as the ultimate fulfillment of Douglas Adams' dream, the closest we may ever get to the Book itself.
Of course, none of us will ever know what Douglas would think of today's Guide, but I know that I look around the place, and I like what I see. I see informative Guide Entries being produced and submitted to Peer Review. I see experienced Researchers helping newbies and assisting them in getting their first entries accepted. I see great fiction and opinion in the Post and the AWW. I see a myriad of wonderful discussions, from the serious debate to the out-of-this-world silliness. I see friendships being made. I see a whole paradise spread out in front of me, a vision of the future that, if it's not too presumptuous of me, I think Douglas would have wanted.
But then I look a little deeper. I see Researchers who are not good people, who have unrespectable motives or who won't let sleeping dogs lie. I see 'feuds' and 'wars' perpetuated on a scale that is truly frightening. I thought hootoo was a paradise. Now it's become so much like real life that for a while I would escape to RL to avoid hootoo. But the addictive nature of the site made/makes me keep coming back for more. I throw myself into the Edited Guide and my subbing and scouting duties; I agree and disagree wholeheartedly with my friends in idle conversation and scintillating debate. And when I see something I don't like, I want so badly to change it.
Of course, there's nothing I can do to change the mean-spirited people that I occasionally come across, and yikesing and moderation are rarely, I believe, a good solution. There's nothing I can really do but type imploringly to the entire h2g2 world. Listen, my fellow believers in the future of an intelligent, free-thinking community. Cast off the immaturity with which you hinder yourselves; rid yourselves of the bonds of the disgusting world RL sometimes becomes. I knowingly make reference to recent events when I ask everyone to examine the difference between mature discussion and debate and immature flaming wars that belong on the playgrounds of primary schools and not in the world forum we have here. We are a community: let's act like one, and not like a conglomeration of individuals who don't give a shit for any of the others.
When Douglas Adams wrote his 'Welcome and Thank-you Message' on 8 September 1999, he had a vision for h2g2. And now, five years and six months later, I have a vision too. I dream that we can rid ourselves of all the elements of the Community that are just disgusting to my eyes. I hope that we can somehow teach everyone here that being mean-spirited just doesn't work. I want h2g2 to be the future, and I'm convinced that with it we can change the world. We can take every person on this earth and bring them together in a way the United Nations could never manage. We can, to paraphrase Douglas himself, take all these snowflakes and build a blizzard. A blizzard that sweeps across the globe, across the solar system, across the galaxy. We may be the Earth Edition, but we are still the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Let's live up to our name.
