The Community Report (in progress)
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Introduction
What is the Community Report?
The aim of the Community Report is to take a balanced look at how h2g2 performs as a community, as far as the interface goes and how we compare to other online community systems. The Report does not aim to insult or devalue other communities, but is intended to show where we're better than them, and where we could improve. For the purposes of this report, Whoami? has signed up to a few communities here and there, and we'll use these for comparison.
Who wrote it?
As with all of the Reports, it is policy to have at leastone co-author to try and make the article balanced. Here they are:
U177581 is a Sub-editor, Ace, Guru and Scout who has been around in his current form since a month or two after the BBC takeover. He has sub-edited many Entries, but does not often write his own for the Edited Guide. Originally from Warwickshire is a student in Oxfordshire, England. His favourite smiley is
U168284 is Minister of Defence for the Thingites, who want to rename Thursday 'Thing', and lives in Torbay, Devon. Parrferris claims to have 'the cheerful optimism of Marvin'. The Keeper of Badgers is also a fan of Doctor Who, and a supporter of the Classic Goo skin. He was also unfortunate enough to join h2g2 just as it shut down for the BBC takeover.
Case Studies
How we gathered the facts
In order to compare h2g2 and other communities, it was necessary for Whoami? to pose as a newbie on all of the sites, including h2g2. For h2g2, we'll look at the user U185777, originally created for the Ace Report, saving us the trouble and embarrassment of being all secretive again.
Studies were also carried out at:
1: Reliability of Access
h2g2 is accessible all the time, on reliable, fast(ish) servers, except when they break. The one time that real trouble presents itself is in the wake of major tragedies and disaster, or other turning points in current affairs. This is due to the traffic burden on the bbc.co.uk domain, due to BBC News, and it slows everyting on BBCi down as a result.
Everything2 suffered a minor glitch for a single day during the study - its domain name redirected to a Canadian ISP's 'pending' page. Apart from that, due to the user interface discussed below, E2 ran like lightning in comparison.
YahooGroups loads pretty quickly, and would be really fast if it wasn't run by Yahoo!, and littered with advertisements as a result. Still, for such a large service, speed's pretty good. The site doesn't seem to have any access problems...
We're still writing this. If you'd like to help, just ask at the Reports Home
