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

Your comments please. Is there anyone who thinks that there is any chance that this will actually work?

This is a idea! You might find in time that it will start to get the sillyness that AskH2G2 currently suffers from but as the owner of this page, you could get them moved if you wanted.

Or just make askh2g2m2p2 (mark2point2)
That wouldn't be silly at all

Great idea. I approve! And I promise not to start a thread with subject: "three word alliterative postings with three syllables each." Honest.

deemikay

*considers setting up HMG emplacements to keep out word gamers, moderators and other such undesirables.*

There is btw another entry with an almost identical purpose to this one. Since nobody told me before I set this up and some people have taken an interest lets go with it anyway.

Count me in I didn't know of the existence of Blatherskite's page, and I'll lurk around around there for a while too, although it seems that it's too far in the other direction for my tastes.

Ask h2g2 was fine when there was the occasional light-hearted, or at least not-too-serious thread, but now it's out of control and the Editors seem quite happy to let it 'evolve'

'What time is it where you are?' 'What can you see if you look out of the window?' 'What's your favourite colour?'

There is a place for all that stuff - it's called <./>MiscChat</.> but none of the Editors seem to think that it's worth promoting

I've just spent 20 minutes trying to work out what this conversation is about, and now I've given up and decided to ask.

What's this thing you want comments on?

askh2g2m2
This conversation is about the forum that it is on!

I found this conversation on h2g2 statistics, and (possibly 'cos I'm new to this) I couldn't find the forum--only your personal space.

But the thread looks really intriguing, and your personal space indicates that you're a nice person to talk to. Any chance you could tell me the name of the forum?

Its askh2g2m2, there should be a link at the very top of the page. If you just wanna chat feel free to start a convo on my space.

The entry concerned is Ask h2g2 mark two, A1146917 a forum for the more intellegent conversation that has been drowned out of <./>askh2g2</.>

I think this is a great idea, one of the problems with ask h2g2 is because of the high level of traffic it's a good place to get people attention and just get threads to get a high level of traffic.

I'll be subscribing to this page, and promoting it on my user space.

It looks like an excellent idea. I'm sure I'll be visiting this page regularly.

Great! looking forward to seeing you around.. I wonder how we could promote this page more.

Z makes an important point. The only reason that I didn't unsubscribe from Ask months ago is that it gets such a high volume of traffic and therefore is still the place to go if you have a question to ask which you need an answer to or advice on. It gets a high volume because it's an official page created by the Editors and can therefore be linked to on any Help or Welcome page they put together.

Any page like this which one of us creates will never get the same high profile and will never become the useful forum which Ask could be if only the chatters went to Misc. Chat and if only the Editors promoted it to the same extent as they do Ask.

I agree, it is useful if you need a very quick answer, and can then unsubcribe from a thread!

What we seem to be seeking is a forum where we can have intellegent debates, conducted in poltie English, not textspeak. Because it will get a less volume of traffic than ask then perhaps we shouldn't call it ask h2g2 mark two.

As a lot of the "nonsense" conversation threads here are in vitual pubs such as The FoLDers Arms, or the lighthouse bar, much as nonsense conversation in real life takes place in real pubs. Maybe what we need is a vitual location, I'm envisiaging this to be a sort of h2g2 version of Radio 4 debates, but I can't think of a vitual location for it to take place in.

I'm not entirely sure if the above makes much sense.

I'm not averse to a few light-hearted threads here and there - I never wanted Ask to become a stuffy, intellectual only kind of place, which is what so many of the people who are happy with it now seemed to think I was looking for

If I read something on BBC news which makes me laugh and which I think Researchers could get their teeth into and talk about, I'll happily post it at Ask, but if I want to know what someone's favourite whatever is... well, I probably wouldn't bother to ask, but if I did I'd do it at Misc. Chat.

I'm not adverse to anything you see on ask. My problem is that its so vast I have trouble finding threads i'm interested in, there were a lot of suggestions about subdividing ask into catagories, but there were a lot of problems with these, not least that changing something so well established as ask is near impossible. This is not meant to be a replacement, simply a fourm for a certian kind of discussion so that this kind of discussion could be found easily.

You right it probably shouldn't be called mark2, if someone has a better name I'll use it. I just chose mark2 because I liked the abbreviation askh2g2m2. I wanted something people could remeber so they could get back here if they wanted.

Thanks Zed, supportive as ever As for promoting the place I'm not sure. I've only been on h2g2 a relitively short while and am still not sure how everything works around here. Is there somewhere in the post you could stick yer hand up and say look over here. Or is there some particular forum it'd be a good place to start a thread pointing at it.

We could always make punch the monkey popups

Oh dear god no!!!!!!!!

I believe there are some pages at The Post where clubs, societies,etc are listed - someone there should be able to point you in the right direction or you could use the Advanced Search thingy to look for "clubs and societies"

Personally I wouldn't like to see Ask divided into sections. <./>MiscChat</.> was always there for the kind of stuff many of us are finding so tedious, but there don't seem to be links to it on any of the pages which newbies are likely to encounter early on, whilst there are plenty of links to Ask, with the legend that you can ask *anything* there That's why Ask has ended up the way it is, particularly since the influx of ex-LDers who were used to a chatroom kind of atmosphere.