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

I'm sorry, Semadam, for upsetting you. Saddams name does have repercussions in our world and I did know that it would upset you.
I shouldn't have. But I did. And I called your article on viruses CRAP, but I shouldn't have said that either, becasue you never wrote that article. I apologise to the one who wrote it. It was actually quite good. I wish you had written it Semadam. But you haven't.

H2G2 getting aggressive? Not really. I was getting aggressive. Not H2G2. If the whole of H2G2 got aggressive, and they all went for you,
that would be bad. Really bad.

Come on, cool it you two. Take your spat elsewhere. You are the only two I've come across in 6 months of wandering this place who are trading insults. Save it for Hotmail.

You're right SPINY.

I have been knocking Semadam about a bit since he dropped into HHGG; time to quit. Where it came from, I don't know. Maybe because of a sudden desire to be react irritable after all the friendliness I see here.

No really, listen for a minute. Have you noticed how absolutely non-hostile 99% of the conversations is? You must have, you just said we are the only ones you saw sneering. Well, I think that just got onmy nerves.

Semadam, I think you're a kind of new guy around here, so don't see my rude treatment as your welcome here. Consider this one my welcome; please forgiveforget the rest.
Cool?

*grins* In that case, you must have missed the "Names" forum with Wowbagger and WowbaggerTIP. But then, Wowbagger has a page on insult trading rules, so...

(Sorry, I have neither link handy.. but that's what that little search box up ^ there is for. )

'Nonnie (entirely too little fish in this stream. )

okay so you've already been here six weeks and you're not a guy.
rest of my entry still stands tho.

As the person who initiated this thread (a dubious honor, if you ask me...) I feel I have a responsibility to say something, which is this (and which has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, I'm afraid, and regretful to say...) :


You're right, Mr. CEO of Headsnot etc., this place is a bit too friendly.

Let me clarify : I don't mean to say that the kind of insults going around in this thread are what's needed, but having a bunch of perpetually happy people applauding themselves and agreeing with each other is not a good place for intelligent debate as to what should be considered important in the sum of humanity's knowledge.

Let me clarify again, because that last paragraph was longer than I expected it to be : if everybody is happy, and there is no debate, nothing interesting will go on, and we'll turn into the Golgafrinchans who originally colonized the Earth (if you believe that stuff).

So keep up the debates, but please, trading insults, unless it's for entertainment purposes, and both parties consent, with a third party that is ALSO entertained, is not useful or desirable here.

Mr. Headsnot, you could instead have started a debate (and a new thread) considering if the name Saddam was tarnished by the one Saddam we all know and love, or could have inquired as to the origins and/or meaning of the name Semadam, or you could have started a thread or written an entry about the movie "Taxi Driver" (I haven't seen it, I hear it's good?)

And one last thing, if you have frustrations, you could have vented them in a Journal entry, so as to offend less people, and perhaps start ANOTHER intelligent discussion in this great place we've found here...

By the way : I'm in no way affiliated with the people managing H2G2, I'm Douglas Adams fan who registered for info when Starship Titanic was in the marketing phases, and who found the site really funny, so when I got a mail suggesting that I check out H2G2, I jumped on the occasion.

I like the place, but I admit more debate should go on.



BTW, Mr. Headsnot : if you really didn't like my entry :
1- why? What's wrong with it?
2- Why not discuss it in that entry's board? I'd be glad to work on it some more, if you have some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism to give me.

I wrote the entry in one draft, and have only reread it once. That's more or less how I usually work, but I might have missed some interesting stuff that I could have put in.

And I know it's missing some kind of a joke at the end. It's just begging for one, but at the end, my inspiration just died there, so I just had to conclude it in some way.

Anyway, have a nice day

Who would have thought that a little sarcasm sprinkled here would reap so much confusion?

Researcher 79523:
- The place is very friendly. Check out the "thanks from all of at TDV" forum to see how friendly it actually is. I already said it got to my nerves all of a sudden, which is why I jumped on poor semadam there a few weex ago. We made up, by the way. The place can now continue to be as friendly as ever, which i think is fine.

-That doesn't mean that it should become a place where people come to pat each others backs and say You're Nice a few times a day. We have shrinks for that. Good debate is important if the guide is going to be a good thing. A mix of the two is needed, and where i think that the first few months were quite good in both, it now seems that there is less real discussion on articles, and more parties and mishmash. parties are good. but they shouldn't be rampant as they are now. There is a lot of senseless drivel going on around here. Articles are released on a five-a-day basis, but stupid banter grows at the same rate. How to keep things in check? Don't. Let's just see where we're heading. I think most people here are of sufficient intelligence to get things going again after a flood of feelgood threads.

-Taxi Driver is still a must see. It smashes you in the face with its subtle bluntness. (figure that one out after you've seen it) Junk Mail (norwegian film, original title Bodbringern) is of similar beauty.

-I don't feel the need to discuss Saddam's name and it's future. I know the outcome.

-I wrote an entry in your Y2K/virus forum, explaining why I seemed to criticise it. If you read this forum carefully, you might find that I indeed did not criticise it at all, but that I used its quality to annoy semadam, who I chastised for not writing it.

My frustrations would not have worked in another entry of my own, since they would not have offended. I offended Semadam just for the sake of offense. Nothing personal, just random sneering.
And look what happened! All of a sudden we're discussing the fundamental attitude of researchers in general! This is a good end, though the means to it were, as i have admitted, dubious.

*pant, pant*

Agree about the parties - they are definitely too prolific, fun though they undoubtedly are. What concerns me is the amount of wasted storage on the servers. Maybe there IS a huge storage capacity, but it would be a better use of space if people were able to delete party forums after a few weeks. I'm surprised they don't request it at h2g2 Towers.

You could always try the Aroma Cafe if you want to stretch your intellectual legs. Or come over to my place and I'll do my best to marshall what's left of my grey cells...

I think I might accept that invitation.

Cool! Although I'm out dancing with Greebo, Skeleton and bluDragon at the moment in Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms. How's your pas de bas? Don't know how to do those link things but we're on my home page and the Assembly Rooms, George Street forum. Do join us.

Cool.

SO, you're back from being away. Hello Sem

Back from Holidays, back to school, and back to you all. Oh yes, Happy New Year!
I was thinking to explain the origin of my name, but then I changed my mind, and wrote only that comment...
Maybe we should make a debate-forum, where we start the discussion with some provocative statement, and close the meeting in peace. Some rules could be invented 8not using F words, not going deep personal, you cannot offend someone not entered the forum, etc.)

Hmmm... might be nice!

We could have a moderator who makes sure it goes okay and keeps score.
And the score could be like in english parliament debate:

we have a pro and a contra. in the beginning the audience decides whether they are pro or contra, supporting either one or the other debater.

in the end of the round, the audience states their support again, and the debater with the most changes to his or her side, wins the argument! you get the idea? this would be more of a contest than a discussion-forum, but then we have a LOT of discussion forums.

Go for it!

Well, Sem? Whaddaya think?

Alright. And the stater of the most provocative statement wins a prize...just be aware of not getting similar to talkshows, so avoid the topics "cheating lovers", "I´m too fat", "I´m homo, and my mum hates me", etc.