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

Hi everyone!

As you may have noticed, the editorship of M2M2 passed over to me earlier this year (as the last person to do it had been offline for a long time) and I've had a long, hard think about what to do with it. I have quite a few suggestions and I apologise in advance for this being a very long message, but please bear with me!

If you look at the index page for M2M2 (A290710), we have the following sections listed:

Current Campaigns (A290756)
Links (A290729)
Coming Out (A290738)
What You Can Do (A302815)
Angels (A310393)
Rants (A309377)
Choosing A Sexuality For Dummies (A294338)
Christians Against Gays (A343216)
LBG Break-Ups (A431218)
On Being A Gay Sportsperson (A329465)
Positive Portrayls of Lesbigay Lifestyle in the Media (A309548)
Realising You Are Gay (A300529)
M2M2 Quote of the Week (A740828)

You may or may not know that another LBGT-related area was also established a little while ago - The Symposium (A2393750) - because of the lack of change in M2M2 (I've unfortunately forgotten who set this up, so if whoever it is is reading this, please forgive me!). There are three major sections in this forum:

The Library (A2393589) - concentrates on LGBT portrayals in books, films, TV etc.
The Conference Room (A2393741) - about gay rights, laws and travel
The Games Room (A2525933) - enough said!

Taking a look at all of these pages, I reckon we could make changes to the M2M2 and add pages to it that are based on those from the Symposium. This is what I suggest we could do:

Current Campaigns - update this page as much as possible and incorporate the What You Can Do page as a subsection (as they seem to be very much related to each other)

Links - update!

Coming Out - I'd actually like to put some people's own experiences onto the main page - they can be anonymous if you wish, but I'll sort that detail out later if people express a general interest

What You Can Do - see above

Angels - I'd also like to update this one, though I'd be grateful if people could suggest some more people to put on there. I guess an opposing page on 'Demons' would be fruitful but I'm not sure if I should include one - if you reckon I should, please let me know!

Rants - I'm gonna tidy-up this page, but again I'd love some more material to stick up on there

Choosing A Sexuality For Dummies - this would be a useful page, had it not been hidden by the Italics for contravening the House Rules. I don't actually remember exactly what was said on that page, so if anyone can elucidate me, I'd be very grateful. Another possibility that I could *also* carry out is to combine this with the Realising You Are Gay page, seeing as they're both broadly about the same topic, so long as the author of the Realising page would be fine with it.

Christians Against Gays - this page was actually removed by its author, but I think a general page about LGBT and religion would be good (subtopics could include e.g. attitudes between the two, particularly gay-friendly religions)

LBG Break-Ups - apart from the 'lack of marriage' argument, this article just needs a tidy-up

On Being A Gay Sportsperson - an update would be nice

Positive Portrayls [sic] of Lesbigay Lifestyle in the Media - apart from the updating and further contributions from M2M2 people, there is actually a more general thread on media in the Symposium (The Library), so how about if I removed 'Positive' from the M2M2 title? That way, we can deal with all portrayals of LGBT people in books, films, TV, newspapers etc. in one thread.

Realising You Are Gay - see above

M2M2 Quote of the Week - this is the only thread I think we can afford to get rid of: it would involve a lot more work than is probably feasible to maintain this feature. A possible alternative would be just to collect inspirational quotes - please let me know what you think.

The Library - see above

The Conference Room - this is a bit tricky, as some stuff on gay rights could be related to the Campaigns page ... however, we could keep this page (or rather, a similarly titled page in M2M2) for more general info on gay rights, law, travel and other issues.

The Games Room - well, we need a home for the Great Gay Game and Wish You Were Queer: this would be ideal and we can add the one from the Symposium (the Lesbian game).


Right, that's a lot of stuff for me to do, but before I do anything that could lead to me being flamed, could you please leave comments, suggestions or criticisms for me to consider?

Thanks very much in advance!

Mikeo

This is just a bookmark, really - I'll think a bit before I make any suggestions.

I'm perfectly happy for you to make the suggested adjustments to Berlia's entries.

Hey Mikeo,

Congrats on the overtaking. Im a bit slow on the uptake and didn't know til you just said.

Anyway, like your thoughts and if you want a hand with anything then give me a yell, as you know I have tons of time and little to do in it.

Will

Right, I've had time to think, and I've come to the conclusion that the best thing I can do is get out of the way and let you update things as you see fit, and thank you in advance for doing so.

Reality is being a bit unruly at the moment - more than it usually is, in fact - so I can't even pretend I have the time for thinking about online issues. I'm glad someone has.

I'm not sure I'd be particular use in any of this

I'll help out once I've finished all my essays and exams, but that won't be for a few months.

Likewise, I'd be interested in helping, but would quite like to pass my degree first.

I'd be willing to write stuff if required.

I think your proposals are excellent. However it would be good to maybe add gudies to gay life such as scene stuff, groups etc and try to buld up a knowledge bank of information. In addition, maybe some stuff on gay history as well.

Ooh gay history - I can do that. I may as well put my research to some useful use. We probably wouldn't be able to do a scene guide apart from the most general sort as it'd be seen as advertising, obviously a big no-no on a BBC site.

taking that latter point, a city-by-city review of what goes on icould be a way to do it. this could include a rundown of the scene venues, details of social groups etc rather than full bar listings.

All sounds very good to me.... A city by city guide would kinda be a neat idea... a kinda where is and/or where isn't gay friendly perhaps, plus on whats on offer in each not sure i'd be any help with ought of tit though

I'm a member of Margate's one and only gay club, if that's any help (mind you, I haven't been there since Christmas, and that was my first time).

Indeed. A city-by-city guide without it becoming a listings page. However it would need to be updated as thigns change to rapidly, especially on the commercial scene.

Well I can probably do the entire gay/bi scene for Lochaline right here... well there's me and my room, there done it as far as I know

Would anybody like a weekly 'News' page (which, to be honest, would mostly be grabbed from Pinknews, but dressed up into a column type thing).

I think it would be an excellent idea, given that the BBC won't provide a gay news minisite like ti does for all other minorities. That said, wouldn't just getting stuff off other sites be an infringement of copyright? Also h2g2 isn't a news site so am not sure it would be appropriate.

Just a thought to have a regular feature. I wouldn't copy verbatim, but take the stories and write a feature about them

Does the BBC really have a news site for dwarves?

fair enough.