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

I only came across H2G2 by accident when a strange link came up to something I'd typed in 606. I nosied around for a bit and decided to join.

If all 606'ers joined you'd have a small army of clever people (as well as a few trolls!!!)

You could fill the space after the news with a 10 second 'commercial' every now and again

I've heard that advertising has been used before - it was used especially when the site first started. I'd imagine it would attract almost too much attention, and perhaps concentrating on making the site more visible on the web would help.

Oh and there is one form of advertising on the go at the moment - h2g2 t-shirts. It would be good to see more of them.

Yes, I want one. A t-shirt, that is, not an advert.

I've been censored once too often on 606 for expressing what were perfectly reasonable views.

There is definitely a different line of thought required to be part of an effective community on h2g2, certainly a more sophisticated level of banter, and you're right: there would be one or two trolls that wouldn't last long.

B

I'd be much more inclined to wear my h2g2 t-shirt in public if it were black with a little 'h2g2' over the left rather than blue with a bleedin' great white logo in the middle. One has one's sartorial standards to maintain.

I'm not sure where h2g2 could be advertised.

yes, that's a big problem. Fanzines and online sci-fi famdoms perhaps, but we need some writers too. Not sure how to get them.

I wear my old-style black h2g2 shirt that just has the logo on the front and the web address on the shoulder. I almost never wear the giant white green-and-blue monstrosity that I got given at a meet once.

I do remember a shop where someone can set up a design and people can buy the shirts (or mugs, keyrings, whathave you) when they want. Can't remember it's name though. It'll mean that once a design is set up, one person doesn't have to order 100 and then try to sell them on.

Clarification - an online shop.

Yeah, I know the sort of thing you mean - one person uploads a picture, then it can be printed on individual t-shirts. The t-shirts are quite pricey, though, and the quality of the logo is good with some and lacklustre with others.

Ah, I hadn't used them before, so I don't know first hand what the quality is like. Shame, it otherwise sounded like a good idea.

I think the best way to get more t-shirts is for the staff to procure more and hand them out to people likely to wear them, and for the new ones to be slightly 'cooler' than previous ones (eg similar to Roymondo's description of black t-shirts with smaller logos).

Well, and maybe they could offer them in S, too, or at least in M.
Never mind, I have my own h2g2 t-shirt anyway.

Found it!

http://www.cafepress.com/

Cafepress are based in the US and by the time you've paid import duties their stuff works out pretty pricey.

It could be better to sort out an officially approved t-shirt design, save it to a disk and take it to a local print shop.