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

[Munchkin] I'm very glad I don't believe in all these number hoodoo things, as this one, to paraphrase, tells me I'm a money grubbing so and so with potential mental problems. Whatever happened to warm fuzzy nonsense to get the punters in?

[]

Spooky . For Amy, the name report concludes: "You could experience headaches [...]. Health weaknesses relative to the functioning of the liver could appear."

That is spooky. Maybe I should take a second look.

// :x returns and tries to form a picture of what has happened from the backlog

[WM]

On the job front here in SLC, my department is undregoing a fairly large house cleaning at the moment. Things ae quite tense for everyone. Damn the recession.

Hope it works out okay for you, Marv.

very slow lately

I wonder what hootoo was like in the beginning, when there were just a few researchers around..

..I've been thinking it might have been something like what I'm experiencing after having joined a message board belonging to a company constructing games for hand held devices..

..there are just 141 members, and I'd say there's around 20 active regular members - I think I've bumped into most of them by now..

My name popped up on the front page as the newest member, which meant that several people noticed me immediately, and they've been very welcoming and helpful, ready to answer all of my rather stupid questions.. birthdays are celebrated.. and the best thing of all is that we have one thing in common - a profound interest in this specific game - so we always have something to talk about!

And they have a chat too.. *sigh* :'-) I remember a chat someone had constructed at h2g2.com - I had some really nice chats there!

there was a debate going on a while back about having h2g2 chats on BBCi... *shrug* seemed like a good idea to me...

When I first started ont eh guide there was a gerat deal of the camraderie that you seem to be experiancing. Things were much more laid back and freindlier than they can seem to be these days. The other old timers can also give you an insight to what it was like for them.

{[caer csd] got a headache from going accounts all day }

Marv -

I would agree with you, several years ago hootoo was a much friendlier place. Now there are friendly areas, but on a whole it seems to have become a behemoth.

Courtesy

[Amy]

its not an unfriendler palce...these new faces make the site a lot bigger, but i know some great new people (refuse to say newbies)

I'm not as old as Marv in hootoo terms but certainly back when I turned up (Sept 99) it did seem that you couldn't help but bump into everyone else who was active on the site.
Now there are many tribes within Hootoo, I'm finding it interesting watching as the "spin off" sites (360 & SOP) begin to establish themselves.

Marv, I sympathize with the situation you are dealing with. My brother-in-law works for Lucent and every few weeks they lay off another 20 billion or so employees. The uncertainty of not knowing who's next is itself extremely stressful and some of the people he works with have voluntarily left for lower paying jobs elsewhere, just so they could have some knowledge that their future was somewhat secure. I've got a gut feeling that we are near the end of recession and things will turn around soon. I know people have been saying that for over a year now, but this time it feels different. And since so much of the market seems to be driven by feelings rather than any sense of logic, that feeling counts.

h2g2 already had a touch of overwhelmingness when I first logged in. But back then I explored more, now I just stick to a few comfortable places and make occassional ventures out into other spots.

I may be misinterprated when I say that I do not feel like the guide is as friendly as it once was. Without opening the can of worms called moderation or the beeb buyout of the site (Thanks BBC I am glad it was not a perm foop), the site used to have a vibe about it that was quite friendly. The community has fragmented and real problems have arisen from the ashes of what I recall as the beginings of the site. There are others in this forum who have been about even longer than I (d'E I think and others) who can either agree or (as is most likely) disagree with me on this topic.
Here and a very few other places are all I inhabit due to a lack of time and a basic disinterest in the fluff that I see fill other fora. My own CotTB, once a mainstay on the top 5 convo's, is now a ghost town that I never even go to anymore. That happened due to a very few people ruining the flow of the conversation and displaying no nettiquite. Lil, and others, have been able to keep the Atelier free of this kind of garbage much better than I was able to on my own at the church. But it has not been perfect. We lose a researcher now and again due to lulls in the conversation or our failure as a sub community to keep up the meaningfull conversation that we have all grown accustomed to. Since our last delving into this topic I findmyself tryng to make better and more meaningfull posts and not just leaving my card as I had started to do. Not everything that I write seems to spark a new line of inquiry, but it does seem to help some. I urge the rest of the Salonistas to do what they can to keep this Atelier active and interesting. We allready won back Courtesy, much to my relief, let's see if Loony or anyone else can feel at home again in our salon.

OK

Well, I got my review, and I am not going to be next on the chopping blck here at work, but I must tread carefully for a time. People are being let go at an alarming rate here and the job market is in the gutter or worse in SLC. Anyone know a way to rekindle a passion for one's work?

Marv -

Thank you for the compliment, and once again I agree with you. I don't think hootoo is unfriendly, however, like anything that has grown as big as this community, it's imposing.

When I first came on, I would bump into almost everyone and that would usually spin off into some great forum, such as the Waterworks and the Book Nook. There seemed to be an air of whimsy about the place, of course in thinking about it, maybe it is I who have changed. I find myself with a group of friends whom I respect and enjoy and venture little into the "outside world".

It seems though that this loss of the adventure spirit is endemic to hootoo, I remember when people would stop by almost any forum just to say hi and comment on the place, now it appears that it isn't happening as much.

Not one to complain without trying to do something, I resolve to squirrel around hootoo a bit more, and do some of the things I miss other people doing.

Courtesy