Random Ramblings
Created | Updated Dec 3, 2008
And I'm sure you would agree, it couldn't fit more perfectly
Than to have a world party on the day you came to be.
Happy birthday to you...
Usually when I sit down to write my column, some song sort of 'pops' up in my head and I take it from there. This time, however, it was the other way round which made it that bit more difficult to find a start. But then this is a special occasion; it's the Post's ninth birthday!
I haven't been around for long enough to remember the beginnings, in fact I only got aware of Shazz after I had joined the team and after EMR had left. It is interesting to suddenly see 'older' Researchers referring to her when the conversation is about today's Post, as happened in Gnomon's journal recently:
I still worry that The Post doesn't seem to get the big Press that it used to when Shazz was in charge, though, and haven't really managed to work out why.
- Mu Beta
Hmmm, that makes me wonder: how exactly did the Post get 'big Press' back then? And was it only to do with Shazz being the Editor, or more with the fact that h2g2 boasted quite a few more Eds back then, several of whom were actively involved in the Community in general and the h2g2 Post in specific? If you browse through the h2g2 Meet Archives you'll see what I mean. During the first few years the Post boasted numerous Meet and Meet-related articles (amongst others). The amount of Meet reports has gradually diminished from about 2003 onwards, which is a pity. I shouldn't throw stones, though, I've been to many more meets than I've written reports about, too. I promise I'll make an effort next time I go to a meet. In the meantime, you can read Galaxy Babe's report about the recent Hull Meet in this very issue. But there are many more things which make today's Post a great read. Even if we don't have the popular columns like Ask Mr Dreadful and Meet Mr Inquisitor1 any more, I think the Post is fantastic, what with all the competitions, writing projects and Aviating we're having now (and there's more to come), not to mention the high-quality columns we do have.
And the 'now' is where I want to go on. We all know that it's fairly easy to look back to the 'happy golden times', quickly dismissing all what is good now in favour of what was good back then. I don't think that is fair, though, because we have a great Post team and fantastic contributors now, whom we should focus on. These past two weeks have been an extremely busy time for us, the Post team. Rich had great plans for this birthday issue (but then, doesn't he always have great plans?), and this meant lots of extra work. Now I don't mind extra work for the Post, but this time was different. It is Sunday evening and I still haven't finished what needs to be finished by tomorrow, and I haven't lazed around. What I need to learn, though, is to shout for help if I can't cope for some reason or other, rather than to feel burnt out and putting myself down. Unfortunately, this busy time at the Post coincided with RL having got extremely busy (I work in a shop) and my internet connection is currently more than instable, resulting in me having to disable and enable the local networking area every few minutes, and you can imagine how irritable I am at the moment. Once Rich found out how low I was, he sent me a very encouraging email, and he made the time to do a large chunk of what I usually do (ie preparing the A spaces for 'my' features and archiving them). In RL I had to learn to be self-reliant, and it's a huge relief to find that I don't have to be as far as the Post is concerned, but can just say if I'm struggling and Rich will find a solution2.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that I hardly realised what else is currently going on in the Community, but there are a few things even I noticed: the constellations project I told you about last time is finished, with its last entry, Caelum having been published Wednesday last week. Congratulations to all involved. Some Researchers who had been on a hiatus have returned, so welcome back to them! A couple of Researchers got their 50 solo entries badge, and the eds proved that they're as prone to making mistakes as any of us by posting to the same I've come to claim my badge thread twice instead of posting once to either of the two threads, much to my amusement. In that sense, please enjoy the current special issue of the Post.
