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

I've never told anyone to leave, I merely point out that it's an option if they wish to exercise it

Sorry, off topic, but it's so funny hearing the same things come out of the mouths of italics that they've always said. Even though it's people who were on the receiving end (and not liking it) who are doing it now.

Ask was cleared up before, but people keep coming back to it as being an important 'gathering' place. Instead of fighting against it - EMBRACE IT!?

That's what the Community is using it for, why do people in charge keep trying to fight it??

Putting obituaries on a 'lets see who dies next' page definitely seems disrespectful. I would hope never to see an h2g2 Researchers obit moved there.

I've never objected to the parameters of Ask being enforced regardless of who was in charge at the time.

The original intent of Ask serves a purpose. In fact, I unsubscribed from Ask years ago because of all the junk, nonsense and nastiness that was being posted there. Once I became a volunteer, I re-subscribed (because that is part of my job here) to find it was still a mess. Now the Core Team is working towards a viable solution that provides both a 'gathering' place as well as a place to get questions answered. I am pleased that we have a positive, constructive team and appreciative of the efforts of everyone who is working hard on making this a welcoming corner of the internet.

I am really sorry but so cross threading,

if Icy had started out this morning with

Are you also sad to hear of Tony Benn's death this morning?
Instead of, I am so sad to hear of Tony Benn's death this morning.

How different and more tidy it would be on Ask


and I couldn't help but have a good belly laugh at the ridiculousness of it, which wasn't at the expense of anyone,

Peanut, I you. It was exactly my thoughts.

Tony Bennett's dead too?

Is anyone reading this thread in Pliny?

When I click on the link in my Pliny convo list, I get redirected to the FrongPage. I've seen this once before and I believe it was also a Feedback convo.


Anyway, back on topic. All I have to add is that I feel the main reason Ask becomes a catch-all is simply because it shows up on the front page. When the Forums was busy, they were also a front page feature. If misc chat and the forums were featured on the front page, I'm sure a lot of the less appropriate convos in ask would migrate organically to more appropriate areas.

Until I see this "Lounge" of which you speak, I'll assume it will do likewise and things will work themselves out then.

I have some concerns with tone, but I feel it would not be constructive to address them here, or at all, really so I'll just bite my tongue on that subject.

Thanks for the post Bel

BG - It happened on the qotd thread which was also posted here on the community soapbox, Milla logged it

In Pliny I can get to the community soapbox page, by putting community soapbox into search, from there the conversations read ok in pliny

If I click on the conversation in my journal space or from the front page, it does take you to the front page

I rather like the idea of a Current Affairs Forum..RIP threads would be natural in that context along with political,educational and sports etc then Ask could continue being the place to ask rather esoteric and useful questions.

But as I'm completely invisible I doubt I'll be noticed.

I rather like the idea of a Current Affairs Forum..RIP threads would be natural in that context along with political,educational and sports etc then Ask could continue being the place to ask rather esoteric and useful questions.

that was invisible me

If this is a community where there´s not an "us and them", it means that democracy, consensus... should be taken in consideration by those who , if not the owners, at least they have the hands on the buttons, and even the feet on our bottons.

As many more, I agree that Ask is the plaza, the meeting point of this small village called h2g2.
Do you prefer do your shopping in the street market where there´s plenty of every thing and even some items that you didn´t expected at all or that you even had no idea of their existence? A place where you can have fun, chat here, there , meet people, learn new things, get inspired to write something, enjoy the freshness and spontaneity of folks...

Or do you prefer do the shopping in a supermarket where every thing is neatly packed, labelled, right in order, but also it gives you little chances to meet your neighbour unless you both coincide in the same like of something.

Nothing mixed, all well labelled, everything in its "right" place.

Just change the name of ASK and embrace reality. Humans need humans, we need a plaza to meet. Forget so many labels and boxes. It will kill the place.

When I came here, I loved Ask, I had everything I wanted, it was the starting point to visit other places of this village/community.

I think that ASK is the heart of this place, if you cut it into pieces, not matter how well labelled and packaged, this place will get sick and weak.

and I´m so sad to find that another thread about another great man who has just died has been moved because it wasn´t a question. Really ridiculus and very sad.

Yes, but it's actually ok, because we have three options: like it, lump it or leave. I'd like this as a strapline for h2g2. The alliteration has a sense of fun and style you won't find in other community sites.

Good dead pan Icy

Changing the name of Ask does seem like a gloriously simple solution.

Ask is actually described as "Askh2g2 - the place to ask questions, voice opinions and request help with research" so it probably doesn't even need to be renamed (which would be a shame to do as it is a traditional part of h2g2) - people use it to ask questions and voice opinions, so it does what it's supposed to already.

Renaming it is not an option, sorry.

Even if I agreed that turning it into a chat room is what the majority of people want, which they don't, it's not an option.

h2g2 is the Earth Edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as such its main focus is the Edited Guide, with the community here to support the writers.

We're looking at changing that a bit, in keeping with more modern data storage and retrieval techniques, because a lot of the time there's some really good bits of information in the forums. Unfortunately there's also a lot of smiley congas, single word postings with people trying to be clever, lots of empty spaces in postings where people want to make their post stand out, etc, etc.

What we need to do, is provide the places for the contributing community to hang out and support each other, including smiley congas if they feel the need, but we also need to be able to get to that information. h2g2 is a Guide, and if we can't get that guidance out then we might as well close the site now and postings full of random drivel can find another home.

Part of what we're doing is bringing in a new, and revolutionary search engine, but to make it work as well as we possibly can, it needs a weighting system to help differentiate between fact and fluff. As such, edited entries will have the highest weighting, and fix forums like Ask and Science Explained will have high ratings too. Non-edited entries, journals and standard forums will have lower weightings so that while the are still indexed, they will appear lower down the results.

So renaming Ask is not a simple solution, and does not solve the problem. We need a forum for chat, and a forum for information seeking. We have Misc Chat, we have Ask.

The problem as it stands, is the use of those areas. There's several reasons we've found by talking to people, and yes, by listening to what they have to say, as to why people use Ask as a general chat room. And we're addressing those issues. Over the next week or two all the volunteers will be getting an email with screen shot mock-ups of what we've come up with, and will be asked for their further input and feedback. Once that round is done, we'll tweak and build on the test system so that all the volunteers can try it out and give even more feedback before it goes live.

So once again, renaming Ask is not an option. It's not going to happen. We have the correct forums, and we're sorting out things to make it far easier for everyone to use them.

If you have any constructive suggestions of what you'd like to see, of what would make it easier and more helpful for you to use them, such as Bald Blokes suggestion in the brainstorming thread, then please pop those ideas in over there, because while we have plans that we're putting in place at the moment, it's still not too late to add more good ideas.