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

Why do you do this to generally confuse the newbies as opposed to leaving it to the ACE's who volunteer for the job and work hard at it.

If you want to help them, set up a help page, don't go imposing yourselves on the community when you are not needed.

Psyc.

I'm an ACE as well as a GA and no ACE has ever complained about GAs confusing newbies. When I first joined the site I had 2 people welcome me within the space of a day; one was an ACE the other wasn't and that was one of the things that made me feel instantly involved in the community. As it is recently very few GA's do much but there was a time when the GAs and ACEs worked together, the only difference being the ACEs were official and the GAs were just people who tried to be welcoming (not that ACEs weren't as well, but the more welcomes the merrier).

~Skenvoy

Thank you Skenvoy - your reply was a very good one, and a reasonable one.

What makes me wonder is why a Sub-Ed would be bothered about this?

Psych - have you checked what those of the researchers that *are* actually <./>ACEs</.> think about the h2g2 GAs? Have you had any <./>ACE</.> approach you expressing concern?

Or how come you think this is a problem to begin with?

Because the only one of your 'Angels' I've ever met is 'Scott Harper' who uses this as a way to chat up whichever female researchers he can find.

I see two problems with your argument here.

1) You seem to believe that you can extrapolate the actions of a group of individuals from the actions of *one* person. Anyone who has studies statistics at any level should be able to tell you that your sample population is nowhere near large enough to be able to attempt to get *any* meaningful data about the group as a whole. The only thing you know about is Scott Harper.

2) You seem to be saying that Scott Harper being a member of the GAs somehow makes it easier for him to go around the site chatting to newbies. How? *Anyone* can easily go around talking to *anyone* on the site. Even newbies can talk to newbies. How does the presence or absence of the GAs affect this, in any way???

'Is' Scott Harper or whatever he's calling himself these days actually a GA? I don't remember seeing him at any recent sainting ceremonies and he's not on the roster

< that might be my mistake; I haven't updated the page since the last sainting, though I can't remember if Scott was included I'll get on to it now, I *knew* I forgot something>
Anyway, back to the main point. I was going to reply with this, before I saw there were new postings, so if someone has already said part of this forgive me!
I haven't actually seen Scott greet new members so I can't comment on him specifically. However, the Guardian Angels is an informal group - we're for people who don't want to have to adhere to the commitment that being an ACE is.
Now I think for the case you've put forward it depends how Scott welcomes new users and as I've said I DO NOT know how he welcomes new users so my comments are hypothetical; they apply to anyone greeting newbies, including the ACEs! (if not "especially the ACEs" as they officially represent the community).
If someone greeting newbies just welcomes them then that is fine as ACEs often do check back through the list to make sure no one was missed from being ACEd, due to whatever reason, be it an unoffical welcome or someone posting on the newbies page for whatever reason.
If a greeter gives a newbie duff links then someone should have a word with them and perhaps suggest some other links they could use.
However, if a greeter is in some way, either by their manner or by the wording of their greeting, making people think " do I really want to be on a site like this" then it might, again be worth someone having a word with them and suggesting another way of greeting people.
If you are really concerned that Scott is causing people to not want to join/stay on the site because of his greetings or any other message he sends (and that goes for any other researcher) then it might be worth e-mailing the italics with your worries and seeing what they think of them, or if you want to send me a link of a posting you are worried about I'll look at it and let the italics know of your concerns.

~Skenvoy

Maybe it is better if we are sure who we talk about.
Do you mean U518494 who calls himself now
"Scott Harper who needs a girlfriend .... Patron Saint of Self Pity"
at his sainting known as "Dragon Lord"?

At least he makes clear what he wants, and he still calls himself
"I am a Unofficial Guardian Angel, We meet and greet New members and help them around the world of H2G2."
As far as I know he is from the time there were problems with digibox users, who came from a totally different system.

BTW I never uploaded new versions of the Angels list to the site.

Digibox users weren't /aren't all bad..some of us have managed to fit in quite nicely Some though..well..