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

Oooh do you remember the animated guide entries that the writing team made when h2g2 kicked off? They were forgotten about really quickly but I liked them

Oh yes, they stopped doing those about two days after I installed the plug-in required to see them.

Right folks, I'm on line, and IRL am a bit tipsy so am ready for drunken nostalgia, randiness, or whatever the BBC will or will not allow.

Please welcome Nick Currie who has just taken over from Dominic. Do have a nick

& Nick, when the novelty has worn off we probably will stop discussing your presence... have some too...

You were really nice, Dancing Tree I was very pleased with the result. I still remember exactly which computer I was at when I got the email... I was in the Courtdyard Building at the time...

Has everybody sobered up or something?

To the moderator: Can't you guys activate your user pages? That way we can all leave friendly messages on your page and leave cupcakes and things

What are suggesting, Peregrin (and hello again, by the way!)? That you could perhaps trade cupcakes with the ability to break house rules in some sick, corrupt system in which you, as President, will be able to telework an organised crime network from right beneath the noses of the BBC?!

Great idea.

I was never a big fan of the animated entries and am glad that Mark came in and clamped down on the non-fiction thing. Otherwise we'd have just had a poor take on the actual HHGTTG, with a load of poorly-concieved pieces of pseudo SF nonesense. Rather like some of my early entries that I haven't got the heart to remove yet (like the GAVIN and HHGTTG 6.1)...

I remember being rather over-excited and not really understanding the 'feel' of h2g2 (well, neither did ANYONE - not even the staff, come to think of it!) and ending my first Journal Entry with "I AM THE NEXT ARTHUR DENT!!!!!"... It's probably a good thing that they've all disappared now. It's very obvious that the quality of Guide Entries has gone up considerably since the beginning. Which is good, because I wonder if anyone would have bought h2g2 if it hadn't improved? That's not saying that there weren't any good entries to begin with, of course. *covers his ar- back.*

Well, Joanna, I am to please (even if my aim is sometimes a little off!)

If I remember, that entry was back in ye olde days when we actually got to choose what made it and what got binned. I'd almost mastered the art of "nice rejection" notes for the... less-deserving articles by that point, too

Well, Mark admitted most of the initial entries were rubbish. Basically, a team of comedy writers were comissioned to come up with a bunch of stuff to make the Guide at least partially full for launch. When Mr. Moxon arrived and saw how bad they were, almost all of them were demoted.

I think the edited Guide is pretty good, with a huge amount of well-written information. And if people still want to write bizarre, off-the-wall stuff, then they are still free to do so anyway!

Like you say, if it'd've stayed like it was at the start, I doubt the BBC would have been enthusiastic, but more importantly, I doubt that the site would have had any longevity at all. There are only so many articles one can read about some imaginary planet without going totally insane

As a matter of interest, has anybody actually used the guide to find information? And I don't mean wandering around reading entries out of interest, but actually going in with the intention of finding something out about Swindon or somewhere/something.

I have a couple of times but not found what I wanted.... although the guide is fairly big, I think it's still lacking the sheer amount of content needed for a fully operational travel guide. Assuming that's what you want to use it for, which isn't what most people are using it for at the moment.

Part of the problem in doing the combination articles, I think. A good example is the one on Cardiff -- I wrote two entries for that (La Gondola and Spiller's Records), but they'd have been better off using them as they were and linking to a Cardiff "portal" page. Same goes for some other stuff too.

And, no, I've only used the site for general mucking around. Having said that, it certainly has the potential to grow into and Earth-bound HHGTTG given enough time, especially now the Beeb is behind it.

I think that - budget permitting - they should build up a basic store of information, either using their own resources or us volunteer writers. Basic stuff like location and simple info for every city in Britain. Then they could work up from there, adding more info for more locations. Then at least users can be guaranteed to find directions to Northampton if they so wish, instead of finding no info on the place at all but tonnes about a small hamster farm in Botswana.

I hope someone's reading this conversation. It's the most sober one I've read since the site was back up.

Yeah, everyone everywhere else is a little light headed with the excitement

Well it is the shortest I've read!

Well it is the shortest I've read!

Peregrin - I mentioned your idea/comments/criticism about vital information still needed in the guide (with due credit to you) to the PTB and got a very favourable answer - this sort of thing is to be covered soon i.e. suggestions for entries that haven't been written yet but are needed to fill gaps. I vainly looked for one on "Scotland" for example for an entry I was working on.

ooh good. Thanks, sounds promising