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

OK, this idea of mine seems to have failed. Unless anyone wants to take over running this thing I pronounce it dead as a dodo.

Don't kill it off. There will be times when we will all want to debate a particularly thorny issue (although I would think today would be perfect, given the Transport Department furore in the UK and George Bush's policies... well, everywhere). Perhaps we should try to pique some people's interests with posts in 'ask the h2g2 community', and then transfer the debate to here.

The trouble is, I don't see a way past this thorny problem: if someone wants to start a new thread about a political issue, they'll presumably post it on Ask H2G2 to maximise it's exposure. One way of getting round this is to post lots and lots of topics for discussion on this forum and spam Ask H2G2 to get people to visit, but I think that's frowned upon and anyone needs someone to spend a reasonable amount of maintaining this page. Originally that was my plan, but I have too much else on at the moment to do so.

The ideal solution would be if H2G2 included a cross posting option, so that a thread could be simultaneously in this forum and on Ask H2G2. But I doubt they'll include that because everyone would crosspost to Ask H2G2 and it would get too crowded.

Another plan comes to mind - if we got a few people involved we could run this page as a joint venture. We could do what one person suggested when I was setting it up and have a collection of links to political discussions on H2G2. Whenever one of the people jointly running this page noticed a political discussion that was interesting, they could check if there was already a link here, and if not add one.

Any ideas?

A joint venture sounds a good idea. I'd be willing to help out, anyway.

The trouble is, I don't see a way past this thorny problem: if someone wants to start a new thread about a political issue, they'll presumably post it on Ask H2G2 to maximise it's exposure. One way of getting round this is to post lots and lots of topics for discussion on this forum and spam Ask H2G2 to get people to visit, but I think that's frowned upon and anyone needs someone to spend a reasonable amount of maintaining this page. Originally that was my plan, but I have too much else on at the moment to do so.

The ideal solution would be if H2G2 included a cross posting option, so that a thread could be simultaneously in this forum and on Ask H2G2. But I doubt they'll include that because everyone would crosspost to Ask H2G2 and it would get too crowded.

Another plan comes to mind - if we got a few people involved we could run this page as a joint venture. We could do what one person suggested when I was setting it up and have a collection of links to political discussions on H2G2. Whenever one of the people jointly running this page noticed a political discussion that was interesting, they could check if there was already a link here, and if not add one.

Any ideas?

Ooops, double post. Stupid internet connection.

How about this for a plan of action: I'll start a new thread on this page called "New Beginnings" (or something equally trite) and we'll both go out into the larger H2G2 world and see if we can find and persuade people to be part of a joint venture, and bring them to that thread. We can also discuss there what exactly we want the forum to be. Sensible plan?

Oui, monsieur.

Hi
Why don't you consider writing a short piece for The Post each time you want to start a new topic? That way, you may reach a few more researchers and create a new thread for each one, either by posting a link or using the feedback from the article itself?

Just a thought...



shazz

It's a good idea, but requires someone to write a short piece for every topic - quite a lot more work than just starting a thread

By the way, interested in an article on civil liberties and terrorism for the Post, or is it too long/serious?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A689934