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

>> I suggest we call it Umbrige. <<

Don't forget the 'positive spin' factor.
How about 'The Rainbow Umbridge'.
It's TRU.


~jwf~

>> I suggest we call it Umbrige. <<

Don't forget the 'positive spin' factor.
How about 'The Rainbow Umbridge'.
It's TRU.


~jwf~

I've seen a few folks lately who've been insisting they did not hit the button twice. I believe them now.

~jwf~

Oh, sure... you expect us to believe that?

So if it all goes belly up we can take Umbrige (umbrage)?

Why does it need a name?

Because Rupert has a name.

I like 2legs' suggestion of sticking with bear names. On the table atm we have Paddington and Yogi. I prefer Yogi myself.

Paddington

An interseting quote from A786846 (How Much Does DNA Cost?):

"DNA websites most emphatically do not run themselves, so if clients are serious about running a DNA community, then they need to pay for staff. For a small community a single editorial and community person may be suitable, but for bigger communities we recommend at least one editorial person, one community person, and one technical person."

...

whilst she reads all the things that have been linked to.

I go for Paddington btw, it sounds more official to match the announcement!

Mel

Yes, I'll go with Paddington. Hopefully, like the famous railway station, this is just a place we're temporarily stopping at on a journey taking us to better things. On the other hand - like the station - it could be a place where we suffer delays and frustration.

We'll see.

Here's another possibility for you all to mull over...

The blackout in communications from the italics might not only be them working out how to reorganise their own working practices for two full time staff (or could it be two FTE (Full Time Equivalent) staff - four people working part time)... it could also be a test of the community as a whole - how it copes with reduced italic involvement...

They can't really work out how much responsibility we could take on without trying us out a little, could they?

Hopefully, what this means is 4 of the staff tranferring their personal spaces onto the hub and starting to look after new and developping DNA sites. I tend to agree with H. who said this site _could_ be run with just two staff... it would change the atmosphere a little, much less contact with the staff etc... but I imagine it would be possible - if the community itself were to take more responsibility.

So how would this site run with just two staff?
Well, aces and gurus may well have less in-house support, but lets face it, we should be able to do our jobs without it (or we shouldn't have the badge).

Scouts and Subs....
Scouts should be able to continue to manage PR in the same way, with maybe some re-organisation of the requests for moves from PR (to avoid the italic having to look at it every single day - moves could be made once a week), picks could possibly be processed on a weekly basis instead of a daily basis, so the whole weeks picks go out to subeds on a Friday afternoon for example (the next fortnight should build up a little backlog to help us there).
There would still have to be italic backup for the more 'contentious' entries in PR, but as we've all seen, the italics have always tried to stay clear of them unless the community itself can't come to an agreement (let's not get into the arguement of whether or not they've been right though ).

Subs - a lot more pressure on subs , a single editoral member of staff is going to have much less time to proofread every single entry, therefore the pressure is on the subs to get it right (if we want the quality of entries to remain the same) and there's going to be far less time for a single italic to sort out snags one the day the entry hits the front page.
Another possibility would be handing collaborative entries out to subeditors instead of processing them 'in-house'.

Community artists:
I don't honestly know enough about how the system works to say much, but from the outside i'd suspect the biggest problem is getting people on-board who understand the software & technical requirements... comments from a community artist?

The Underguide: Yet again, looks like most of the work has been done now (thankfully in time!) Hopefully this can be left to develop itself with a simple yes/no decision by the editorial italic on the weekly entry.

One thing I can't see happening straight away is volunteers having extra buttons and tools to do some of the jobs the italics do now... who'd set up such a system... Jim? he's already working on other DNA and non-DNA projects, looks to me like the exclusive technical development of h2g2 has probably seen its day, we'll be upgraded along with the rest of DNA, but site specific user requests are likely to take a very low priority from now on.

I think the biggest thing overall is there's going to have to be a change in working practices and reflexes on the part of the volunteers... currently, if we've a problem it's easy to 'ask an italic', in the future unless BBC involvement is absolutely necessary it could well be far quicker to sort things out without them.

Not panicing _yet_! (but still waffling a lot )

Whisky

I feel the Italics do a lot more than we can see.

A site this big will need more than 2 people to stick an oar in where necessary. What you have said is all very well, what we see the italic doing could possibly be done by 2 people, I however am worried about all the things that go on behind the scenes.



Mel

Well the coffee making should be about the same but you're right, the orgies will be a lot more difficult to manage with just 2 italics.

True, but what goes on behind the scenes may well be better justified and used under the DNA banner rather than under the h2g2 flag... (at least that's what I'm hoping the BBC is thinking)

My posting was NOT in reply to SEF's there!!!


**wanders off giggling to himself**

If we're resigned to naming it after a bear, my vote goes to "Biffo".

Well they'll just have to have part time ones won't they SEF!

But with Mark gone they just wont be the same

Which reminds me of an old joke entry where I'm going now to see if any updates have been made!

Mel

Someone earlier said something about things we can do with the time now there are no new entrys to read...

My suggestion is something that will be very useful to the site (which also demonstrates how self sufficient we all are) lets hang out in PR and give loads of good feedback to each other. Come 22/09/03 we will have a plethora of great entrys for the two new staff to look at!

Whisky, speaking as a community artist, the biggest slices of Italic time are taken up by preparing the list of images that require illustrating in time to give us at least 7 days to work on them, keeping track of all the images that are "in limbo" and the (allegedly onerous, tedious, time-consuming, soul-destroying) job of converting the images to "Blobs". Side tasks include checking transparency, filesize etc. (although that is usually delegated, and occasionally not done) and arbitrating in cases where an image comes dangerously close to breaching copyright.

It's pretty time intensive, as the assignments only have a 7-day lead time on average, and if an image is vetoed for reasons of copyright, taste or "border disputes" a replacement is still required for the original deadline; hence it's not really practical to just take a few days off.