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

"from being a small dotcom to a BBC site"?

Makes it sound so positive there, doesn't it?
Like the BBC really invented what it is now.
I thought it was going fine anyway, thank you (although being funded from my parents' TV Licence has presumably let them play with more money, but in terms of a community...<tails off into unsubstantiated rant, cos he hasn't really got time to make his point before he goes off to dinner and anyway...[description of action cut short due to shortage of time, imagination, creativity, sheer bebotheredness - what is that actually called? the opposite of apathy? - pathy, I suppose...{Explanation for ceasing of description of action on tailing off the point I was making, which I have now forgotten - Ooh, no I haven't, I was just saying... //Um, running out of brackets now so I'd better go off and do something else.

Sorry for leaving so many brackets tailing, but then: that's life, I suppose.

IM

"I thought it was going fine anyway"

I think you'll find it wasn't really going fine before hand... As far as I know the company was about to go bust before the BBC stepped in, so if they hadn't H2G2 wouldn't be here today

Whisky (Not a great fanatic of the BBC either, but it's better than nothing)

I seem to recall there even being no money for toilet paper...

You use money for toilet paper







Lendusafiva

!

Well... y'know, now that we've got the €...

Hi Increase Mathers!

It's all true I'm afraid. The staff all loved being part of the original h2g2 site, but the money had totally run out. We'd been promised more by a big internet investment company, but when the dotcom crash came they pulled out of the second stage of investment, leaving h2g2 high and dry, without funding. The staff couldn't be paid and the servers were going to be sold off, to be wiped and reused undoubtedly. The BBC offered to take on h2g2 and the debts and so saved the site from certain closure. So that's how we came to the BBC...

It's so nice to have never known how wonderful it was. The complains that I hear about the BBC seem to be that they have a lot of integrety, and will make no exceptions to broach of copyright laws, putting the principles of the organization before any individual's whims.

Oh for the good old days is a cry of selective memory. The old days were apparently not that good.

Here, we have a forum free from objectionable material, and most importantly to me, from advertising in all it's forms. Join a "free" users group, named after some primitive cry of joy or victory if you don't know what I mean.

Peta, thank you for sticking with this thing. MD

The old days were wonderful. But I'm very, very happy that it continued at all. I would have been devastated if it all had been wiped. After all that...

We're here now and the BBC will be sued if we do wrong, a small dotcom wouldn't be, so we have to be more careful now. It's a pity, but it's the way the world turns....

I'm very happy to stick with it, it's unique and amazing!

Amen!

No &#8364; for bags either

Amen to Ottox's Amen.



Long live h2g2!

at the thought of the servers being wiped

Still can't post that Euro sign.

Well, h2g2 support said we shouldn't use it in forums anyway.

I'm glad the site is still here, I missed it very much when it was down. I'd have been glad to see it back even if it had come with singing elephants and a vague stink of dung.

To think the servers would have been wiped I hadn't thought of that!
I'm going to make sure I keep copies of all my work, in case the BBC ever runs out of money!

And let's be fair, what do the BBC *actually* stop us from doing?
Spouting unsubstantiated rubbish about those in the public eye? Not a great loss, as it means what you read here should be factual information you can use in real life.
I've seen no great evidence that we can't discuss, say, Jose Bove and the French farmers protest, merely that we have to be sure of the facts before we do.
That's such a great problem?

Ooh! That got more of a reaction than I thought. There was also more of a pre-beeb problem than I thought, and I take everyone's points about that side ofthings [].
However, in my defence, I'd just like to say that we have highlighted yet again the quintessential dilemma of the Internet: can it exist uncensored, and if not, who's going to censor it? There's also of course, the old can it make any money, and if not, who's going to pay for it?
The BBC have, I suppose kindly, decided that the answers are 1:their employees, and 2:the license-paying TV-watchers of the UK. Apart from the slight incongruity of the second answer, seeing as the Internet, by it's nature, makes this an international concern, I admit that it's good of them to at least give an answer.
However, in doing so, I'm worried they are upsetting some of the dynamics of the internet that make it so unique in the first place, my personal irritation list including:
- URL moderation, which slows everyone down while they try and debate about something, which [since the URL is hidden] only some of them can see and make an opinion about.
- URLs in forums, without which it's very hard to give another researcher a passing tip if you find something interesting
- using www.bbc.co.uk/lots_of_rubbish rather than www.h2g2.com. I know this doesn't sound like much, but I think it represents the source of some of the other problems: namely, that the BBC feel they have to own everything about the site, rather than letting it be independent and internally diverse. This is not, I stress, a problem with the BBC per se, it is a problem with how we view the WWW. Court-cases have produced mixed results over who is ultimately responsible for something being on the Internet, and the BBC has decided to cover their backs by making everything very internal, identifiably, theirs, and provably "safe".
Again, like most things on the Internet, it's hard to know whether this will actually work, and the risk is that people will move on to somewhere with less strict rules, so that they can feel a bit freer.

In the end then, I'd have to agree with an earlier post, that it's better than nothing, and since the previous incarnation was not [yet?] making enough money to survive, we're lucky to be here. However, although it's unproven [and possibly unprovable], I get the feeling that it could be a lot better if it was run with a different attitude.

The point about URL's is that the BBC don't want to have to check every forum posting for a URL. It only takes one link to a porn site for the complaints to flood in.
At least if they are kept to user pages, then it's an easier task to deal with.
As to censorship, well, I pretty much self-censor. I've been moderated twice, once rightly, once wrongly. Both were dealt with quickly and amicably.
Lack of censorship, for some people, seems to mean the right to talk drivel about others, be rude, insensitive and trolling. If that's what we lost, then I don't think it's that much of a problem.

Something to think about, is what would have happened if, say, MSN or AOL had taken over rather than the Beeb. If I ever have something moderated, I count to ten, remind myself of that, and I'm fine

Ohhh!<yikes
That thought will give me nightmares...

Well, I have to say, just looking around the site, both at alternative scenarios suggested here, and in some of the onsite politics currently being debated (such as the Quincy debate, and the previous LeKZ affairs that have preceded it), has shown me - or perhaps, deep down, confirmed - that the issue is a lot more complex than I thought.
Censorship, sadly, is perhaps an unsolvable conundrum. I therefore would have to agree that many of the BBCs measures do serve a good purpose - even if they are sometimes frustrating. In some ways, you could see this as OMTWA, but since I enjoyed the site under its original conception, I find it hard not to wish for some level of return.
However, I also find it hard not to wish for a truly democratic state, but firmly [and rather paradoxically] believe that that is a complete techhnical impossibility.
Looking at what has happened with LeKZ and so on has put me in a rather sombre mood, and I rather think I may have to review my views on censorship.
I suspect this is a classic case of something, which may even have a name [or should], where a specific example changes your view completely. Like the old "what if it was your daughter..." argument.
Hmmm...

If MS had taken over the guide I think things would have gone too far in the other direction: Offensive content only seems to get removed from MSN community sites when journalists start ringing MS!

If you are coming to the party, can you make sure you read this thread please. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F78288?thread=162754 Thanks! :-)