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

I dislike Brunel as much as the next person, and have made absolutely no plans to desert my beloved Alabaster, but this new skin's arrival could mean a few changes in the AFC. Alabaster is no longer the only alternative to goo-haters, and it soon won't even be the default skin

My question is: what is our policy towards Brunel? Is it a case of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' or do we need to start slagging off the new skin too?

They already have a fan club (A807590). We didn't have one when I joined h2g2 and as far as I'm aware Alabaster's been around forever. They already have more members than us. I don't trust 'em.

I guess they are our allies against Goo, but it doesn't mean they all like Alabaster. And Alabaster has probably lost a lot of users because of it.

But it's NOT alabaster! So surely they're the enemy! but then again they're not goo, hmm, tricky...

I'm going to launch an assault on the fanclub

This certainly is a tough call. I haven't tried brunel since it became official, but based on my observations of it on the beta site, it was really ugly. Alabaster still wins for its "Pure classic beauty."

In my perceptions, this club isn't strictly anti-goo. Sure, our old badges were anti-goo, but now we're on the moral high ground. Goo is an enemy, but that doesn't mean that brunel is a friend. I think that for us to maintain our honor, we can't declare brunel to be a friend. They don't both have to be enemies, but they certainly can't be allies.

Perhaps we should try to establish a firm mission to this club before going any further. Something like "making alabaster the best skin by bugging the italics and whoever else is nearby until they give in to our demands."

Your suggestions are welcome and appreciated.


Vidmaster

After messing around with brunel for about 5 minutes, I've decided I don't like it. It's not as ugly as it was in the beta, but it's still...wrong. It's kind of like a dumbed down version of alabaster, with an industrial theme. An untrained monkey could use it to fill the guide with whatever it wanted. With an infinite number of monkies, the guide would be full of shakespeare!

I think that what we need to do, is lobby the powers that be to add the "my conversations" widget, the smiley buttons and the guideML buttons to alabaster, thus giving alabaster the ease of use posessed by brunel, while still retaining the expert functionaliy and short load times it has in its current form. If we could accomplish that, alabaster would be unstoppable.

it looks too much like the rest of BBCi for my liking....

I played with Brunel for a week. I really like it but it just doesn't seem like h2g2 to me. It's too dark and it takes too long for my PC to load. I have trouble enough getting Alabaster to work these days. Also I don't like the new logos for the volunteer scheme and I prefer how Alabaster shows my personal space.

We need all of Brunel's gadgets. Actually Goo needs them too. In that sense Goo may actually be more of an ally than Brunel.

There's certainly room for a 'My Conversations' button in Alabaster, so I don't see why we shouldn't have one. Alabaster would be a lot better with the addition this feature.

Without its unique gadgets, Brunel is nothing.

now I'm confused...

Just smile and nod then...

*nods*