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

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Blog the twenty-fourth

Sunday 8th May 2011

So last week saw the Grand Opening of the h2g2c2 shop, the UK and US versions.

Now this shop is intended to help fund the h2g2 Community Consortium bid. Our original decision to raise money through a shop rather than soliciting donations direct was that we could not, unfortunately, categorically guarantee that we would win the bid for the site and this would mean that we might not be able to use the money for the exact purpose people had donated it for. We felt that under these circumstances it would be more appropriate to be able to give people something concrete (and pretty spiffy, let’s face it) in return for their contributions. Hence the shop.

However, this week, a number of community members expressed a distinct preference for donating to The Effort directly, particularly as the amount of money going from each item in the shop to The Cause is relatively small.

And it is also true that the Interim Committee has now run up some not inconsiderable costs already in putting together our bid.

So we have set up a ‘donate’ page on the h2g2c2 website.

http://h2g2c2.co.uk/?pid=9

We are mainly trying to raise enough to cover our bid costs, which we expect to be around £1000 all told. That’s around £10 per Consortium member. Although we do appreciate that some may be able to afford a bit more and some less. Do not give more than you can afford!

If there is any surplus, should we win the bid, we will use it to help fund the start up and running costs. Should we lose, we suggest that we form a user group to represent the community’s interests with the new owners. Either way, we will be totally transparent about how any money is spent.

This does not mean we want to stop you buying from the shop if that is your preference though! All methods of support are greatly appreciated. And who can resist the dolphin T shirts?

We just want to make sure that you have the choice, particularly because it’s a choice that you have requested.

OK, I want to donate but not through PayPal.
Is there a bankaccount I can transfer my donation to? If so please provide the IBAN and BIC codes for international currency transfer.

I can give a donation...

Just tell me how via E-Mail, and it will be done.

My E-Mail is at the bottom of my PS...


GT

to make a donation

just send your account no. sort code and mothers maiden name to

H2G2CU@nigerian lottery payments.co.com

Thanx Taff!

I do not think so!!!!


GT

For the record I have had Canadian Postal Money Orders
returned as 'not recognized as legal tender' or 'not-
negotiable at our bank'.

International money orders issued by national postal
services are the gold standard of trustworthy money
transfers around the whirled. And I've not only never
had one accepted in the UK, they are returned with a
query as to what sort of scam do I think I'm trying on.

They were invented in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_order#International_money_orders


~jwf~

PayPal will convert the currency--you can either send a set amount in the recipient's currency, or your own currency. The latter is nice if your currency is stronger than the recipient's (learned the good way when someone sent something to help with our upcoming down payment).

Paypal is fine. This is not rocket science [].

>>That’s around £10 per Consortium member

There's a membership? Where? Who?

'membership' as in people who signed up to be a member of the original google group.

Hardly much of a membership, but just an indication of the people who said that they supported us in the beginning.

I just wasn't sure if I was one or not.

I think you are - I was looking through the posts in Janruary and found a few by you...

Not that it means that we're coming after you with a big stick..

(You're far too far away )

I think someone should come after me with a big stick and point me in the direction of the backlog

Much more tempting to go after the backlog with a big stick....

Bash!

Bash!

Crash!

Stomp!

Craah!

That looks like fun!

It is!

Crash! Bash! Stomp! Bang! Thump! Crash!

But not as much fun as a sunny day in May in Trafalgar Square. I just hope Lord Nelson's nose doesn't get red and itchy with all the pollen in the air.

Here's an update that I posted in Ask of some convos that have been happening over the weekend:


A bit of an update from the weekend.

There's a couple of new discussions at the h2g2c2 page:

Language and noohootoo (on h2g2 culture, the words and terms we use, and how we can protect and nurture that culture). I proposed that we need to take some care around changing terms and names of things where they're part of h2g2 culture. Words discussed so far are 'researcher', post vs comment, edited vs approved vs published:

F20154027?thread=8231980


Croeso i h2g2 - Multllingual hootoo (on how to make h2 multilingual again). Seems to be a general consensus that it's a good thing, although some people liked being able to read all posts in English. Some discussion about the techie aspects of translation, and how to moderate in non-English languages. It'd be good to have some bi/multilingual researchers in that thread:

F20154027?thread=8232389


You may have also seen this discussion in Ask on the propsed Community Editors:

F19585?thread=8231876


Lots of questions have been posited in a number of places and I'm trying to gather them all up to make a FAQ (or should that be a FABSFUQs - frequently asked but so far unanswered questions? Taff that acronym is specially for you ). The idea is that we all have many questions that will be useful to look at once things become more apparent with the sale and new owners.

Here's the Ask thread for anyone not hanging out there. It's to engage people that couldn't keep up with or had missed the c2/c3 work from the past months. Subject: Are you interested in what's happening with the noohootoo? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F19585?thread=8229638