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

The Irony of course is that the reason the Editors were against or, more accurately, afraid of the UnderGuide is that they were afraid of making judgements based on quality...

Which, thinking about it, is a strong argument in favour of volunteer editors, because you will only volunteer if you have the confidence to make the judgement calls. I think some of the editors back in the day found that the "judging the quality of the writing" part of their job was a task they didn't feel qualified for.

That tells you a lot about the path h2g2's writing has taken. I don't think I realized until recently how the UG presents a paradigm that could save the EG. When we were putting together the UG, we never really thought in those terms. It probably wouldn't have worked if we had.

I agree that editors from the community are best. If the new ownership, whoever it is, wants to pick paid staff from the community, that's fine with me though. What I don't really want to see is a revolving cast of well-meaning, competent and intelligent staff who (through no fault of their own) don't really understand what h2g2 is about, and its potential.

I can see a number of scenarios, some are more likely than others

1) the Consortium runs h2g2 - power is in the hands of the people but funds are limited and we struggle to improve the technology

2) h2g2 goes to someone who gets it and passess power into the hands of the people - there is funding for technology and advertising, but to ensure the income stream (eg from smartphone apps) we have to productise some parts of what we do - you could call it whoreing you could call it becoming more professional - this situation was my starting point for my journal entry "Orthoganally parked"

3) h2g2 goes to somone who thinks they get it and some power passes power into the hands of the people - however they force through some changes and annoy the best and brightest who drift away

4) h2g2 goes to soemone who thinks they get it but essentially we have what we had with the bbc - an owner who doesn't trust the people and who therefore puts in place employees who may or may not get it - these employees have to push through the owner's agenda which may be one of stasis (as with the bbc) or inappropriate change (see above)

5) none of the above, and the site is shut

The Consortium's job is to make (2) work and to head (3) and (4) off at the pass by making (1) the best alternative to (2)

For a variety of reasons I think we may well achieve (2) or failing that (1). If we don't, it won't be because we don't understand the risks.

Ben

The future of hootoo depends on who two is. I dearly love a pun.

Well, the only really desirable choice is 2. However, I obviously hope that whatever necessary "productizing" there may be, it won't take away from the central focus of the site. Some of the ways to make h2g2 marketable could very well add to the site's mission - apps being the most obvious (and only ready) example.

What else apart from apps? Books of course. Merchandise has been / is being thought of. Subscriptions won't work. But what else might? If you have ideas please say them.

Posted on behalf of RadoxTheGreen! from the Google Group because Auntie dropped her bloomers again.

RadoxtheGreen:
I was just going to post something on h2g2 while I remembered, and I can't because they've unplugged it again. So, I'll post it here
instead.

Regarding all the talk about having 'like' and 'promote' buttons etc., a thought occurred to me this morning that one of the reasons other sites have become such an integral part of peoples lives is because of all the other sites having buttons linking to them.

So, why not turn around the h2g2 'button' discussions to the polar opposite? Why don't we introduce an embeddable 'search for this on h2g2' box, or 'discuss this topic on h2g2' button which we could persuade other sites to use alongside their existing 'tweet this' / 'add to favourites' button types?

Hopefully, this might get people used to the idea of using h2g2 as a normal point of reference and socialising in their daily lives. I still think we should have the 'like' type buttons to send comments the other way as well, but this would make it a two way thing and be like a permanent 'hey, don't forget about us' sign on other peoples sites.

Someone may have already brought this idea up on h2g2 but I can't get on there to find out. I wanted to mention it now because I have a very
busy day ahead of me and will probably forget to post it at all if I
leave it until aunty feels ready to unbolt the front door again.

Genius, Radox...!