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

I came on board in early May, 2001. Despite being 15 years younger than I am now, I still felt somewhat ancient compared with the sizable group of teenage and twenty-something researchers like Dragonfly, Theory, Mr. Christopher, and Evil Claw. And many others. The place was like a huge think tank for the supremely creative. Sociability was a huge plus. Many of the threads that I found myself in in those days were fan clubs devoted to individual researchers. There was even one for me. I don't think even one of those fan clubs is still active. There was a Muse Home. There was a pirate ship, presided over by Pierce the Pirate. There was a waterworks. Asteroid Lil had a salon, which has survived for years.

Red Dog started a journal about nothing, and a few of us teased him by keeping it going way past the end of its shelf life.

A Girl named Ben argued passionately for various worthy causes. I remember that she was vocal during the time of the lifetime exile of Arpeggio, but it's been so long that I no longer remember what her arguments were. She was later instrumental in helping to bring H2G2 out of the clutches of the BBC and into its present state of independence.

The Create project has been one of the newer innovations since we became independent. My favorite Create project was the 42-word story endeavor, which I formalized with a thread devoted to 42-word posts.

Another innovation has been the November journal project, wherein people sign up to write daily entries in their journals. My approach has been to tell a serial story in a theater-of-the-absurd fashion. One year, I wove a long, bizarre saga of the Blemnox Family. Another year, I created a hero who used a different form of transportation every day for a month in a trip around the world. Then there was the sea voyage to the island of a sentient tree. None of these was even remotely on a par with Dickens or Faulkner or even Jules Verne , but they required mental ability on a daily basis.

Thanks so much paulh for being the first to leave a reflection! I'm so excited for this forum to finally be up.

paul, the fanclub threads aren't *completely* extinct... yet.

King Cthulhu made an appearance in his earlier this week, and even though no one's posted in mine since December, it's still at the top of the postings on my page. I pop in and lob the occasional

But yes, those were the glory days, and this is now.

I miss being able to participate regularly as I once did. I'll work on a post for you beeble. In the meantime though, my most recent journal was a bit of a reminiscence of the last 17 years.

Thanks for bringing us up to date, Broelan.

When it comes to the whimsical - memes, virtual spaces on h2g2, and such - it does seem to me we've kind of 'moved on' from those days.

But they were fun while they lasted - and I suspect each group has its own fond memories.

- There were language-speaking threads when I first joined in 2005. German speakers seemed to be fixated on the chocolate smiley.
- Periodically, somebody revives the bikini competition - which, as a virtual exercise, is pretty funny.
- For a year or so, a dozen or so of us had a role-playing game going - improvised science fiction novel, really - that ran into at least a million words and (we strongly suspect) annoyed the heck out of the BBC. No one in that group will ever forget the time I accidentally posted an obscene photo instead of the plate of moussaka the characters were supposed to be eating on Planet Whatever...now, what kind of memory is *that* to have in your head?

The uni students have graduated, and some of them are juggling careers and babies now, others changed jobs and schedules...maybe some new students and People with Too Much Free Time will come along and start something else.

On the other hand, we keep coming up with new ways to use the site. NaJoPoMo, Create challenges, more Researcher art and photography, now that we're in charge...I'm expecting us to come up with more as time goes on (and we figure out what and how).

The last post to British English - the sequel seems to have been over 2 years ago. I suspect this is largely due to the demise of ~jwf~ who contributed often. I miss him, and it.

By demise, do you mean jwf died? I didn't know that.

So nice to see reflections and conversation happening here! I've been travelling the last week (bloody timing!) but can't wait to catch up and ask follow up questions soon.

~Beeblefish

paulh: So cool to hear about how the Guide has grown and changed over the years! I will definitely look up the create project and the November journals, as those are from eras I wasn't around. It's interesting that you describe it as the clutches of the BBC! Did you feel that the BBC ownership was too restrictive, limited (like not being able to post about some sex issues)?

broelan: I'll be sure to check that out that journal post. Yeah, when I spent a bunch of time back here in 2005 it seemed very much like it was in 1999, still pretty hoping. Now it is quieter-yet still very social, in bursts. To me it's almost like the same sociableness, but in slow motion. Familiar faces still, but posting less often. People working on articles too, but less often. The big things of course to happen since then were Facebook which started in 2004 and became fully open in 2006 and twitter in 2006 as well. I have seen first hand how some of the social aspects of places like the Salon have at least partially shifted to Facebook. I suspect they are pretty related to the Guide slowing down a bit not this front.

Dmitri: I think you hit a nail on the head with the bit about it being partially generational as well. That's how it was for me: I stated in 1999 when I was in college, but then left when I was in grad school because I didn't have enough time, though would pop back to check in periodically. Others of course will have their own life things going on, jobs kids, etc. You see that on a lot of online spaces. The average age of LiveJournal users a few years ago was 30-35 because of the stalwarts still using it that started in their 20s. It's probably 35-40 now... The fact that memes and community-wide capering might take hold less than a decade ago is perhaps the more dispersed nature—harder to get critical masses and such. Why do you think the BBC disliked the epic storytelling/rollplaying experiments? Cool though how even now though new things being introduced. I think maybe the Post is more important than even now for tying things together, not that the other community spaces have become more diffuse.

Wand'rin Star: That is sad, shows how important people are to making something like the Guide a community. Especially those who have a vision and put there all into some aspect (like a story, a space) without them it's just not the same, and never could be.

One signal we got that the BBC was less than amused was a step they took: they removed the 'most active threads' feature. We suspected that was because of our habit of generating up to 300 posts a night during 'major events' in the live game...such as a wedding on an alien planet or the 'Heart of Darkness' potato parody...

We thought that they were probably worried about their reputations for being serious, and our exuberant frivolity.

It was no doubt a real concern. After all, the Edited Guide is still sometimes quoted as being 'by the BBC'. Check out this page:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Toft

German Wikipedia calls this a 'BBC reportage'. I can see why they might have been worried about what we said in our Guide...after all, questions were asked in Parliament about cigarette papers...

And yeah - we're proud of the way the h2g2 Post widens the scope of what the h2g2 community can share - from imaginative works to travel accounts to 'how to' ideas to...you name it.

" Did you feel that the BBC ownership was too restrictive, limited (like not being able to post about some sex issues)?" [Beeblefish]

True as far as it goes, but it goes further than that. The Internet is *international.* Douglas Adams's work featured the babelfish, which can translate any language, yet languages other than English weren't permitted by the BBC. I realize that multilingual moderators might not have been available, but couldn't two or three major languages [Spanish, German, French?] have had enough moderators to be feasible, in threads dedicated to those languages?

The amount of creativity in those early years was astounding, but the BBC's mindset was too conventional to nurture and encourage it. Many of the early researchers would have left anyway as they matured into their 20s and 30s and got too busy with work and family-raising, but some just plain got fed up with restrictions that they could see no sense in.

Dmitri: So interesting! I've never seen the guide cited before That is fascinating! I remember with the guide integrated with the BBC the social aspect extended across all of their sites (like the Buffy cult one). Was the "most active threads" a guide only function or across all of BBC online?

paulo: Oh! That's right! I completely forgot that the BBC-Guide had to be English only. I wonder if other-language posters/writers have come back to the guide now that it is with Not Panicking. Does anyone know?

The 'most active threads' was just for h2g2.

A lot of Guide Entries have ended up in academic citations - the person to ask is Icy North, he's kept statistics.

Thanks Dmitri! I will seek them out! Sorry paulh for calling you paulo that was a random act of autocorrect

Oh, and here's a list Icy made, archived: A46972182

"Sorry paulh for calling you paulo" [beeblefish]

Isso é tudo o que a direita. Podemos atender no Rio para discutir.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAfTr7VPDKI