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

Yup, they have switched them, and much cursing was heard throught the land...

I think we have to remember that h2g2 are designing this site not just for us junkies at our notebooks and corporate machines, but also for more compact display models, like the WAP. My intuition is that this will remain the WAP way of doing things, and for that you have to admit it's quite well designed.

Swapping the post and preview buttons was a counter-stimulus designed to distract you from experiments being performed elsewhere.

I've tried to imagine what it's like being a coder for h2g2 with this rich and fascinating world under the lens. While I can understand the need to keep the coders off the site itself or they wouldn't get anything accomplished, it would be nice if the "subitalics" could be allowed to participate in regular, timezone-friendly "geek mixers" with the users.

Looking over the habits of the complainants, you can see that the redesign hits particularly the managers of and participants in long threads at popular/intense fora. Since the coders don't get a chance to participate in those sorts of h2g2 experiences, I think it got left out of consideration at the redesign phase.

Possibly

But WAP is still in its infancy, and in no way should the majority of regular users be made to suffer just because TPTB have a vested interested in, and wnat to promote, new technology.

As to your comments on the coders, if they are in fact coding from a position of ignorance as to the larger contributed threads, then they have not been doing their homework correctly. Every thread here has the potential to go past 20 posts, and when they do so, they become increasingly difficult to manage. I do not think this is something to make excuses for, I find this to be a shortcoming that has to be explained and corrected. Neother of these are forthcoming at the moment.

When are we going to get an official response from H2G2 saying "Yes we screwed up, and this is what we are going to do about it...."?

Softly, Shade, this is not a screwup, it's an upgrade. The changeover that was effected in 3 hours yesterday was not unlike doing major repair on a passenger jet in flight.

h2g2 has grown to be something a lot more weird and wonderful than anyone envisioned at the committee table. Over the past year Jim and the Italics have been adding to and patching the existing system at the same time that they've been doing design for the new one.

The Italics, as we call staff, don't come out to play with the researchers because they would be mobbed. It's as simple as that. Ordinary participation is something you have to give up when you join the team. I'm not saying they're never seen but that there have to be some rules. If I worked for them I'd have been sacked long ago for playing on company time.

They DID see the need for a different system of navigation in ripley during beta testing, but there just wasn't time to address it before the mandated changeover date.

As there was clearly a need for these when the beta test took place, and that it has been said this is a project with rather fluid goals, why did they decide to do the upgrade to this system release then? this hasn't been answered. Yes I know the old system was creaking at the seams. If they knew the problems they were going to cause, why not configure the initial defaults to be as similar to the old system as possible?
This has been a major upgrade (and very well done to get back up in the time they took) and changing one thing at a time to make sure that it all worked and to better be able to sort out those things that didn't work would have been a better idea I think.

As for mandated deadlines, I'm sure that the users (I for one certainly) would have said its better to get these issues sorted out first than to rush the job and end up with all these complaints.

Everything you say makes sense. I am aware of the complexeties of software upgrades, and I do have sympathy for those who try to implement them.

That aside, I still feel frustration at an unanswered question, but then, I am only human too.

I agree with Phil.

One of the problems I have, is that had the navigation remained unchanged, it would be easier to see exactly what this and my preceeding message were in response to.

Sorry Lil, i'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. If the new system wasn't ready for release when it hit the deadline, then the deadline should have been pushed back.

If the deadline had been pushed back, i'm sure we'd all have been happy to put up with the old system for another few months whilst they listened to the comments of actual users of the system, and ironed out any problems before going to full release.

Instead, what did they do? They fully released a system that wasn't ready, and all of a sudden all the users are up in arms and the h2g2 team gain a bad name for themselves (which is a great shame, because in the old system I had absolutely no complaints with the h2g2 team). If this had been my project, this would have been far less desirable than not hitting the deadline.

And being good and busy developers is no excuse for not taking usability into consideration. Even if this were the most powerful and functional website in the world, if no one enjoys using the damned thing, then it will soon start to lose researchers at an alarming rate.

Glad to see I am not the only horrible, horrible man who thinks that the team have ever so slightly made a tiny mistake when they messed with this area.

Some users are up in arms

We'll have to agree to disagree. It seems more and more clear as the discussion continues why the Italics only communicate via the PTB.

Mark was right when he said there had to be a release date. If y'all are half the geek I think you are, you know perfectly well that no software is ever finished. I've had my own projects pushed out the front door a lot earlier than I would have liked, and had to deal with the consequences. I mumble it in my sleep even now, DAMN the marketers, DAMN the marketers.

I moderate two fora which are so busy that I have had to start new threads practically every day because the old ones were crashing Netscape browsers or becoming unloadable at peak traffic times. So while I really miss having the whole tree on the left so I can see who's needing a reply at a glance, I am at least in the better postion of being able to get to the thread at all now.

Lil, I believe the issue here is that the navigation system is fundamentally flawed in a way that should never have made it past the paper stage, let alone to implementation. Assuming there was some sort of early mock-up of the interface, these problems should have shown up in plenty of time to rethink the approach.

The only way this system might seem even borderline acceptable would be if there were instantaneous responses to the navigation linke, say, like you might get if you were directly wired to the server, using a fast workstation... I get the feeling that someone skipped the first rule of testing - "always check your software on the slowest, least specified system it will ever be expected to support"

Well, there's your problem, y'see. Don't use Netscape - it sucks

Yeh, sure I appreciate you have to have a release date (otherwise us geeks will just keep messing around with the app and adding more functionality until it's a big nasty mess), but what you're saying is that it is acceptable that they have gone to release with a system that's unuseable.

And believe it or not, I am only trying to offer constructive criticism. I love h2g2, i think it's great, and i think that's why i'm a bit annoyed at the fact they've buggered things up so badly. I think it's a great shame that the Italics (as you call them, although I admit i'm unsure why) can't get in touch and let us know what is going on. People are only getting annoyed because they care about this site, and being left in the dark really isn't helping matters. If people didn't care, they wouldn't still be here complaining. It's not like we're a captive audience.

You got me with that last point there, Peet! And I'll add, give it to your sloppiest user. I had one who hated computers (fear), and I would always make sure he was put in the beta pig group. It gave him an opportunity to vent, anyway!

See, they gave it to ME to test ( ), and while Bruce and others were doing the expert under-the-hood methodical number, I was wandering around poking at things, posting to my usual fora to compare the speed and look. It was creepy being there by myself. If you ever saw The Quiet Earth, you'll know what I mean. I thought then that we needed a quicker way to get at the newest posts, but I kept getting sick so I wasn't around to harangue them. Not that I would have made a difference by that time.

(simulpost)

h2g2 staff members have their names in italics. I don't know who started the term. Not derogatory, but more inclusive than "PTB."

Lil, I hope the fact you kept getting sick had no connection with the new interface

[appears out of nowhere]

Ah, no-sa, you no need to worry 'bout dat.

LOL
No, I had the old style Download Blues.

Netscape may suck, but ya ever try to view this site in Lynx? Frames, frames and more frames (probably why netscape barfs half the time )

As for the rest of this discussion I've made my point and arguing about it here isn't going to change anything, so thank you and goodnight

Up the workers

Totally agree. I'd only just joined and thought the layout of the conversation with the replies to earlier postings listed in chronological order but with the thread running back to the posting you were replying to, was excellent. Just like a true group conversation with participants picking up on things said earlier. Now with just a long list there seems little point in adding to earlier comments because you cannot see at a glance, whereabouts the comment first appeared when your comment gets put at the end of the list. Please can we have that listing back I promise I'll look after it this time. Now where was I .....? What was that you just said? Oh no I'm talking to myself again.