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

I suggest removing the part of the page which says "This is not what h2g2 is for" as that claim is clearly misinformed.

From Douglas Adams' Welcome Message, 8 Sep 1999:
"You can create your own Guide Entries containing anything you want, from your opinions of world events to a description of your home town, and it all goes to make up the h2g2 Guide, the sort of guide which was not possible before we had the means of live, shared information resources."

He also wrote, "An online guide should be absolutely live, voluminous, self-organising, and individually responsive to each user."

If you decide to leave the section that says "This is not what h2g2 is for," then I think a link to DNA's welcome message would at least make the best possible rebuttal. It's at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/welcome-dna

I hate to have competing petitions, but I've gathered a few new signatures on the old "Petition for Greater Freedom on h2g2" which still applies to this kind of new situation. It can be found at A544943.

Also to give a better background on the current policy, you might want to explain that similar restrictions were put in place during the last UK General Election (A533468) and h2g2 Guidelines During the Afghanistan Crisis (A647859).

I wholeheartedly agree that this is definitely NOT what Douglas would have wanted. It's a shame that h2g2 couldn't stay independent, and it was a good this that it was taken over by the BBC. But the take-over came with a pricetag attached. You mentioned not one but three instances where the site was gagged and you are right. I wonder how many more times the BBC-management will do it before they finally get it.

I have been on this and other boards for years now and after a while it gets incredibly boring to talk about the weather, chocolate-cookies or how great the new J-Lo-single is. I for one am very interested in having a mature debate about world-events and what they might mean for the future. This used to be one of the very few forums/communities were you could actually have these discussions on a worldwide basis, and it's a shame that we can't use h2g2 for these purposes anymore.

The fact remains : the BBC took over h2g2 because it was a fantastic idea and then altered the sites purpose.

Maybe the DNA-software should be released as shareware(DNA-Light Edition?) so people could set up their own community in the style and with the intentions that Douglas had? That way the BBC wouldn't be reponsible for the content.

Well I can dream...

TM.