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

We are the anarchists our parents warned us about...

Hmmm, maybe I could change my name to elderberry wine?

Very true, Dmitri

Danish singer-songwriter Kim Larsen wrote a very popular song about "We are those the others aren't allowed to play with". It is now a neo-classic

(disclaimer: I am having a HORRIBLE time in RL - it makes me touchy...)

What I meant, Ben, is that I don't actually know what the volunteers do outside of some kind of wooly idea (well, I know what the mods do, that's about it) so I can't even begin to think what I would call them, were I to be In Charge Of Names.

You know - a hammer is a hammer because it hammers and all that. (I'd like to say I've been reading Heidegger but it's Yann Martel all the way for me)

Dmitri, an elder doesn't necessary need to be older....

The young boys in blue suits that occasionally - but more andmore seldom - knock on my front door aiming to convert me into following their favourite imaginary friend sports nametags with "elder" and they can't be more than twenty years of age or so.

Do those boys sport bicycle clips, dragonqueen? And do they refuse to speak about their underwear?

I have no idea what sparked this off, so I can't comment on the first post. But as for names for the upper echelons of our heirarchy, so far the only suggestion that has occurred to me is the "school" analogy (e.g. Entry monitor, Prefect) but that didn't go down well on noesis and took some explaining, so I'll have to go away and think about this.

Guide Editor is probably the most straightforward, because it is analogous to an Editor in a newspaper, who oversees the whole production of the newspaper. The Guide Editors oversee the production of the Edited Guide.

But the special powers we get for doing this can be useful for some other things, such as if a club has an Entry describing the club and the person who looks after the Entry disappears, we can make someone else the owner of the page.

A Community Editor isn't really an editor - they just get the title because an Editor was someone in charge. There were certainly Community Editors in the early days of the BBC - I seem to remember there were two Guide Editors and three Community Editors. Abi was one of the Community Editors, and she organised the h2g2 London Meets. I remember her giving a guided tour around the Temple area.

The Community Editors will serve a valuable role here making sure arguments don't get too heated and providing interesting things for people to do and talk about.

ACEs are "welcomers". Scouts are "entry recommenders". Sub-editors are "entry polishers". Gurus are "technical experts who like to talk". Community Artists are "providers of images". Curators are "Edited Guide Tidiers". Moderators are "preventers of illegality, offensiveness and racism", I suppose.

see, Gnomon, it's all just so... esoteric really. People who know the net know what moderators are, but any job title that needs more than a few words of explanation isn't doing it's job properly.

I think the names that are chosen should make sense to newbies and not be clever plays on words that oldies get, but which others would never understand.
One question is What do they do?
Guide Editor - straightforward, someone who edits the guide
How about Guide Guide?

On the other hand, learning a few new expressions is always part of joining any community, and getting the hang of them soon makes you feel like an insider. I don't think we need to oversimplify the titles to the point of silliness, just explain them all in a neat glossary, perhaps with a paragraph about their etymology.

Sorry, I can't agree about the insider type names. I have been here more than 10 years and I find the names we have picked far too similar and not at all transparent as to what they do.

YMMV as they say in internetland

Sho, can you list out for me the names you have a problem with.

moderators - ok
guru - ok (I Guess - since the word guru tends to mean someone who can help advise and knows what's what)
moderators - also ok

so I guess for me it's ACE, CE, and maybe Guide Editor if I was a real wet behind the ears newbie who didn't know what h2g2 is

actually - sorry, I know I'm a pain but I am REALLY short of time, but REALLY keen this thing works - I have no idea what the names are

I saw in another thread there's a volunteers page - but that was all about scouts & sub-eds - but I can't find anything.

And if all the CEs etc are volunteers - it's not actually clear what the volunteers have volunteered to do. If you get my drift?

Please everyone don't understand this as a huge criticism, it could be just me being thicker than 2 short planks, but I am finding the whole thing extremely confusing.

There is also an underlying hostility around parts of the site that I really don't like so I may go away for a day or two and see if it's all down to w**k related stress

I'm sorry to hear you're encountering hostility - I haven't come across any of that myself. Everybody seems very cheery and hopeful of great things to come to me.