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

It's very quiet at H2G2 today. Everybody seems to be exhausted after the weekend. This is probably not altogether a bad thing, given that my own creative impulse has been a little flat, lately.

Conversations with Fenchurch have convinced me that the fora are not in great shape - although, as she points out, they're probably in as good shape as they should be expected to be. I don't know: I think that people are capable of saying more without necessarily offending other people. I suspect I have more faith in people than other people have - and possibly more even than most people deserve.

My faith in people, however, stems from some unusual experiences on several continents. When I have needed help, people have always helped me, if they were able - and even more so if I was unable to ask. It is difficult to ask for help when you're on the verge of collapsing and fighting off unconsciousness only with determination not to succumb!

I am wondering how my faith in people can be translated into action: into a discussion of the positive aspects of being human - which aspects almost everybody knows to be possible, but nobody is prepared to acknowledge in planning for people's reactions. Perhaps it is more realistic not to try to anticipate how people will feel, and simply say what you need to say?

The weather has gone into grey, rainy and unpleasant mode. It's not actually all that cold anymore, because of all the cloud, but the rain chills. Apart from my first ever experience of an American football practice session (they put me in the line! All 75kg of me!) I spent a quiet weekend huddled up in front of the gas fire, which I was using to dry my clean clothes. My clothes didn't dry all that well, but at least I was warm! I lapped up the possession of enough whitegoods to make life pleasant (as opposed to improvisational) again.
 

Why do you think that the forums* aren't in great shape? I'm not attacking your opinion, I'm genuinely curious - as community editor, I have to know what the community's thinking! Please feel free to ramble massively at me.

Personally, I think it's going pretty well... we get about a thousand postings a day, and we've not had much publicity, so I think that's pretty good. But then, I'm just going on numbers there.

h2g2 is displaying the characteristics you'd expect from a young but eager and rapidly growing community. Most of the posting is done by the same people, but their numbers are rising as more people discover the conversations and join in. The vast majority of posting's done on home pages rather than Guide entries, but this isn't anything unexpected, and it's a good sign of people bonding within the community, which is good. It'll balance out more as the Guide gains content and grows into something useful.

And like you, I have quite a bit of optimistic faith in people. We've all been pleasantly surprised at TDV by the quality of stuff people have been contributing. It's definitely the most successful of our online communities, probably because it gives the users the most freedom. (I'm a great believer in giving more power to users - they nearly always use it positively and pay back double in the quality and diversity of their contributions)

I think it's wise to be cautious in communication generally, but there are specific instances where you've got room to just let loose with something wild, and it's great fun. However, I still try to be careful with people's feelings... I've seen several conversations where an off-hand comment has caused damage (either by the poster being careless or the responder taking it too seriously or the wrong way). Usually it comes down to how well people know each other - a friend can be wildly rude to me in an email and I'll love it, whereas if a stranger does the same...

Anyway, I've gone on for far too long here. Your turn.

-- Yoz

I'm going to snag his turn for a second

Why the people here are the way they are- I think it's the Douglas Adams thing. Philosophy works best when coated with sugar, but still tasted. These are the people who get it. They realise other people get it too- it's not just an English thing, an age thing... it's a mind thing.

Why they're reluctant to just say things- Let me point something out: when this place first opened up (I discovered it completely by accident 2 days after the BBC broadcast), the "USA" article was laden with forums about how horrible we are. People weren't afraid to say what they thought, but since then, as they "met" people from the U.S. and spoke with them and found out that we're pretty okay, they quieted down...I don't think they changed what they thought about the country or its people in general, but they kept it quiet for the sake of their 'friends'.

The prostitution forum wasn't a debate, just an agreement. No one opposed anyone else directly.

It's just at the mid point now... we can't say anything because we feel close enough to people that we wouldn't want to offend them, and at the same time we don't feel close enough that words wouldn't change things. It's that need for companionship- it's always more important than the need to express oneself; because if you don't have companions, are you sure anyone would listen?

*this is the friendly sugar coating* Hypoman, did you see the Chargers/Broncos game in Sydney? I can't believe our boys let it go

That's a good point about the Douglas Adams mindset... while there's a lot of variety in that, what we've started off with is a bunch of people who are mostly in the same... I can't avoid it, I'm going to have to use that word... demographic. Something like demographic, anyway. And it's mostly been the same people, which is why the mass relationship has now gotten to the rather static place it is now.
Sure, there was plenty of agreement rather than debate on hot topics, but I'm hoping that's because our researchers are sensible people! (And we haven't gone for deliberately controversial topics yet... let's see what happens when the Mac vs PC debate starts up )

The anti-American thing was just typical British prejudice (hey, I have a good dose of anti-American feeling and I'm dating a Californian) but, as you've said, it gets much smaller once people realise that, surprise surprise, there are a load of Americans using the site.

It'll be interesting to see what happens if the rate of new users increases dramatically (as may happen soon once we start turning the handle on the publicity machine). I'm sure there'll be some irritation at the ignorant newbies, but I don't think there'll be much to worry about (after all, the existing community have only been here a couple of months). And I think an injection of new blood will get things churning again.

-- Yoz

At last! Meat on the bones! I must admit, Yoz, you’ve picked up on a point that was made in exasperation: but now that you have I’ll run with it for a while.

The fora [there’s got to be a different word than "forums", surely?] are most interesting to me when they deal with things which I don’t normally consider. The comments I make about the shape they’re in reflect nothing except those which I’ve actually looked at. My interests, as you may have been able to work out, lie in the ‘Guide as information source - the more irreverent and familiar the better. Encyclopaediae are often a waste of time for the simple reason that they aren’t that much fun to read - and this from a guy who grew up using encyclopaediae as toilet reading! The ‘Guide has the potential to reform that perception of information sources, and it is frustrating to me that it can’t do so as quickly as I want to use it to do so.

By the same token, however, the ‘Guide has so far been enormously fun to use. I’m not a stranger here, but I do know the bits I have enjoyed so far. On those boring days when nothing seems to be going right, however, and you need a bit of information ("food for thought") to distract you, the ‘Guide is still a little shy of resources. Your points about numbers and the cumulative effect of multiple posters have some weight, but the waiting around for that cumulative effect to take place is frustrating - particularly on days when you’re frustrated anyway! This is why I like hanging around the fora which people like Fenchurch create: they make you think. I suspect that the structure of the 'Guide itself may get in the way of it fulfilling an information purpose: there might be some need for "graded" fora and better search protocols/strategies to make it more useful, but if the requirements are there these things will happen.

The point about the large majority of posts taking place on home pages is also a good one, and like you I suspect that this will balance out the more people become involved. As Fenchurch says: a lot of people like the 'Guide for the companionship it can provide - and I must admit I like it too for that reason (even you're fun to talk to, Yoz!) - and having achieved that, may be able to see their way to using it for something else. Speaking of the publicity angle, ‘though, I’m not aware of any publicity at all that H2G2 has received in Australia - there are quite a few Aussies around, but they have generally, I think, found the site in the course of their travels, rather than having sought it out. I have enjoyed the "quality and diversity" of contributions so far, but this does not mean that they couldn’t be better!

I know what you mean about the "cautious in communication" requirement for successful posting, too, but the possibility of offence is only one aspect of what I had in mind when I mentioned this. "I think people are capable of saying more", was meant to say that I think people are capable of explaining the way they feel in full, without pulling punches, and without leaving themselves open to the possibility of misinterpretation, and yet also without offending people. The chance of a misinterpreted comment being translated as a sleight is always there, but the more freely you express yourself, the less this need be the case. ‘The more information you give, the less likely it is that what you say will be misunderstood’ is as apt a summary comment as I can think of for that point! Under this sort of "system" of communication, if people’s feelings are hurt, then they were intended to be hurt by whoever posted the message - and I would hate to deny that possibility of communication. "Philosophy works best when coated with sugar" as Fenchurch says, but for all the sugar you take with the medicine, it’s still the medicine you really need!

Your later points in response to what Fenchurch had to say were also interesting. Your point about the "mass relationship" having slowed is a good one, and harks to your earlier points about publicity and awareness of H2G2 as a medium. I suspect that the point about agreement on hot topics is unavoidable - because, as you say, researchers are frequently sensible people. It seems to me that the people who create controversy on the sorts of topics which some people consider "hot" - for example the Mac vs. PC "debate" - are really more about creating storms in teacups than in reaching conclusions. This opinion also derives from my "more information less misunderstanding" orientation, as mentioned above.

Anyway, that’s probably enough to get going with.

In response to the sugar coating: I watched part of the game, Fenchurch, but I must say I found it pretty boring (the newspaper the next day described the highlight of the game as the cheerleaders - and we have enough of those here!), and the commentary - with the way it described (exposed) Australia to the U.S. - was a bit embarrassing for mine! Pre-season games are always a bit that way, however, and this game was not unusual as far as that went. I don’t believe that the Chargers "let it go" either - they were trying out some new stuff, after all. It looked a bit like a "by the numbers" exposition of American football to the masses, and the "numbers" who were most interested would have turned up for a high school game, I’d say.

Sorry for such a long post, but there were a lot of things to cover!

I found it! "Fora" IS the right word, although "forums" can also be considered correct, evidently. Check

http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=forum

for details. This is from Webster - I'm not sure what the Oxford would have to say about this issue!

I guess the only thing I can say in response to your frustration is to have patience - the Guide's being built faster and faster (especially now that the sub-eds scheme is in place and churning through the submissions at a good rate) and people are contributing more and more, but it's still barely 4 months old. I don't want to get too dramatic but we're pioneers here, helping to build something new and big from nothing. While there's the frustration at the current slowness and smallness, balance that with the satisfaction of being here from the start and seeing your early contributions become the foundations for something much larger. And I bet that in a few months time you'll look back and wonder how it all grew so fast. (We already are)

Just like you, we want the Guide to be useful. Any strategies that anyone can suggest (including the ones you mentioned) are more than welcome, they're essential for us to listen to. Voting schemes and better search systems are definitely something we've been looking long and hard at and hope to implement soon.

I definitely agree that more communication is better. Because I like the irony of it, I'm going to end my thoughts on the subject here.

Looking back on what I said about hot topics, I think I put things a bit over-simply: Most people here at the moment don't just agree because they're sensible, it's also because they have lots of things in common. As h2g2 gets more exposure and more people join, we're going to see a greater diversity of people. There'll be less agreement on hot topics, but not necessarily because of a drop in sensibility - it's very common that two sensible people hold diametrically opposite views on at least one subject. I'm keen on hearing both sides of these arguments and I think it'll make good reading.

And as for "fora"... it sounds horribly Ivy League graduate to me. I'll stick with forums, please.

-- Yoz

Yeah, tragically I could considered the Australian equivalent of an "Ivy League" graduate (University of Sydney, 1987-1990) - and although I have never studied Latin I still think "fora" sounds 'righter'.

Points taken about patience and diversity, and I am now much more in a proper frame of mind to appreciate the need to wait: I've also noticed a few newbies in the fora [sic] in the last couple of days who are making things look a little more promising. In spite of this, however, my reservation that you can't keep adding people just to make the topics of conversation diversify remains.

As for hot topics, have you checked out Fenchurch's forum on the death penalty yet? This one has potential - already we've reached a position of irreconcilable difference on the issue, and the discussion could go on forever, and enlighten many people on the way.

Regards,

H.

the only problem I've been having with the forums is the /length/. Most of the interesting ones can only be read at work now, because the size of them makes my home browser lock up.

Hi Hypoman

I found your (and Yoz's and Fenchurch's) thoughts on H2G2 interesting and erm...well thought out. I think you have a point on the usefulness of the site so far - although I found some good (and very obscure!) information on things like the KLF and other strange things. Obviously, the more people contribute, the more information we will get, but it is important that, as you say, that the information is graded to prevent something like what happened to the Web itself - too much data, not enough information - and far too much thrash. This might not kill the web, but it seriously undermines it as a research tool. It doesn't do anyone any good if you have to wade through wads of rubbish just to find some useful info!

The same could happen to H2G2, unless the man-power (in the form of the far-too-busy (sub)editors) is available to sift through it and sort it into useful information.

Thank you for bringing this up - it is people like you who can help turn this into the, um, "thing" we want and need it to be!

Hello Yoz

I'm just getting into this site after I heard Douglas Adams talking about it on BBC a few weeks ago. I already like the posibilities it seems to have.

I do have a few coments on the number of postings and the fact that most of them are on peoples home pages. It strikes me that it is easiest to post on home pages than any other place as new users have an obvious button followed by instructions on what to do then. The default home page text spells out what to do and what text will appear where.

Forums are also relatively easy to add to so long as a new user finds an existing forum to contrebute to. Starting a new forum is not so clear.

As far as popsting articles to the main guide itself, I havn't a clue how to go about that. I have looked at the submission guidelines and other likely posibilities but to no avail. Of course it is possible that I came across the correct info when I first logged on but I can't find it now.

I have been expecting to find a link described as submissions to the main guide or some such but I can't find it anywhere.

I would be happy to prepare an article for the main guide (I work as a technical author and copywriter) but having written it I wouldn't have a clue what to do with it.

Regards

Nigel

Nigel- At the very bottom of your page there's a section called "user pages". Click on "Add a new page", and it'll give you a box for the article title and a box for the article itself. Under that there should be another section with a short explanation of the sheer heady success of creating a user page, etc. and a "submit" button. If the article you wrote is meant for the guide and not just your page, click on that button. When you're done writing the article, click on the "Add New Page" button under the larger field. Then wait for extended amounts of time for the editors to get to the article . They are getting a lot better with the number of articles considered a day, though.

I never made too much sense explaining things, but I hope that at least helped.

No matter what has happened with the fora (I'll usually try to write 'an hotel' and suchlike so I might as well stick with the most appropriate pluralisation for any particular form) the front page is now up-to-the-minute, a series of collaborative entries have been suggested, contributed to and entrified, the sub-editor scheme has cleared a backlogue and even read some pages that weren't submitted but which they felt should have been. A month ago it seemed that people were sticking to the forums for a while after the immensity of the backlogue became apparent; the collective decision seemed to have been to start talking rather than writing and submitting frantically as had been the case in the early days.
With the recent accepted entries to go on people can now start writing things in a more acceptable style with the knowledge that anything submitted at the present time will be noticed and judged within a fortnight. As more guide entries come to life from the hands of regular users rather than the PTB (and as they become easier to find via the front page) more of these regular, non-TDV users will be inclined to read and comment on them. Even if vegiman/ZachsMind's field critic scheme came to nothing after the advent of the sub-editors the sorts of comment they were trying to leave (rather than the usual conversation-starting gambits) will hopefully beget a more objective method in the people reading new or potential entries. What the sub-editors should try to do is leave some sort of comment on each page that they read - any sort of official response on a submitted page is welcome to the people sitting there thnking that no-one's reading their stuff. When they know people are reading their stuff they'll be more inclined to read that of other people's and won't go around doing nothing but chatting on the fora, the purpose of which is to leave their name in as many places as can be in the hope that someone will return to their homepage and see their work.

Good point about "leaving your name", Wingpig. It seems that numerous people have been doing just that, and although the information which is generated out of it is sometimes useful, the vast majority of it it supercilious comment. This will probably always be the case, though. Even if the 'Guide has a lot of useful information and it is all beautifully written and brilliantly edited, sometimes you're just not in the mood to find out about stuff and want just to have a chat. At the moment, for example, the 'Guide seems to be dealing with a lot of stuff in which I don't have a great deal of interest, but - as you say - at least it's churning through the submitted entries, and it's more and more likely (or, if you prefer, less and less subject to chance) that something interesting will be generated as a result. The fora are a brilliant avenue into other things - the number of links being posted around here every day is HUGE - and as the vast majority of information discovery is fortuitous, it's probably going to continue to be that way.

The great advantage of the "field critic" thing is that it has compelled people to think about precisely HOW to criticise. You have to be able to say something concrete about an article if an author is to be expected to change it for the better. The fact that a few people have had a go at it means that more people are now able to do it and more likely to, which means more carefully considered articles, less work for sub-editors and better (and more relevant) articles. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is why Fenchurch's promised "simplicity of bread" article hasn't surfaced yet - she's not quite so confident that other people will find it interesting after a first read: am I right, Fenchurch? Official responses to pages are only really possible if the pages cause controversy, I suspect (there are an awful lot of pages, and precise criticism for each of them takes hours at a time) - so only the really well-read ones will elicit any sort of comment. I think that authors are just going to have to get used to "peer review": but as this has worked well for scientific journals for upwards of a century I don't see why it can't work here!

The other advantage of the "field critic" thing is that it will sponsor the rise of more than one "acceptable style" for articles. I am very much in favour of this, because the diversity of styles encourages reading with an open mind in order not to miss anything: the more carefully you read the article, no matter how beautifully written it is, the more useful it can be.

Nigel, surf the fora for a while. The only thing that keeps me from writing more user pages is that they take a lot of time to write, and sitting here at work I can't really make that time - or concentrate hard enough on the subject. I always have a few ideas kicking around, and the fora are able to give me many more. Finding the time to write more is always going to be a problem!

Hey Astrodome! I like your reasoning: help me to put moral (that's UNSTATED) pressure on the team to structure the network a bit more like that!

A sidebar on advertising...a number of Americans are finding the site, but I still feel like we're a minority here, and for good reason. There is absolutely no place for us to have heard of the site. I'm going to assume that most of the US and Canadian researchers found there way here on an internet search because they're just huge fans of Douglas Adams. My route here was quite circuitous; I bought the Starship Titanic game, and had to visit the SST forums to get clues to complete it. Along the way, I had a bit of fun in the forums, and hung around a bit. An English friend in those forums mentioned this site in passing, and I became hooked. Not exactly the easiest way to gain researchers...but I'm sure there are quite a few in here who also had to hear of it through word of mouth. I think expanding participation outside the mother country is necessary to get this thing really growing. Any plans?

A question for Yoz: Why are h2g2 restricting themselves to 5 articles each working day as this seems really small when you consider the backlog and the number of new submissions each day? It just seems silly to restict yourselves to sucha low number!

Instead here's an answer from Mark.

That's because it's all I can process in one day. In an average day I have to put up five new entries (which means wading through about 30 entries, rejecting 25 of them), edit all the related pages (front page and history page), update and collate the word of the day, sort out all the artwork, check my email, manage the sub-editors, process any other regular things (such as character updates, Bywater etc.), spark off and collate such things as Driving Etiquette, Curry Houses etc, answer all the h2g2 email, check forums to see what's been posted... and somewhere in there I have to find time for lunch, staff interviews, directional meetings, checking the post and making tea.

That's why. And yes, I am getting more staff, but until that time the queue is just one of the millions of things to deal with.

Not that I'm under pressure, it's just that until June there were precisely no editorial staff, and since then there's been one. Yoz isn't editorial: he deals with PR, writing things like the FAQs, a little bit of programming and posting to the forums... but he doesn't sub-edit. That's all down to one person, namely me.

Cheers - If I can remember that when I get there I'll give it a go.

There's more to this editing lark than we realise isn't there!

Hi again Fenchurch & editors. I managed to follow your instructions and eventually found the considder for rejection button (although it dodn't appear when I first visited the page). (It also needts an abort button as I now have a contribution on the site called test which looks very amateur.)

However, I still feel my point is valid. I didn't really want to play the "I'm a technical author & journalist" card, as it so often sounds like I'm either insecure or butting in. On the other hand, as a professional communicator it strikes me that, if you are still concerned about the difference in numbers of submissions to home pages and main entries, then it may be that the link at the bottom of our home pages for "add a new user page" is ambiguous. It appears to mean add a new page to your own space on the h2g2 site, rather than submit an entry for the main guide. The web is supposed to intuative after all.

I am still unsure about when the contribution becomes a main guide entry, rather than a user page. Is it the case that unless we press the "considder for rejection" button it potentialy becomes a main guide entry, but otherwise becomes a user page entry?

What we could do with is some greater clarity (from the perspective of a new user) in the links that handle these contributions. The joy of the h2g2 site is that the style of the site is so flippant and Douglas Adamsesque, however, take care that this is not at the expense of ease of use.

Hope this isn't too ambig~ vague.

Regards, N