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

Look I hat to be the word of doom, and no offense to you newbies out there (newbie defined as joining after Augest 2002, when I and Strider first noticed synptums) But I must put forward the hypothosis that H2G2 is a Community on the edge of collapse. It is mine and other's opinion that The H2G2 of today is nothing compared to the H2G2 of a year ago. It lacks the bond the community spirit it once had.
I lable the cause on size. A year ago, when a new member joined the guide it was an event. They were welcomed by two or three people, and always treated with reason and respect when theyt entered a new thread for the first time. That has disappeared, I know the ace's do there Job and write a little blurb on a newbies page, but they lack feeling. Its more of a task needed to be done and less of a egerness to have some feel apart of the group. And with the volume of people on the guide and joining the guide the feeling emotion and magnatism of a community is lost.
I said above that H2G2 is on the verge of collapse, I wans't joking poersonal history and liturature of oversized groups both support that statement. In Vermont (USA) there is a summer camp called Flying Cloud (FC). Back in the day I was a three year member of the community. And I have helped out since and have been exposed to the community for many years. During the first two years I was there I made friends and chilled as I became older and "wiser" in the third year me and my friends started to see cracks in the system. The close nit community was becoming segragated and clicky with the flood of new campers. Also camp politics went to hell. So once a nice rich vibrant community now a pety swabling group of people that hate eachother.
My liturary support comes form the best. Isaac Asimov, revieered as the God Father of Science Fiction wrote a trilogy of books (he later expaned it into a seven book saga) called the Foundation trilogy. What happens in it, what happens? The once glorious Empire now far TOO LARGE and coruped systematically falls apart and self-destructs. A very close paraell to the Rome tradegy. I fear H2G2 is approaching the same cliff
Well you've squander five minutes reading this, so I'd love to hear your views. If you want stop by my page for a pggb or jsut plain tea.

Dorian Grey
Sub-edior and Guru

Now, is this a genuine whine, or something designed to provoke people into reacting?

I'll react.

What utter rubbish. I've been using this site for nearly a year, and it is uberfriendly...there is such a *community* friendliness on here, that I have always felt welcomed. methinks this is just you trying to be elitist...which isn't a bad thing unless you are turning on nice people...

H2G2 is the best site ever to have existed. Posts like this, end up widening any existing cracks...

Like you I am 18, thats along time to observe the world and learn histories. Unlike you I believe in entropy. I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow or the day after, but within a year I have seen changes. Plus you just valadated the existance of cracks, give them two three more years, who knows what state the guide will be in then.

Dorian

I think you are right about the size, it is enormous and very intimidating. But with a bit of work (I understand the welcome pages are being updated) things can become much easier.

I only signed up in July (?), I feel like I've been here for years. I did what most newbies do, mulled around posting things to old edited guide entries and then found ask h2g2 and suddenly realised it wasn't rude to goto peoples personal space and say hello.

I takes time, this place is unique and the difference from other online communities makes it harder to find your niche, but once you do it's great.

Well there is ONE great crack that we are all causally discussing on one thread. But the point is, we are discussing it. We aren't running around like Chicken Lickin screaming *The sky is falling! The sky is falling!*

Evolution is the key to survival. It can ONLY get better on here. You have to think like this : Douglas Adams started it. Would he be for, or against more people joining ths site? Methinks he would find nothing but good...

Although I do think some people need to be schooled on grammer/punctuation/spelling before being allowed to post on here. H2G2 should be a text-speak free zone...

Interesting observation.

Having been here much longer than you have, DG, I've seen this community in all of its states save the very beginning - I joined late July 1999. That doesn't mean I know a whole lot, but humor me for a bit.

I, as well as several of my friends here who've been online about as long as I have, have noticed that some of the community here is steadily deteriorating. That is to say, the overall feel of community is not the same as it once was - when all researcher numbers were in 5 digits, it was just easier for everyone to know everyone else, even if they didn't ever speak to them. I'm often finding myself and the italics the only ones online who I know with any sort of surity. I often don't recognize half the names on the who's online list. The community has grown exponentially, but I don't feel that that in itself is a bad thing. We have cliques now, groups of friends who rarely touch other groups except at real life meets. In that way, I think the h2g2 community is becoming more and more like a real life (ie, living) community.

The ACEs (of which I am one) do our best to welcome newcomers, and even with the over abundance of ACEs some people slip through the cracks, and when you're greeting even just in your free time, greetings won't be super-personal. It's still better than what we had at the beginning - no greetings at all. I waited the better part of two months before anyone so much as noticed I existed when I first joined.

I think the real danger is not that h2g2 will become impersonal but that it will lose its raison d'etre. There are too many close groups of friends for this place to *ever* become less of a community; too many people have gotten married/engaged/are dating, too many people visit each other on a regular basis for that to happen. I'm afraid more that the community aspect will take over and people will forget they are here to write entries about life, the universe, and everything.

And that would surely be a terrible thing.

I wouldn`t say that sharing an opinion could be said to *widen cracks*. Better, surely, than papering over them.
I too, feel that H2G2 twelve months ago seemed a friendlier place. Why, I`m not sure. I doubt whether it`s got anything to do with numbers, for no matter how the total number of researchers joining, goes up, there doesn`t seem to be any more on-line at any one time.
Many sign up, never to be seen again.
Why would that be ?

Xenophobia...

Surely it's not ALL about writing articles? Surely the simplest part of h2g2 is the ability to create a niche in the world of knowledge, and put a piece of yourself out there for others to read? It should be up to you how much you contribute...not up to others to define. Even leaving your userspace blank is a statement in itself, is it not?

No sarcasim, That was touching.
Yeh, and I'm a starving student, who thinks spell check was the greatest invention.

Dorian

It's not all about writing articles. Obviously.

It is, however, hard to make the case that h2g2 is more than a simple chatroom if you don't have the whole Guide thing.

I don't know about "on the verge of collapse", but it is quite different from a year ago, as you say, because of its increasing size. The reason places like this become cliquey I believe, is because of members attempts to retain that earlier feel of a smaller size and friendliness - people want it to be the way it was before it got so big. Then one clique thinks that another clique is not upholding the former values of the community, or resents what they believe to be the effect the other clique is having upon their cherished place, and ::BOOM::! Flame wars.

Well said, Gosho.

I think so long as there is a culture of intelligent posting, H2G2 will be strong and good. If you want to see how far an online community can deteriorate, I suggest you try looking at the eediots posting at slashdot.org. I've never had to put up with the flame wars and stupidity here that I've had to deal with at slashdot.

Sure, there are more people, and not everyone knows everyone anymore. But that's life. As populations expand, these things happen. The only way to keep things the way they were is to restrict membership, and that's one thing I think H2G2 is not about.

Wampus

Gsh, Said in that small paragraph what I've been Trying to get across.

Dorian

Flame wars ?......

Rubbish!!

There still remains to be seen the standerd scientific law of entropy. Sure our dialogue here is great and no matter the out come if we pledge for a better H2G2 or if we all just through in the towel, it doesn't matter because within enough time the its all going to fall to pot anyways.

Dorian

This is probably scientifically unsound, but entropy is just another version of organization...

... just a really wild and crazy one.

disorganization.

Add this was all a gimick, I agree with lurcher in the doctren of cliques, but all I wanted was some intellectual stymulization around here. You all gotta admitt that has gone down over the last year.
Peace

Dorian

Thanks Amy, Dorian

I've experienced on a couple of mailing lists which I no longer subscribe to. One had been around a couple of years when I joined up, and had the same kind of feel that Dorian says of hootoo a year ago, the other I joined when it was started.

The difference between those and hootoo is that mailing lists comprise mostly of a core of regular posters and a similar number of infrequent posters, but thet majority are lurkers who never, or almost never post.

Hootoo on the other hand has very few lurkers because it's so diverse, because there are so many different interests, and because of its different structure - you don't get a PS or a blog (journal) on a mailing list, just emails in your inbox. Hootoo almost has substance because of the virtual places which have been created by researchers, such as the Waterworks, Lil's Atelier, the Municipal Park, the Blood of the Zaphodistas, etc.

And that's just one of its many strengths

I also feel that H2G2 is qualitivily different to what it was a year ago. Which was different from waht it was a year before that. Evolution, not stagnation. As for the increasing numbers of resurchers making the site less personal/friendly, I believe the guide has evolved from where it was to counter this; through the sub-communities of people on H2G2. The small communities of individuals do however cross over, and it is this that I see as the development of the site, from the community (as opposed to guide), aspect. In this evolution, as in much of evolution, it has diverged, to a greater or lesser extent with the situeation we see in the real world, in our own towns and city's, where we each have a limited group of friends, but with interaction between aspects of teh closed friend-groups or networks. As long as the site keeps growing/changing, it won't stagnate, and that is really what I personally would like to see the site avoiding.