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

I've been here since pre-Rupert, and I agree completely with Gnomon's post 59. H2G2 is in great shape! As for cliquishness.... I've got a club that I run, that's been around longer than I have, and new people join all the time. (FFFF, in the house, yo!) Some people sign up and then we never hear from them again, and some take to it like a fish to water. I think h2g2 in general works that way, too.

After almost 2 years, I still discover new things here. I only just started reading a few weeks ago, and I'm beginning to dabble in askh2g2 just now. I've mostly been pretty wrapped up in the Peer Review and editing process, and I can definitely say that aspect of h2g2 is quite healthy. Again, some people who submit something to Peer Review freak out and never come back. Others act like they've finally found their home. It's great. Some PR veterans get fed up and leave. Some will probably never leave!

Just look at who's posting in this thread - a lot of 18----s, which is around the median researcher number these days, a healthy handful of 14---- and 15---- pre-Rupert types, a few venerated old 5-digits, and some 20---- newbies. Some of the old and medium-old names, I recognize, some I don't. Seems healthy to me.

H2G2 has more than enough good juju to be exactly what you make of it. IMHO, of course.


GTB


BTW - 'Dieing'? No. Not in the USA I live in. Dying. Except h2g2 isn't. ... uh, I'll just hit 'post'.

Actually, Fairly Strange, it's not a US/UK thing; you just aren't able to spell.

In both US and UK it is:

dying (ceasing to live)
dyeing (colouring clothes/hair)

*doddering old 5 digiter and proud of that fact*

Sorry I haven't read the complete backlog. I thought about replying to post 1 yesterday but was too busy to think of what I considered a complete reply. Others have already said all I would have said anyway. This very topic has come up several times before - certainly it was discussed pre-rupert, nearly two years ago now! Deja vu? It's no more true than it was then.

More than 80 replies in 15 hours is testament to a dying community that has no longer the mental stimulus it once had eh?

Have you thought that it might be your own attitude to the community that has changed Dorian Grey? Most researchers seem to have a finite lifetime around here of maybe a year to two years and often leaving is down to their own attitudes changing - ie. this community isn't what it used to be... Not that that is a criticism - such is life, relationships with people and communities change over time and noone is immune to that happening.

Golly, you go away for 15 hours and there are 80 posts....

I think the biggest problems most people find joining now are:

Figuring out the difference between the guide, the edited guide, the post etc etc.

Getting the hang of personal spaces - I don't know of any other online community with such a useful personal space, using your personal space to help you keep track of your entries/conversations/friends and using other peoples personal spaces to start conversations with strangers was a completely alien concept to me when I fell in from yahoo chat, I thought it was like the yahoo chat profile (eg http://uk.profiles.yahoo.com/bottlegreenspecs ) ie completely useless.

I think the welcome messages should explain how these things work, and also a little update after a week would be a great idea, I have a funny feeling I ignored my ACE mainly because I didn't realise how helpful they can be

I ignored my ACE (Hi Crescent!) because the first thing he told me was to switch to Classic Goo. I took one look and fled!

*catches up on backlog*

I note it's mostly Americans who feel that the community is deteriorating. I'll leave the point open.

It's all my ACE's fault (Hi Myst - long time, no see) that I'm a reasonably large part of the site now. He gave me far too many links to explore.

"I won't stop posting until everyone else is gone." - Myst, three pages back.

Most people clear off just _after_ I post. Is that relevant?

B

Probably! I think one or two follow ups asking if the new researcher needs anything clarifying might be a good idea.

Incog.

P.S. I so LURVE this place.I practically live here.I'm often here until the early hours of the morning despite having to get up early.If this place went I'd be lost.So many other places insist you keep to topic whereas here you are allowed to digress.
I would also like to say that this site does appear to have a large number of you youngsters but us oldies are here too and there are a lot of us.I love the fact that this is a non ageist site.

Incog.

I have been a member of different Internet communities for years and I have to say that h2g2 is the friendliest places I have come across. My last one,Handbag, has a problem with trolls but h2g2 doesn't seem to have this problem.

Of course all internet communities have a shelf life and will eventually die naturally. But they also go through cycles. It is also good to ponder the question, is the community on a downward spiral or have you just grown out of each other?

*reads backlog*

Hi all,

Interesting piece of hootoo soul-searching, most interesting.

I liked the notion that the various groups on-site are like 'cities within a nation'.

I've always mostly been involved with pr and entries on this site, plus the ever informative British English thread. But just in the course of those activities i've 'met' (it's funny how you don't always actually 'meet' researchers, but just come to be familiar over time through posting in the same threads) lots of interesting and friendly people here.

PR is certainly alive and well with plenty of highly motivated authors and reviewers at any given time. There are lots of pieces submitted there that won't go to the edited guide, many of which are nonetheless fascinating and insightful in different ways. There are outlets for non-EG writing and some great stuff appears in The Post every week.

I too had hardly ever looked at Ask H2g2 until recently, but i can see that for some this is where it's *at*. Cool. I also agree that it looks as though for some the fun of the H2 experience fades with time. I for one don't find the site any less friendly than when i first arrived. And as for friction, i arrived in the aftermath of some pretty heavy-duty bad feeling and bitter recriminations, involving out-and-out exclusions and voluntary departures, bat in hand. That was about a year and a half ago. Far from being put off, the articulate and thoughtful verbal fencing that was going on there illustrated to me that there were people here who were... well... articulate and thoughtful. Not something that put me off, you understand.

Am i meandering? That's another thing that hasn't changed. Is this community dying? Not that i can see. Is it changing? Evidently. Becoming pedestrian and boring? Well, everything's relative. Bland? I really think that would be harsh, by any standards.

ok, nuff said from me, just my 2c
spiff

"some great stuff appears in The Post every week. "

Yes, especially that excellent sports column by the devilishly handsome tall young man...

I must have missed that one.

Yours is pretty good as well, though, Egon.

B

well if it's shamless plugging we can get away with!

Read h2g2 storytime - a new run starting THIS WEEK only in The Post.

* wanders in fashionably late *

I don't see the community here dying. Yes, it is changing as the site grows and grows (currenly 123 on line and that sort of number NEVER used to happen before). But this change is just, as has been said, the building of cities within the nation.

As an older researcher (pre Rupert, but only just) the biggest change that I have seen is the anguish around the BBC takeover subsiding. For many months after the takeover (rescue from destruction being a more accurate description actually) all the community seemed to talk about was how good the old days had been and how terrible it was that the BBC was in charge. Well most of the restrictions have been lifted and as far as I can see there is only the external images on user pages left to be reintroduced.

As to the longer term. Well that is very much in the hands of the paymasters, the BBC. I know that the BBCi budget is overspent and that there have had to be some cutbacks elsewhere in the service. In fairness much of the fault there is poor planning in how fast the public's use of BBCi would grow - page impressions doubling year on year . The BBC will be interested in supporting this community for as long as they are getting something out of it, namely how to set up and run interactive services / communities on the web. To this end they've already spun off some of the h2g2 staff to run the Hub, and from this there are at least 9 other communities powered by DNA, and I'm sure more in the pipeline.

To the final conclusion. Is h2g2 dying? Doesn't look like it from where I'm sitting

At this exact moment, there are 126 researchers online. On other message board communities and suchlike, of which I am a member, there will be times when there are _no_ users logged in. I think that says it all.

The Online window goes up in number, not down. The new users page is always busy. What a ridiculous idea that this community is dying. It will only look like it's dying to someone who's interest in it is dying. The fault is with YOU Dorien Grey, not h2g2.

Change those es for as.

There were about 150 people on the other day.. granted that's with all the DNA sites together, but still, it's a far cry from 3 years ago when we thought it was busy when there were 60 people on.

*sits on the floor and reads all the backlog*

*giggles*

I couldn't become an ACE yet! I still feel like a newbie! Don't know half of everything yet.

And this site definitely isn't dead yet. I'm hopelessly addicted. Off to rehab sometime soon...

My ACE was quite nice, although he never came back and visited again. Duty, duty, it's always duty.