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

>"I always made a point of talking about something on the persons page by means of introduction. It did show at least show willing from the ACE side that you'd bothered to look at the person's space"

That was back in the days when a Personal Space had to be activated, by the newbie adding an introduction of some kind. Now they don't, and most of the time we are posting Welcome on a page that looks that this: U975797 almost impossible to personalise, or know what links are likely to be most useful.

Emmily

Might it be an idea to just drop a hi post the first time u visit a new searchers site, and just ask them to drop u a line once they have found their feet and u can forard on some helpful stuff??

Might not be online when they reply, tis a huge site, and as Mo, (I think) said, you don't know how experienced with web sites/computers anyone is, could be they need lots of help, or just very little.

I'm not always on line every day, though not usually longer than 2 days. Wouldn't like to think a newbie has given up on h2g2, coz they got no help.

I find most newbies like to just explore h2g2 first, guess they don't need many links to do that.

Emmily

I do have a lot of links on my welcome which have been helpful, so I've been told, I remember there being sod all of any help in my welcome message so I try to compensate by adding things I hope will be useful on mine, I find that if the newbie calls back they usually ask if there is somewhere they can go for the subject they like the best or if they have added a message on their PS and for instance they say they're from Australia I'll add the link for the Australian and NZ Researchers group

After reading this thread I have a sudden fancy to reply to my ACEs welcome post after ignoring it for over a year. Do you think he'd mind?

Doubt it.

And Emily is quite correct - this was 'back in the day' before ACE's were able to talk to new users who hadn't activated their personal spaces. God I feel ancient now!

Did some digging and found an old ACE posting of mine. I wanted to arm all new arrivals with the funedamentals of the site that it had taken me so long to uncover. Result being I did waffle on at some length.

But I did get a reply.

F78191?thread=146083

Wow!

My words exactly: Wow!

That _was_ quite a lot of information al in one message!!
I can imagine that it might have been a little overwhelming



~sis

I know Kung Fu.

i.e - everything you need to know in one go.

but I stopped posting like that when the trend to post a link to one page of links became the standard.

Well, actually that post isn't much bigger than those link-pages, from what I've seen of those (didn't get one myself). I guess it only looks overwhelming because it's a post. Or something.

I've been having a look back through my old ACE greetings. Nearly all of them are three short paragraphs - the first being personal to the Personal Space - although I know that's not always possible now. Not many of the newbies had answered them - although other Researchers had. I used to ACE people in their journals if they'd written one, because a lot of newbies didn't subscribe to their Personal Spaces, *and* you could be personal even if they didn't write much in their space.

I don't really like my greeting now, but that was in 2001...

Holy smoke Clive! That isn't an Ace greeting, it is a short story!

The style and substance of ACE greetings has changed over the years and I think that is good as it reflects the changes and growth of the site and the reasons why people come here. (ie the sudden influx post radio show, and the need for saving the game. Closure of other community sites, those that have just read Salmon of Doubt and those who came here via an Edited Entry on a subject they searched, those that have never heard of, or are interested in the work of DNA)

Manda aced me - and I never replied but to be honest I even found my PS overwhelming. All these message ssaying Spiggy hasn't updated this, Spiggy could write a journal here etc. Didn't know what to click where - but then again I was knew to the net and PCs.

BTW Mina - you get a mention in that thread

F100910?thread=215915

Hey Mort, I think I joined exactly a year after you - my welcome post is from 10/10/2003. I seem to have something with that date...

Yeah. I wonder if all ACE's look back on their old greetings and have a sort of collective feeling of dissatisfaction.

I agree it is far too long.

Well I responded to my ACE greeting after a year and some months. No reponse yet.

I got a reply to my reply - so you never know.

Yeah, but pedboy (the ACE who greeted me) hasn't posted for over a week.

*shrug* It happens - at least it means he's still around and not gone from h2g2.

I find with surprise that I didn't reply to my ACE's greeting. But then, he (Crescent) phrased it as "If you have any problems, then reply to this posting and I'll give you a helping hand". I didn't have any problems.

That was on 1 Sep 2000.