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

..or is it just my imagination?

I know I haven't been bothered to read many of the new entries lately.

It all seems to be travelogue type descriptions of places or recipes or such. I see very little of the esoteric and strange but interesting entries that this place used to be known for.

In what way?

No, I don't think so. It does go through some temporary hiatuses (hiati? ) from time to time. Since the penis thread was thoroughly trashed by some small-minded in-duh-vidual(s) there hasn't really been a good topic that's grabbed everyone's attention, so far as I can see (and I may have missed it as I'm not on here much at the moment).

Has there been a big influx of newbies since the film? I haven't noticed if this is indeed the case - I'd've thought that that would've sparked some more interesting topics.

RF

Nothing a bit different?
Try the Tempest Prognosticator A3983132 . or Feet A4015153 Brill.

But, I agree. It's getting difficult to find the gems. Perhaps you might like to read about 'PROD' A405312 . There's much to think on.
HF

PROD should be A4053412 sorry bout that.

It's a phase. Give it a few months when the newbies have settled down from endless "What are you going to do in 17.5 seconds time?" threads, whingings that the PDA version doesn't have the flashy graphics of the movie, and so on, then we'll slowly get back on track. The entry problem can be solved quite simply. Write some!

Quite right Croz! I have several in the planning stage that I hope will become a reality sometime soon!

RF

must get round to finishing the one i have in peer review n writing some more myself..

Its perfectly natural to think things aren't what they used to be - all social groups (including net communities) go through this period. It is crucial to how communities grow and change - no navel gazing = unhealthy community.

I am sure that Peta and other ancient members (in which I count myself) will remember that there was much the same groundswell of opinion after the very first smilies were introduced. Of all of sudden conversations became less dependent on careful choice of words and the culture of the site changed. Bloody hell does anyone remember the raised hackles that greeted the arrival of Mark Moxon?!?

So h2g2 is not going down hill, it is changing. It might not suit you any more and you might feel you have outgrown it, but it will change again and then today's newbies will hark back to the good old days.

Abi (who remembers when it was all server errors round here)

The biggest change lately has been since what some of us refer to as Petunia, the paring down of the h2g2 staff last year by BBCi.

The number of new entries went from 5 to 2. And since then, I have noticed a change in the style of the typical entries picked.

I don't know the exact cause of this. The remaining staff are doing a pretty good job. A while back I noted some problems and it was suggested to me to return to PR to help out (there were some obvious errors that slipped into front page articles).

I took a look at PR and didn't like what I saw. Nothing stood out as interesting to me. I'm not saying there might not have been some good entries there, but none appealed to me strait away.

Now granted, I haven't been back lately and I'll pop in in a little while to see if anything has changed. I did like that Tempest Prognosticator article mentioned above. That is the type of entry I enjoy.

But all in all I do think things have changed since then. I think this place isn't as daring as it used to be. I know it isn't. That's to be expected I suppose.

There is one specific thing I miss from before...

Where did the Have You Missed entries gone? Is that also a casualty of Petunia?

Have You Missed A793910 faded away through inactivity from the community NOT the staff... Jimster was always reasonably prompt in updating the 'winners' but the votes slowed to a trickle... then stopped

Well there you go, I thought it was staff run from word go, never heard about the community bit. Perhaps it needs more advertising...Post wise etc? A good way of getting newbies into the EG experience.
HF

I wonder if a rating system would help?

And what ever happened to "Most Neglected"?
That was kinda neat.

"The biggest change lately has been since what some of us refer to as Petunia, the paring down of the h2g2 staff last year by BBCi"

I think this proves Abi's point - that wasn't last year - it was 2003. So it was over 18 months ago. In fact, we're in May now, and I think I was the last staff member to depart the team and that will be 2 years ago in about 4 months.

So it might have been a big change, but it's not really been so traumatic that people can still remember when it actually happened. In fact, that people are still around who can remember it (if not entirely accurately) kind of shows that h2g2 is just as fab as it's always been - because that's down to the people using the site (with a wonderful helping hand from the staff). The staff are completely different to the staff six years ago, who were different from the staff 3 years ago and are different again now, yet we're still gaining new people who want to write entries, and some who even want to write entries that fit with the EG Guidelines.

That Ask h2g2 has evolved into 'misc/off-topic/general chit-chat' isn't a good or a bad thing. If you can't be bothered to click through the shit to find the roses, then it's more likely (as Abi said) that you've outgrown the site - because it's always been like that.

Sorry, bit passionate today. Someone asked me how long I spend on internet communities today, and I was rather embarrassed to tell them that not only do I spend my working days on them, but then I go home and spend even more time on different ones!

I blame 2legs.

I was only off by 50%.

Hootoo doesn't go round in circles, we just repeat the same conversations over and over again.

B

Where have I heard that before

Maybe here... F19585?thread=220545