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

Are you following it already via the Consortium (h2g2c2) pages? A80173361

Why or why not?

I'd like to gauge if there is interest in a general discussion about the community side of the site and where we're headed. Lots of awesome work has been done by the consortium and committees on many fronts, and I think it would be good for the community to talk about what it wants when we move, including how it can be involved if we end up running the place.

What do you all think?

I'm following, and I've said a few things (don't remember what, now, as I'm not fully awake yet) but I haven't said much--mostly because most of what I've thought of to say has already been said by the time I get online (darn timezones)

I was following it, but then I got a new job and couldn't devote time to it (otherwise I'd have joined the committee). I'm confident we have good people there, and in the meantime I'm trying to keep things ticking over in terms of writing and subbing.

Kea, I think that one of the reasons that there has been somewhat less discussion about the community side of things is that, by and large, people are happy with it. It would be great to work out moderation issues, banning procedures, and avenues for growth of the community, but significantly, the end-goal in all of those cases is the shared - a sensible moderation and banning system, a thriving, busy community, etc.

On the other hand, many people do not have these shared assumptions about the EG, which leads to more conflict and discussion. That's my theory, anyway.

I would love to see more community input on its future direction. That's what Magrathea was all about, but it just sort of petered out.

Great to see this discussion . The ed's asked me to keep discussions about h2g2c2 to one place, so we discussed things on the consortium page (see above). But I'm aware that a lot of people haven't commented or haven't said a lot. Perhaps because they're shy, or it looks like things are decided.

It's great to have a thread started by a non-committee member where people might be freer to discuss their feelings.

Nothing is set in stone yet so if people don't like our original plans we can change them. My dream is for a hootoo where all the current researchers feel comfortable and happy.

Also we don't yet know for certain what's happening and is stuff we can't talk about

We'll be reading and replying when we can due to having a very poor Internet connection on the isle of Eigg in the Hebrides.

How do you pronounce Eigg, Z?

I haven't been able to keep up with the Consortium pages or Magrathea's workshop or the google group because of shit happening in real life and because of the sheer volume of threads to keep up with. So personally I feel a bit disenfranchised from the process. This isn't a criticism of c2/c3, who've been doing really good work.

Some of the discussions I was involved in were very EG heavy and I did express some concern at the time that the community was being seen as secondary to the EG (I know there are those who feel that way). I've been trying to find those threads and can't. Tavaron was in one of them and the EG crowd. Would they be anywhere other than the main Consortium page?

Again personally, for me the central hub of h2g2 for discussing h2g2 stuff has always been Ask. I'm subbed to Announcements, but Ask is where I will go if something is going in on the community that I want to know about or if I want to ask the community something. I suspect there are people here who aren't involved in the EG and who might not have spent much time in c2 etc.

I thought this would be a good thread for us to look at some of the things that c2 have explored and get some more input

Ben just reminded me about the Stockholm Syndrome thread, which was in Ask (probably one of the ones I was looking for).

F19585?thread=8029882

I'm moderately interested, but very lazy. My bad. I can't be bothered to wade through the minutiae, especially when I'm satisfied that others are doing so for me.
So, I leave the odd comment, and then let those more dedicated than me iron it out. When I'm presented with the 'fait accompli', I'm sure I'll accept it and move on, even if it has flaws.

Eigg is pronounced "Egg".

I do know what you mean about there being too many discussions, I found it hard to keep up and I was subscribed to just about all of them. There were a lot here in Ask, and it would be worth someone's time to trawl back through them all and list them. In an odd way it's harder to track back through those because it is a general forum. There was a cracker of a dscussion where swl was suggesting ways of improving the moderation system, for example.

The hot topics were

Edited guide and volunteer groups
Moderation - the topic that will not die!
How to hold elections
When and how to raise money

In my head, my main concerns for the community are

- how to answer everyone's questions while everything settles down after the foop has finished fooping
- how to hand over to elected commnity editors (assuming the assumption that dare not speak its name)
- how to increase the size of the community and keep the specialness of h2g2 at the same time

Ben

Moderation: if we have premod I'd like the generic message to have the name of the researcher who's being modded.

I'll have a look for some of the threads...

Gosh topic drift is a git here but....

Few things on hootoo irrationally annoy me as much as the pompous declaration that you can only ask questions on "Ask". Like it or lump it "ask" is the high street of hootoo. It is where the traffic is and it is where important stuff will always be discussed.

On a site where thread drift is hardwired into our DNA, the idea that there might be a little forum drift ought to be easily understood and accepted.

And in the new hootoo regime, whatever it looks like, I will continue to use ask as the hootoo High Street unless banned. so there.



FB

Topic drift ensures that not only is your question answered, but so are all the questions you should have asked in the first place.

I'm making a list of the c2 related threads in Ask. It's really not that bad, don't know why it was kicked out. There's other non-c2 threads on how to save h2g2 as well.

btw, where's lil?

I'm interested, yes. But at the minute the whole thing is effectively frozen in stasis until more announcements come, so I'm leaving it until then. Only a fraction of the information about what's going on is available to me anyway (I know, I know, please don't explain *why* again ), so it hinders my ability to discuss it meaningfully.

But one thing I am quite convinced about is to secure the site's future *as it is*, and let it develop naturally once that's done.

I am convinced of many, many things, and many things may as yet prove to be that which then convince me more, but little of that which convinces me can readily be obtained to my mind in its current version... and I think I commented... somewhere... sometime... some universe...

KB, what do you think would be a 'natural' evolution?

Well, that's kind of a hard question to answer Tav, because it implies making a conscious effort to make it fit a certain form. Which kind of goes against the idea of letting it evolve naturally.

Ok. I just can't really imagine how it should work without someone/everyone/most making the decision to change something and then change some rules or technology stuff or whatever. Which doesn't sound like your 'natural evolution'.

"someone/everyone/most making the decision to change something and then change some rules or technology stuff or whatever" - Well, yes. And that will happen anyway - it's an inevitable feature of any kind of social organisation that things change over time, when new needs are identified or old ways don't seem to be working.

There's just no need to force it or to feel pressurised to change everything right now, or to have a completely different user experience for "noohootoo" from the day of its launch.

It's *continuity* which was threatened by the announcement early this year which started this whole thing rolling. Change can, and inevitably will, happen. There's no problem about that.