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

Getting feedback from the community is really useful to me.
If there is something you think should be happening at h2g2 that isn't let me know, good ideas, whatever.

Conversely, if you spot anyone being offensive or rude, again let me know okay?

Thanks.

Hi Peta! I know we've discussed one or two of these ideas, but I'm going to list them again anyway.

1) Being able to "subscribe" to a forum without posting to it
2) Being able to "unsubscribe" to a forum that no longer holds your interest
3) Being notified when someone starts a new conversation on one of your user pages
4) Here's one that probably would never work, and even if it could it might be dangerous because some folks might abuse it - a "mass mailing" system that will allow you to post the same message on the home page of every researcher you designate (I'll admit that this idea is based on my difficulty in communicating with ALL the Rambling Misfits)
5) Ok, so we scratched the idea of sub-ed's signing their rejections, so how about this. A page devoted to rejections (similar to the one Vegiman and Loony started) where you can post your rejection text, and ask a sub-ed to help you improve the article. It wouldn't have to be the sub-ed who actually worked on the article, but it would allow that particular sub-ed to help and still retain some anonymity.

Hi Frink!

Points 1 and 2 are really fantastic ideas. I was already thinking it would be wonderfull to have those options.
Point 3. I don't know. It would be nice if new conversations immediately showed up in your list of recent postings, but that can't be done, because you didn't post in them yet. (oops, that also goes for point 1)
I find point 4 rather appauling... disgusting... I detest it, YUCK, bad idea, it stinks.... Need I say more?

If you have trouble getting through to all the misfits (lucky you! ), then maybe there's something wrong with the way the group is now working. If everybody would just write their messages in the same forum, and read them there, then you wouldn't need to write mass messages to the whole group.

Point 5 sounds rather excellent again!

That's my two cents worth of comment

~Skelly

Thanks for the feedback Skeleton!

I'm desperate for point 3, mostly because Frink's Drinks is so large (my own fault, of course) that I can't keep track of everything that goes on there.

I don't really expect point 4 to ever happen - but i'm looking for ways to reach everyone on the team at once. Right now I have to go to each individual page and post a message, and the more people that sign up, the harder that gets. I actually have done what you suggested with a forum that everyone posts to - it's the newsletter that someone mentioned on the ace homepage. The problem with the newsletter is when forums get to long, people stop reading. Of course, this is something that would be fixed by point 1.

I know deep down that if point 4 were allowed, there would be too much abuse of the system. I think you'll find I'm full of ideas both terrible and great, which must be the reason I was signed on as an ACE.

-TVF

Indeed: you're a barrel full of idea's and they tend to be either absolutely fantabulastic, or totally horrigusting.

You don't seem to have normal good or bad idea's, but only the GREATEST and the WORST

I think I need a little help before I can understand how being able to subscribe to a thread will help you reach all the misfits, if they stop reading at a certain point. But you suddenly gave me something to wish for! hold on, please!

Hi Peta.

It would be absolutely great if, on returning to a thread where you've posted before, you were instantly taken to the point directly after your last message in that forum, or even to the your last message itself, so you can recollect what others are replying to.

I guess this may be almost impossible to implement, but if you could stress the desire for such behaviour to "TPTWVH to fix things", I would be much appreciative.

If I can put my two cents in (which really shouldn't be allowed, I must say) I like the idea of TVF's #3 (being notified when a new forum starts on one of your pages). I've been on both sides of this -- waiting for someone to respond to a message posted to their article, and not realizing anyone's posting to my articles. Maybe some sort of thingymagig where your articles show up at the bottom of your page with (for example) The Beatles(8 weeks ago)(Latest reply 3 hours ago)(submited). I realize it's longer than it is now, but it WOULD facilitate communication!

~Irving

I agree that it would be NICE, that's not the point. But I'm worried about the question: can it be done? It may be a bit hard to implement

I don't know how these things work. I'm not the coding wiz that some people here are.

I also don't know what is possible and what isn't. My plan is to keep throwing ideas at poor Peta and let her worry about which things are feasible.

And peta will throw them at Mark and Jim, I guess

I'm not a coding wiz either, I must admit, but I do have some understanding of how things work

TVF: For a temporary work around, I've been trying to think of a good one... I've come up with a couple, neither of which are 'good' But I'll toss them out here anyway.

You could use a page for the newsletter, and just add a note to the subscribe forum each time you've updated it. The trouble here is the lack of saving the page (for those of us who save newspapers ) for posterity (assuming you re-use the same page). Of course, you -could- create a template, then use it each time you want to create a new newsletter page, but -that- would start filling things up pretty quickly, I'd imagine.

The second is just keep starting a new forum when the old one gets long, but then everyone has to subscribe again to be informed of updates. Of course, you could modify that idea with the suggestion above, and just note in one forum when you post a letter from the editor with a URL pointing to the forum you've updated.

It could get awfully tedius either way .

As for the heads up from other pages, I wholeheartedly back you in that request. I just found a 5-day-old entry on one page that I probably would have missed had I not decided to update the page. I'm sure there's a -way-, somewhere. It might be a bit of a trick, but if h2g2 can keep track of every post we make, and every page we make, and every guide entry we've had accepted, and all the rest that it does so well, I'm sure it will be worked out as soon as tptwvh can.

ah well, Skelly - we Misfits are a rambling lot, and a forum fills up really fast with all the topic drifts... so that you sometimes stop read not cause it's too long, but cause it takes ages to load...
we are not known for discipline...

k*

yes, I should read a conversation to the end before I reply *sigh*

TVF, another idea of 'Nonnies "Newspaper" thing would be to create a "Rambling Misfit"-researcher and update to "it's" journal. You'd have to discipline us Misfits to look there (as many of us follow you around anyway...). A bit like the POST, and I don't know if you want to go to the trouble of signing in with different names
k*

I'd certainly agree with the idea of being notified when someone starts a new conversation on one of your user pages - it's probably not possible without reprogramming the whole site, but my suggestion would be to change the "most recent forum entries" section to also include forums on your user pages, regardless of whether or not you've posted to them - after all, if someone starts a discussion on one of your pages, you've already had some input by writing the article in the first place. (Blimey, that was a long sentence! )

Good point!

A very good point, indeed! In fact, when you write a journal entry, it turns up as a forum entry on your "most recent forums" thingy -- maybe it could be like that? No, wait, that's not going to work, is it? You've got so many forums possible off of one User Page, and only one off of each journal entry, not to mention it would be very annoying to have an entire article appear as the first entry in a forum! HEY EVERYONE! IRVING JUST PROVED HE'S AN IDIOT!

~Irving

HEY EVERYONE, COME AND SEE! IRVING HAS MADE AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY!

Peta, first let me just say this . . . Bravo.
I tried to do this same thing and failed resoundly, but I am so glad you did it!

This flower is for you:

@---}--

I have a suggestion that I think could make this place really hum. If there was a talker set up on the site, a virtual HHG offices, for example, where people could meet in real time, design offices, etc. It would be very surreal and I am sure you could find someone who would volunteer to to it. I would, if I knew how .. there is a program called EW-too by Simon Marshe I believe that many people designing talkers use as a template. If you want to see what I talker format looks like, search "EWtoo" and "talkers" and you should be able to find many sites.

If such a thing were to come to being, I would be willing to help administer it. as it is, anything you need done to help, subediting, sorting through piles of mail, or whatever.

Again, keep up wonderful work,

Beeblefish

pS You do know how wonderful this all is dont you?

It's a wonnerful world.