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

You now have to confirm your real life identity! Way to go to kill the volunteer schemes. Completely bizarre.

How does knowing the ACE's real name help?

No idea! I could understand it if I wanted to be a moderator or senior volunteer (although my ego doesn't understand why a former member of staff would need to prove they exist...), but not just an ACE. I also don't want to put all my details into the website they've chosen!

Having checked the website, it appears you have to pay for the service. Who's going to do that for a basic volunteer group?? I really don't understand. And I really don't see the need to give a third party my credit card details (I don't even have a credit card) so they can check I'm over 18 just to get a badge on my space that doesn't give me access to ANY tools whatsoever. This is a fecking joke.

Ah, apparently there is a free account, which is probably what h2g2 is using, but I still don't understand why there is this nonsense for a volunteer scheme.

I'd be interested in the number of newbies who bother to go through with this.

Have you reported your concern to, eeeer... Pastey, or one of the Z's, or, eeer.... wherever you can report it? Maybe this is just something which will be ironed out once everything is settled. If all there is to do is make it obvious where you can get the carefree account, there is much hope, I'd say.

As for whether you exist: I've always suspected you were a figment of 2legs's imagination

I posted in the Community Soapbox, there is some chatting there, but it looks like they've made a huge change to the scheme that means ACEs now have to discuss confidential material offsite. So I've asked if we can have a new scheme that's just about greeting and guiding newbies that doesn't involve this nonsense.

Although to be fair I wouldn't join their forum for 'communication' either. I haven't got time to go off searching new forums, I need an email list. Why did these stupid people have to get bloody involved.

This isn't an official response.. but you're on my friends list. .. so it popped up. You don't have to pay for Net ID you only need the basic service.. which is free. I've done it, I gave my UK driving license number and it took nearly 5 minutes. (Though it did take Ben a bit longer).

You then get a virtual card that you can e mail to NPL, which just contains

- Your first name

- The first letter of your surname

- The country you live in.

- Your Age

So mine says 'Steve M, West Lothian Male, 30'

Also you can subscribe to Noesis forums via e mail so that you get e mail updates, and then it works like an e mail list.

okay, I thought the service might be free, and if it's a driving licence I assume they don't need to do the credit card check. But I still feel it's overkill for an onsite volunteer.

I didn't realise it worked like an email list, thanks for that, but it's frustrating when it's yet more things to sign up for, weren't we allowed the email groups that were already set up, or is this noesis insisting we use all their stuff?

Hi Mina..

I certainly didn't do the credit card check when I did it.

We didn't get access to the email groups that were already set up, in fact the scouts e mail group sends out reminders still and we can't get in to stop them, and the people who could get in aren't at the BBC any more. I think if we had we'd have just carried on using it.

We switched to Noesis forums at the planning stage, the e mail group we were using got a bit too unwieldy and people were getting 200s of e mails a day, so we asked them to set up a private forum for us, which they did.

Each groups sort of decided what to do itself, the gurus have a g mail group, because we just find it easier, and we choose to have one. That means that we can alert the tech team pretty quickly if a bug was picked it goes to Pastey's smart phone. It was good for real time information, but Noesis forums are better if you have to hunt back for specific information that was posted a few days ago.

There's also the issue that with the e mail groups ex volunteers end up having access to a lot of emails of volunteers often stored on their PCes. I don't know if that's been an issue in the past on h2g2 though.

You have to set it up so it works as an e mail group, though I haven't set it up like that, as I find it easier to just pop in once a day and read the backlog.

I don't remember ex-volunteers ever causing a problem, and although I was only an italic on site for 20 months (the best 20 months of my working life) I stayed with the team for 5 years, but that's just typical of the Beeb to leave people hanging.

Is the real life ID check going to be monitored, I mean by seeing how many people drop out of volunteering because of it? I can see a return of the Guardian Angels (or similar).

Yes, we'll keep an eye on it.

FWIW none of the existing active ACEs dropped out and we have recruited some new ones since. The ID check only takes most people about 5 minutes, and if anyone has problems we do our best to help them, which we usually can.

I can recall one incident where an ex volunteer caused problems by making unwelcome contact with other volunteers once he'd left the group. 1 in 10 years isn't bad though, and certainly not a reason not to use an e mail group system. The reason we choose it was that it was easier. I think the ACEs need to find information posted several months ago, and many people said it was easier to do this on a forum where you can have 'sticky' threads, where you can have a thread for 'important information' or 'Newbie in distress'.

It's not how long it takes that I don't like, I just don't want to give a third party website any personal details. I realise not everyone is as picky as me.

Sorry I meant not wanting to give them any personal details, that I don't think is necessary. Being a volunteer on a website is not something I think necessary. Obviously if I buy stuff I'm happy to hand over all sorts of personal information!

I'm keen to understand your concerns in more detail.

Would you be more comfortable with giving the information directly to us, rather than to a third party where all the staff are vetted by the CRB and are regulated by the data-protection act.

I still can't understand what personal information some of these volunteer groups will be given access to that need us to know who they are in real life. I can't imagine what I've given h2g2 that I'd need to be so seriously protected. Email address? Addresses are for contacting people, so by their nature they can't be private as such (although I realised the owner of the address will want some control over who has access to it). We don't have under 16s on site, sadly, so it can't be because they might have access to under 16's email addresses.

Also what is knowing someone has a verified identity going to do for you. If they do something bad, do you send the boys round as you know where they live?

If it came down to given you (or any of the other more senior volunteers) my personal details I would probably be more comfy giving out, say, copy of my driving licence to you than a faceless website that can change its terms at any time, close down, or sell their business, but if that were the case I'd wonder why I needed to do it at all because half of you have met me so you know who I am. Plus I was staff on h2g2, and they didn't ask for proof of my identity until I'd been there for years and suddenly having access to under 16 email addresses meant I had to get a CRB check. So if it's good enough for them... but I realise not many people have 'I worked here before' as a reason, which is why I kept this bit until last.

"and suddenly having access to under 16 email addresses meant I had to get a CRB check. So if it's good enough for them... but I realise not many people have 'I worked here before' as a reason, which is why I kept this bit until last."

That suddenly was in the wrong place. I'd had access to under 16 email addresses (as had all the other italics) the whole time, but having access to an italic account across all sites (including CBBC) meant they suddenly decided we needed the CRB check.

(Not ignoring, but don't have time to reply)...

So I will do when I get the chance..

No problem! I made you wait for an answer for 2 hours, so can't complain when you have Other Stuff Away From h2g2 as well.

Actually what I need to do is write a comprehensive FAQ, my reply to your post is a good way along the way to that! It's probably best if I just get it signed off and GML it. The correct place to release information is not in someone's journal...