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

Since the demise of Askh2g2 as a place for serious discussion, The Forum at A1146917 has become the place of choice. Would it be possible to have a single name that linked directly to it, similar to the AskH2G2 name that brings you to Ask?

I don't know the technical name for this sort of link, but you can do it with the < . / > feature or by putting the word into the URL after h2g2/.

Traveller in Time searching the < <./>NamedEntries</.> >
"The name is not that technical at all "

Thanks, . So what I am looking for is a Named Entry of "TheForum" pointing to A1146917.

Has Ask h2g2 really died?

I think we'd certainly prefer to keep that place active rather than creating offshoots. It also seems a somewhat self-fullfilling prophecy to create a separate page for debate and then claim that Ask h2g2 doesn't have any...

Can we see how The Forum pans out before acting upon this?

It's been there for 18 months now. How long are you going to wait?

Longer

Less sarcastically, I'm actually surprised that Ask h2g2 is now thought to be unsuitable for the purpose it was built for, but I can't help thinking it's partly because that purpose has been diverted elsewhere.

I thought so too. I tried to get people to use Askh2g2 for asking questions rather than playing silly games for about a year, then I gave up.

You could really only imagine that, Jimster, if you hadn't been watching and seen the evidence.

Askh2g2 effectively became MiscChat which was itself largely abandoned (possibly due to being too honest a name for people who wanted to pretend they weren't just chatting) but also through people being directed almost exclusively to Askh2g2 and the inevitable reluctance of chatty people to post in what was therefore becoming a backwater - even though it was supposed to be *their* backwater/pond/ocean.

This had all happened over 2 years ago. The various threads on the site repeatedly complaining about the problem show this. There was even discussion about renaming and re-releasing/advertising the existing official forums to restore the balance. As usual nothing came of it. Except that a little later some of the people who had unsubscribed from Askh2g2 decided to give up on the staff ever helping and started anew on their own at TheForum.

Traveller in Time on his head
"< <./>Askh2g2</.> > has grown into a forum for random topic questions and topic drift within a page.
Where the users of < <./>TheForum</.> > tend to try to stay on topic and keep being serious. "

While the games are fun (and we've done our bit to find appropriate homes for them by letting the Random Quote Guild adopt one of them), I can understand the frustration.

Just one other concern is that while the Forum is predominantly used by long-timers, opeining it up more might lead to a repetition of the problem you've experienced with Ask h2g2.

But let's see if we can do something to improve Ask h2g2 then, and if that doesn't work, get back to us. It might even be worth our while creating a new Games Forum rather than dilute Ask h2g2 further....

'Dilute' Ask h2g2? It's been as weak as Maiden's Water for years

Doesn't post 10 show that TheForum has a direct name link?

Have you clicked on it?

Don't know how its done though
maybe

I didn't think it would show as blue if it wasn't valid, oh well.

You can put <./>anything</.> into a conversation and make it look like an <./>h2g2 link</.> but it'll only work properly if it's one of the <./>NamedEntries</.>

Traveller in Time official keeper of Tags and Toys
"<<./>smiley</.>> No it is still a broken link.
Unlike < <./>UnderGuide</.> > or < <./>../../thefuture</.> >
"

FUP < <./>../../../thefuture</.> > That is better

Come on Jimster, you were saying earlier that the staff can't do everything nowadays and that it's up to the community to run the site to a greater extent...

Well, around 18 months ago a group of people got together thinking that askh2g2 was just too lighthearted and no longer condusive to debating, so they decided to do something about it... There were endless discussions at the time on whether it would be better to try and restore 'ask' to a 'saner' state, or whether lighter stuff should be re-directed towards misc. chat and as I remember it, moving threads would have been far too labour intensive for the staff and as Ask is so deeply entrenched in the collective psyche of the site as _the_ place to start a general conversation the best thing to do was to go elsewhere and debate...

I don't think it's likely to go the same way as Askh2g2 even if it were given it's own name - the introduction to the page and the titles of the conversations hanging off it leave a casual visitor in no doubt as to what's going on in there - and in the main the debates, whilst lively at times, are fairly well behaved.

It's not as if giving something a name is going to make it look like one of the prime uses for the site - after all, the <./>UnderGuide</.>, the <./>AGGGAG</.>, the <./>AGGGAG-Archives</.> and <./>ThePost</.> have all got their own identities.... It'd just make it much easier for us all to find...

Please! You know you really want to...

(And it'll be worth lots of I'm sure )