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

Congrats.on new job Yoz. When are we going to a few girls to talk to? Bit male dominated at tdv.

I agree -- I'm one of the males who are unfortunately dominating H2G2 as a user and it is definitely true that women are underrepresented, judging from the type of entries we see. Of course, this isn't something we can fix just by forcing more women to contribute at gun point, but it may be possible to find a way to encourage them to join our wonderful community.

Yeah, I've noticed that there are more men than women, or at least more men who contribute to the forums. How to get the rest of my gender to contibute I don't know. I'm sure someone will come up with some bright ideas.

Give away t-shirts to all women who contribute more than 25 entries a week.

Or,

Encourage each of the women to bring a friend.

OK, so these are dumb ideas. The first is unfeasable (I'm guessing) and the second is bordering on sexist. But it's often a problem on the internet that men seem to dominate a bit too much. However, I think that is changing.

When compared with the rest of the Internet, I'd say women are well represented on h2g2. It's sometimes difficult to tell from usernames, though.

So many computer games are designed for the boys to play with. Barbie fashion software does not count!! . Ok so SST was a very good unisex game so all credit to you. But still over-represented by males. Largest growing sector of internet is over 60s. Okay if you are willing to talk about allotments... BTW did I ever tell you about my allotment? (Actually that is true I do really truly have one, runner beans anyone?)

How about we attract women by holding a wet boxer-short contest?

Wet boxer short contest will not attract women. Believe me, I know these things. It will just attract flies.

Ewww... that's disgusting! (assuming I understood you correctly)

We just need to offer ladies night where ladies get free well drinks until ten pm.

Works at the local pubs!

Was the war mentioned on the German language version of Fawlty Towers?

I think you guys out there may be able to get women over here with large amounts of alcohol, preferably drunk and comatosed if possible!

Mish [Yeah, a *Woman*! Wow.]

TDV isn't as gender-unbalanced as it may seem... there are 4 women on the h2g2 art team (if you include Emma, who isn't directly working on h2g2 any more but came up with a big chunk of the design) and 4 men on the tech team (if you include me, and I'm not really tech any more). I guess we just need to push the girls to contribute more!

-- Yoz

I should really get Emma in on this conversation... games-for-girls is one of her favourite topics, and she's chums with Brenda Laurel, who used to run the company Purple Moon which had lots of interesting products aimed at young girls.

However, I think you underestimate the appeal of many of today's games to both sexes. My girlfriend was recently spending *stupid* amounts of time on the two recent Civilisation sequels (CTP and Alpha Centauri) along with something called Dopewars. My sister used to waste hours on Populous and Welltris. And even violence-packed games such as Quake have dedicated female fans - witness the lady (name escapes me) who gave John Romero a man-beating at deathmatch.

What sort of attributes do you think games need in order to appeal to both sexes equally (or more to women)? I'd be interested to know.

-- Yoz

I find females and chocolate seem to go together extremely well, in every sense of the phrase

I've long been displeased with the computer game industry. Despite the leaps and bounds in technology, the best interactivity most seem able to do is "shoot first ask questions later maybe but nah forget asking questions just keep shooting" games. Quake's latest all-purpose deathmatch Arena being the latest example. Then there's Trespasser, Tomb Raider, oh the list is endless.

Some of these games appeal to me because of the puzzle aspects. Tomb Raider especially. However, there's only so many variations on puzzle - blow something up - puzzle - blow something up before it gets annoying no matter what gender you happen to be.

More interactive community type programs that operate on the 'Net and allow healthy cooperation or competition. If they could create a virtual environment with a series of games that take cooperation between individuals to play, I think that would be a step in the right direction.

Something more than blowing away your opponent. What? I don't know. If anyone ever figures out something better than kill or be killed, that person better patent his idea pretty quick.

Maybe we should hand out free chocolate to the women who contribute to H2G2!

(Or did you have something else in mind?)

>If anyone ever figures out something better
>than kill or be killed, that person better
>patent his idea pretty quick.

Er...

Tetris
Mario 64
Theme Park
Flight Unlimited
Mario Kart
Outcast
Thief
Wipeout
SimCity
The Curse of Monkey Island

Even Quake has been modified to make a racing game, a basketball game, and a simple flight simulator.

I think it's too late to try for a patent.

Tim

>she's chums with Brenda Laurel, who used to run
>the company Purple Moon which had lots of
>interesting products aimed at young girls.

But not interesting enough, it would seem.

Tim

You forgot Starship Titanic.