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

I keep waking at 4.30, I don't mind really so much, I like the light in the mornings and when I have to share a computer it is always free that time of the morning.

On Friday morning I was here and I suddenly realised that huge tears were rolling down my face, very mcuh to my surprise. I have hormones but generally they exaggerate feelings that I have, not totally invent them. I realised that I was crying about here

It dawned on me that for months quite a lot of my interaction with here has been negative and I have got a point where I have to reassess my relationship with this place.

This I am confused about, I don't want to leave, I am still unsure how far into dom I want to retreat back into. I have formed relationships here over the last 8 months, a couple of close ones and more casual ones, all are important to me and that means a total retreat is off the table.

In all my wisdom, it has come down I must stop caring about this as a site, ditch my ideas about this site as a community because herein lies the source of my unhappiness and frustration

I have deep concerns and many misgivings about the ownership structure of this site, in short I feel that we are community owned not a community empowered and it bothers me. NTM said something to me before we left the BBC along the lines of this isn't community ownership it is a club.

I felt unable to say so at the time that I agreed, it is partly why I quit the mod board. We are all member of this club but there is an elite, well intentioned for the most part, of that I have no doubt but an elite none the less. Processes are top down not bottom up, more so on the community side that the writing of the guide side I think. The strutural framwork of this site is still unknown to the community because it has yet to be explained in any detail but from the little that I know I feel that 'the community is grossly underepresented.

Even now it feels disloyal, ungrateful and somewhat unnecessary to say this here, sometimes it is better to keep your thoughts to yourself.

I know the tools are carp at the moment, I know that people are working hard, I know that people are going to think give it a chance to settle but I also know that everything that I feared about structures, processes and moderation months ago are playing out now and I feel able not to say that at all. Niether do I think that it of any use to make a issue of it, what the point, whatever I do or say at this time will not make a difference I might as well just let it play out and try find the distance not to care about it.

I can't just stop caring, no doubt this a weaning process, let the detangling begin.

I am sad, disappointed, all those feelings that go with a loss. I am still trying to work out what I feel I have lost, is good, I am not losing my friends, it is something to do with belonging, I wanted to belong here, as a reseacher and a volunteer but I don't feel that connection. I am a user of this site, a visitor and I am begining to get my head round that

I am not sure what to say about this, except that I am really thinking about what you have said here.

Ben

I think we both are.

I'm really sorry that this is upseting you and others.

This morning, I was waking up, and Ben was already on her iPad, she nudged me to say 'Have you seen Peanut's journal'.

I've been worried about this ever since. Firstly it was the kick up the arse we needed to get the documents together on the ownership structures, and how the community are, and will be represented, so at least you can make an informed decision.

Secondly, well, this is my fault really isn't it?



When we started we formed a consortium to do a community bid, that was my idea (though Pastey and whoami also thought of it at about the same time. We came up with a proposal for a democratically run site. We saw this as very much a back-up option, after all we had no money, and if someone came along with money and resources they were bound to win. Also we were aware that many people loved the old days at TDV (when we were run by a commercial company) and that lots of people might prefer to go back to them.

At first we were really open, but then when the bid process started we had to sign 'non disclosure agreements, so we couldn't discuss the bid process on site.



During this whole process we were approached by two people who wanted to join our bid and help, Robbie Stamp, and Noesis. Deciding whether to accept the other parties and give up a bit of control, effectively the community would only own 1/3 of the site and not all of it, was one of the hardest decisions we had to make.

They did have a lot to bring to the site, contacts, Robbie Stamp, and the original team, and of course a whole load of great servers and technical expertise, not to mention experience of running community led moderation.

We had a major falling out of over it, but we decided to all work together, and now we've come out the other side I think that it was the right decision. The horrible thing was that we couldn't discuss it on site - it was a confidential competitive commercial bid, and that would have given away far too much information to our competitors, and we would have ended up breaching the non disclosure agreement.

Having been in every meeting with the BBC, and seen all the documents. I don't think that we would have won the site if we did a stand alone bid. They were clear that they would only sell the site to people who could convince them that we could run it. I don't think that we could have convinced them of that. (They didn't say so as much, but we did get a very strong hint).

Also we were very well aware that the success of the bid and the transition wouldn't have been possible without the work done by the community.

Having been trough the technical side of the transition it would have been much more difficult if we were doing it all alone, we'd have been offline for far longer. Brian's help and super-fast server has been totally invaluable. I've already spoken to him this morning when the login-logout system went down, and I was on the phone to Aly last night about a community matter.



So are the community under represented? Well we *will* get the full structure out asap. But we will have an *elected* seat on the board, and elected senior volunteers. Is that grossly underrepresented? It depends what you compare it to. There's more representation than we have every had before on h2g2.

But If you compare it to a hypothetical site which we owned, then yes. But honestly if we had done the solo bid we wouldn't have won the site IMHO, and one of the other bidders would have done, and we certainly would have had far *less* influence than we did at the moment.

I have to admit that I really strongly pushed for the outcome that we ended up with and if I hadn't pushed so strongly maybe we would have done a solo bid. And then we'd have more representation and then you wouldn't have been in tears at 4am. But I am 95% sure that if we hadn't had the joint bid we wouldn't have had the site at all.

Hi Z

I have read this but it is not my turn on he 'puter it is Hiccup's tumblr time and she is just kindly letting me quickly check in to keep with anything that is posted

I will get back to you but in the meantime please don't think it is your fault

Hi Peanut, hope you don't mind me posting here. I'm sorry you feel the way you do.
I had nothing to do with the bid process/management or anything to do with new h2g2 and how its run etc. Thats not to say I haven't followed things closely where its been possible to do so.
My views could well be somewhat simplistic in nature but valid for all that I feel.
I think some people's expectations once the deal was done were too high. Thats not the fault of the team or researcher, its human nature. No-one likes change when it falls into 2 categories. 1 - change for the sake of change or 2 - change forced on people where the people have little or no say in the matter. It was the latter, done by the BBC, that caused, for me anyway, the biggest upheaval and disruption.
I saw, without exception, the vast majority of hootoo'ers cheering loudly at the thought of losing the BBC constraints as they saw it and a brave new world opening up where things would be done by researchers for researchers and all this with little regard for the copiuos amount of work that the new owners would have to do just to keep the site open in its most basic form.
From what little I know of what went on behind the scenes and having no knowledge of any other bidders I think we got the best deal available, more importantly, we had people involved with the bid who had nothing more than the goal to save h2g2 in its entirety.
For that we must be eternally gratefull. There's a long way to go, getting things working, sorting stuff behind the scenes and thats where we, as researchers/users of the site, now have to show due patience and allow all the process's to take place including all the legal requirements. In the meantime we can all help by being positive in outlook, not give the 'staff' more work than they already have and lets do what DNA said: "we have a snowflake, lets build a blizzard"
I certainly wouldn't allow the odd clash with the new team to cloud judgements on how the site may or may not be run, the staff are on a learning curve too and they are volunteers, people prepared to give vast amounts of their time for something they believe in. We've had more interaction from the team in 2 wks than ever we got from the BBC. The Editors like Sam and Natalie were all doing their best under the constraints they were under by beeb management.
I hope you'll soon feel different as the site development progress's. Take care.

Hello BMT, you are most welcome to post here and I thank you for doing so

For me to be able to write I can only approach it as a journal entry rather than replies. I apologise if it comes across as talking at people rather than to people. I can also only do it slowly, I have been munching through things since Friday, I has no post in mind this morning I did just write but I s'pose it came from a place of 'thought through ness'

I have no opinion about this bid, as in if it was the best one or not, it hasn't really crossed my mind. I have also understood the need for confidentality so todays journal doesn't stem from that either

I think I have been quite consistant with my concerns, personal take and feelings, on the mod board (which I can't discuss) and in emails (which I choose not to discuss) which sort of does leave me in the postion of not having much more to discuss

*thinks*

*thinks really hard and comes to the conclusion that a) I feel quite talked out and really do feel that I have reached that point where I don't know what more to say and b) whatever I say I have to really think through and sorry it takes me longer than people here.

On the issue of representation, I do feel quite clear,for the work that 'the community' are doing and are signed up for, as volunteers, or writers, or conversationalists, debaters, for all that they are, frankly yes I do feel that they are grossly under- represented.

I am also pushed for posting time, so if that is blunt, seems overly critical, it is because of that

as you are at mine, the contents of the fridge, my booze cabinet etc are open to all...

You have I hope read the qualifying statement on my greetings to that, if you are unsure why it is important to do so ask KB about tongue lice, I have a fascination for parasites and I store specimens onsite