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

...BUT since the dialogue box says that I am posting to 'a conversation'.... after many repeated pesusals of the 'Help' Page and the 'welcome' page....since there is No clear instructions on how to Establish a Topic Thread in an 'Area ' of h2g2 (Like the 'Politics' page or the Iraq page .... I may as well just repost my views on all that - that were a response to 'jwf'.................. :

....Dear "jwf" -Regarding the purview and exent of your commentary - you brought it all to accurate conclusion.

However: - (there is most often one of those, or a 'but')

I think much of what Xolin *meant to complain about here is, though only perhaps delitescently implied, is crucial to why this
site may be "trite crap" (was it?) - after all.

Please have the patience to follow this analogy: Now suppose you as an asture man were for the first time presented with a copy of Plato's "Meno" or "Republic" but it was presented as only accessable to you by peeling off the wall posters from the venues of a Rock band playing weekly at different locations in London. SO: You peel off one or two here (with much difficulty and loss of time) and read that immortal print under the translucent gum glue on the back side. Then you take the tube to the following week's location and get a page or two more. At some point far before its relevating moment you might
be forgiven if you were to conclude that the "Meno" was probably 'trite crap'. Form can destroy content far more easily than
content can discourage us with form. TV is my proof. Great form, crap for content - yet the easy form addicts us.

The h2g2 here - perhaps at its creation was the Model T of Message Board industry in that industry's infancy. Now h2g2 is still a Model T .... but the Lincoln Town Car(site) is available and running everywhere. Yet many on here are pretending to critics that g2h2 is really a pretty good VW - where in truth it is still a solid-tire old Model T. You wouldn't ride up to Banf in one and I won't attempt to ride into 'Community' on g2h2.

I complained elsewhere about the ponderousness and lack of organization agility of the computer format for this h2g2. Only the dullest would put up with this system for very long. It's defects are obvious - but it is too lumbering to be able to reveal it's vitues( if it has any).

Hence due to the troglodyte programing structure of the hypertext matrix that facilitates this site - All of us who putup with what it takes to write on here and locate particular issues on here, appear as clods - if we DON'T demand - a change in all this.

Notwithstanding all that the slogging 'old hands' on here have said to deny it and show 'it can be easily and clearly seen' how to utilize this site - this site has been and is a Terminal Case. The explanation pages are poorly organized and behind too many clicks.

The nature of the posting and reading processes verge on the ridiculous. Nowhere is it clear how to begin a Topic Conversation independently of existing conversations.

Are there ones that do it right? Sure! Utne cafe (google it, it uses something called 'Motet'); and the old "Six Degrees" had a
very manipulatable post and read Thread technique that was clear to most any person new to the site. I believe the Guardian has something better than this. WhatReallyHappened.com has an issue and chat board easily navigable.

That said : It is only reasonable to doubt the sincerety and honesty of any media institution that primarily and usually accomodates itself to those in power. There is no longer any question for instance that the NY Times is a shill for Likud Israel and the Neocon administration of the US ; as is US National Public Radio (a theretofore 'alternative source' that sold out to the plutocracy). About the only independent national media left in the the US is Pacifica Radio and it's flagship show

"Democracy Now".

So I doubt whether those who say they believe this h2g2 is adequate in any way are honestly indedependent people. More

likely they are covert employees of the BBC or British neocons. And certainly a company like the BBC that even ONCE censored(Banned) free political speech on here concerning the Iraq War!- can not be trusted again.... until there is a restructuring of their entire organization. Well there hasn't been. So the BBC - like the NY Times and "60 Minutes" comes up with just enough 'expose' like the Kelly affair to convince the credulous that they are an 'independent' organization ---- and
thereafter go on touting the Good done through the destruction of Iraq's ifrastructure - and how we should 'pity' poor nuclear
armed Israel in the face of those terrible Palestinians who sacrifice their own lives to blow up some of the occupying
invaders of their land. Talk about 'Spin'!

Hence I think it is most reasonable to assume that the BBC knows this site is an atrocious lumbering venal flytrap for the idealistically niave --- and that is just how they like it. Therefore I don't expect to see any changes here soon. What those of us who are honest and sincere can do is tell the rest of those on communication sites on the internet what a load of deceptive crap this site is. Don't you think so?

I'll reply to your last four words first...

"Don't you think so?"

Answer - NO

Hmm, after reading the rest of the contributions made by this person all I can suggest (considering this message has been posted in at least two different conversations and the initial complaint about the users inability to find instructions on the welcome page) is...


Don't feed him

While it is tempting to follow Whisky's advice, there are a few things I would like to comment upon.

1) I don't think the site is crap. I am neither a paid employee of the BBC nor a 'British neocon', to the best of my knowledge.

2) You did start a new thread. So what's the problem? If it's the wording, then it doesn't seem to cause many people difficulties...

3) In what way could h2g2's myriad pages of high-quality content be made more accessible? You run a quick search, or use the categorisation tree, to find what you're looking for. Now tell me that you are incapable of using a search engine such as http://www.google.com/ to find what you're looking for.

4) h2g2 is in no way the outmoded, outdated 'Model T' of the messageboard world. It is so much more than a messageboard. The DNA software that powers it has been built up from scratch and is far more versatile than even the most modern Forum software - nowhere else have I found so happy an integration of editorial content and discussion.

5) You say: "The nature of the posting and reading processes verge on the ridiculous. Nowhere is it clear how to begin a Topic Conversation independently of existing conversations."

In what way is it ridiculous? I click on a thread to view it. I read it in chunks of 20 postings. I click on the posting to which I wish to reply. I type my reply. Optionally, I preview it. Then I submit it. It instantly appears for others to comment on. All seems pretty straightforward to me.

Whoami?

why can't they have instead of , I cannot spell


manda

I have to admit us oldies probably do look at the site with rose tinted spectacles but I still find it a very straight-forward system and for some reason I keep coming back even though I have joined and left many other online communities.

As for the BBC being under the thumb of some higher power, perhaps, but maybe that higher power is not a political group but instead a moral standing. I'm quite glad the subject of the war in Iraq was not welcomed here, the number of conspiracy theories that have arisen would have been enough to swamp the site and made it a thoroughly unpleasant place to be. Plus a lot of the discussions would have incited racial hatred which is something I'm glad to say we don't see much of on here.

of a hardened internet user who finds this a nice and easy place to relax.

Mel

*waves to Mel*

When I stopped laughing increduously at the first post, I started to wonder if the person concerned could possible be a journalist for some paper or other??

Way back in the pre-BBC days, I'd been an internet novice of about three weeks standing when I followed a link to the old h2g2 site. I didn't then and still don't understand all the workings of it. I type therefore I post One of the reasons I stuck around was the simplicity of the site and ease of usage. It didn't/doesn't take a degree in computer-speak to access and join in with conversations with people all over the world.

All I really want to know is who designed the hat???????

Which hat????????

The one he's talking through dum dum

I think that he thinks that this is a messageboard - which is why he's looking for a 'Topic'. It's not a messageboard, it doesn't look like one, and it doesn't act like one, although there are some similarities.

If you don't like it, then don't stay! Why do people persist in staying places that they don't like? That's the biggest question of my new 'role' in the Beeb. I see it all the time, people complaining they don't like such-and-such, or the way that this or that works, and how some other site is so much better.

Off you pop then.

Oh btw the way, in a topic drift kinf od way, what's really interesting where I work now is seeing people familiar to me acting in totally different ways.

Do you mean making for you?

I just wish the BBC would *pay* me for my covert employment. (Hint to the italics.)

You've been here four days.

In that time you've started five thread/new conversations, something you claim not to be able to able to do.

You've found a reasonably obscure discussion about Iraq. I say reasonably obscure because while busy, I don't think it's ever qualified for a place in the five busiest conversations, and it certainly hasn't recently since those hostilities allegedly came to a close.

You've also located the relatively obscure Community Soapbox and started threads there.

So, your complaints that it's impossble to find anything or start anything new seem a little contradicted by the evidence of your own usage of the site.

Oh, and btw, could you *please* stop SHOUTING in the subject lines of your postings. It doesn't make people pay any more attention. In fact, I think you'll findrather the opposite may apply.

BBC Covert Ops, Codename: Crawling King Snake.

*not quite an Italic*

I bought you lunch yesterday, what more do you want? Blood?

How come I never get lunch?

Whoami?
Oxford photos @ http://www.dotsurfer.co.uk/

Because you never let me grumble on your shoulder about life, the universe, and everything.