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

The Electoral Commission's website http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk is stunningly good. They should win some sort of award.

http://www.europecounts.org.uk/ is very good too.

The UK elections are this Thursday, 10th June.

Conversations on the Hub have been remarkably quiet. Do you think this is a sign of voter apathy, or is just that people have better things to discuss on h2g2 and other DNA sites? F1804798?thread=429993

If you'd like to discuss this, or other UK election issues, please go to the Hub election page at A2585586.

No idea Peta, but you may have a point there.

Of course my personal comments on the matter will have to wait until Friday for H2G2 consumption.

I still think this has been a valid and enlightening experience though. As we said last year, we suspected most people were more concerned with having their conversations restricted than actually wanting to discuss the issues. By providing a forum, however much or little it's used, it's prevented people getting too insensed over the restrictions, which is a good thing.

And Friday should be a good day for you all round I suspect, DD

Don't you just hate it when people at you in a forum thread. It makes you feel they know something you don't

Hey there, DD, long time no see!

I don't think that people don't want to discuss it, I think that they would discuss it if they came across it in threads that they regularlly visit. For instance I started a discussion about freedom of speech after watching the BNPs party political broadcast, at The Forum - which has turned into a debate on voter apathy - and is fairly busy. I made a simalar post at the elections page and there was hardly any response.

We would really like it if at the next election the Forum could be the page where we can discuss elections . Ok that's pushing it a bit isn't it?

That said most people seem to understand the reasoning and don't feel censured - they just don't want to discuss it enough to go to a special place to do so.

Hi

Next year the UK general elections will take place.

Election conversations on the BBC will always have to take place in moderated areas.

By next year,we're hoping to put technical features in place to enable moderation of individual page/s and the conversations hanging off of that page (As we explained earlier, for the time being the only way to moderate election conversations would be to put the whole of h2g2 into post moderation for the duration of the election.)

This means that by the time the general election comes, it's likely that you'll be able to discuss the election on h2g2, but only on specific pages.

I think that the technical need to have it all in one forum has some positive side effects though - it brings all the discussion together and makes it easier to find. A good example of this happening was on sept 11th when h2g2 created a forum for people to discuss the events, not so much to 'contain' the discussions, but to allow everyone to come together to discuss it.

Frankie

Could we perhaps have a banner (in place of the PR one) that linked to the page? That way it would be well publicised on hootoo and only a click away. I know this wouldn't show up on brunel but it would be a start.

Also it's not even linked to from the front page.

Basically what I'm saying is it's not well advertised so it's unlikely that most of h2g2 will have seen it, only those of us that are subscribed to these pages are really aware of the area.

Mel

of course the fact that most of the candidates are not worth voting for, only against, might have something to do with it.

as might the fact that in the uk, we try and tell people as little accurate information as possible about the european union.