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

In those lull moments during the day, I often sit and think about writing a bot to annoying FB. I was thinking of creating accounts, setting up the emails so I could then write a programme that chatted to itself about utter rubbish over the FB email system. Maybe have it totally automated to create new accounts to then join in the email conversation.
I wonder how many of these I'd have to get going before it made their stats utterly meaningless.

Probably too many.

"The app that kills FB won't be a FB a better form of FB. It'll be something different."

For a mental exercise, replace "DIASPORA*" with "h2g2" and "Facebook" with "Wikipedia". Do we *need* to kill Wikipedia to be successful?

I've just opened a bottle of Gosset grand reversed and I think this is all too much

"I know the latest entry will someday be the first thing we see, but I find this symptomatic of the new system: never put something in plain sight if you can make it into something you have to click; and never use a single click if you can force people to use two, or three, or four" [Anhaga] [post 95]

I hear you, Anhaga, but it's a mistake to put *too much* in plain sight on any one page. In my humble opinion, the best sites are those that give you a streamlined, quick journey through the links to what you want to see. Also in my humble opinion, the new Barlesque, if and when all the bugs are rooted out, will do that better than the current system. I will certainly miss a lot of the clutter we now have, and but I expect to adapt. I am currently waiting patiently in Alabaster until the Barlesque is bugproof. But if it never *does* get bugproof, we'll need to keep the old skins a while longer....

"i do hope that h2g2 can continue to fulfill douglas' dream" [fluffykerfuffle] [post 101]

I believe that Douglas' dream *is* being fulfilled as we speak. I hope it will get even better in the future.

"I hate Facebook with a vengeance and avoid it like the plague; I don't want the site sending them my email information as it checks to see whether or not I have an account" [Peet] [post 104]

Hi, Peet. I avoid Facebook too, but I see how other people might like it. As far as I know, you and I will always have the right to not have anything to do with it.

just a thought


I have been thinking and I think that the National Trust should be in with a shout about buying this great site, it meets most of the criteria, and its something that needs to be brought to there attrition

I must admit Gosset has this effect on me

I'm really sorry, but I don't know what the National Trust is. Is it anything like the Rockefeller Foundation or the Ford Foundation?

if the national trust bought it i don't think i'd be able to afford to visit it

The link in post 110 re archiving hootoo should have been :- http://myhootoo.blogspot.com

From: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-trust/w-thecharity.htm

"The National Trust is a charity and is completely independent of Government. We rely for income on membership fees, donations and legacies, and revenue raised from our commercial operations.

We protect and open to the public over 350 historic houses, gardens and ancient monuments.

But it doesn’t stop there. We also look after forests, woods, fens, beaches, farmland, downs, moorland, islands, archaeological remains, castles, nature reserves, villages - for ever, for everyone."

about time they got digital then

Was Beatrix Potter instrumental in setting them up? If so, then I guess I *have* heard of it.

>>> I hear you, Anhaga, but it's a mistake to put *too much* in plain sight on any one page. In my humble opinion, the best sites are those that give you a streamlined, quick journey through the links to what you want to see. Also in my humble opinion, the new Barlesque, if and when all the bugs are rooted out, will do that better than the current system. I will certainly miss a lot of the clutter we now have, and but I expect to adapt. I am currently waiting patiently in Alabaster until the Barlesque is bugproof. But if it never *does* get bugproof, we'll need to keep the old skins a while longer....

I recommend Edward Tufte's on information presentation and design:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi

There is a big difference between clutter and having the shortest route to what I want right to hand.

""We can't say much more about the sale at the moment, but wheels are in motion and we promise that we will tell you more when we can.""

so its a sale and not looking for a buyer then???

i can feel a told you so coming!!!

<>

There's a difference?

"in terms of functionality, what have we lost?..."

10. The ability to hide Articles while you are working on them. (The undo-able "Delete")

I think they should take interface design lessons from Microsoft.

Just look how intuitive and user-friendly the latest Word is!

This is the first time I've seen anything like a concise and
comprehensive list of complaints about the new non-functioning
site. The list has been added to by others and I've tried to
bundle them together:

>>
"in terms of functionality, what have we lost?

1. Two little eyes to show you someone is on line.
2. The "who's online" box.
3. The title on the Credits tag.
4. The popup feature of the conversations window.
5. The auto-refresh option of the conversations window.
6. The "bring me to the latest post I haven't yet seen" feature

7. The ability to choose the skin we prefer to work in.
8. The ability to choose a name without interference, by which I mean
undue limitations in length, the inability to use punctuation as we choose etc.
9. The proper formatting of GuideML on our user spaces.
10. The ability to hide Articles while you are working on them. (The undo-able "Delete")

<<

And that list doesn't even mention the apostrophe catastrophe
which keeps most of us from even trying the bloohootoo!

Items 6,7,8,9 & 10 are ALL very important to me!
Without them I am lost. I fear we are all lost.


This is a V for Vendetta type crisis!
We need someone to steal the whole pre-bloohootoo DNA setup
and 11 year archive and establish it in some new Promised Land
where we can then talk about 'design' changes.

Design change is change for change sake. It is mere packaging
and fluffery and has nought to do with content. As Ancient Brit
said, why did they rip out the motor when all they wanted was a
new paint job?

Facebook and Twitter may have their uses.
But they are without any real meaning or substance to
anyone over 21. That's not an agist thing because the 21
refers to IQ not age.


~jwf~


PS: Has anyone talked to the National Trust?
The British Library recently announced its realisation
that early cyberspace is being lost without record or
concern for legacy. Maybe they can help as well. It
does seem our only hope lies with those who know how
important it is to save the best of the past for the
sake of the future. Otherwise we'll all end up as
twittering idjuts.

"...why did they rip out the motor when all they wanted was a
new paint job?"

Because they wanted to rip out the motor. That was the point. They got a new paint job as part of the process.

You can agree or disagree with that, but they changed the functionality of h2g2 deliberately - it's not a side-product of making it look pretty.

Fingers crossed they can iron out the bugs to we can test and understand why they did this later.

V

Vip, you make a really good point and I'd like to discuss it further with you either on your ps or mine, or perhaps it belongs on under A80173361.

It is something that has been nagging at me as I'm sure it has with everyone else who has ever been involved with software design/development/verification.