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

Well, at this point I have concluded that h2g2 is just like real life; totally without organization.

I can no longer keep track of the threads I have posted in, or when people respond to me. I feel as if I have entered several parlours, sat down for tea and then left abruptly. When I return a week or so later, they may, or may not, be sitting just where I left them. Or else, they have had fascinating adventures that I have missed completely.

*sigh*

The rejection slips dont even matter any more. It's the damnable feeling of disjointedness.

Like I said, just like real life...

To organize yourself check the list to the right of your journal. Scan down from the top looking for any replies. Read them an reply as necessary. Keep doing this until you find the entry that you came to the last time you did this

HA! easy for you to say....

But, did you know that comments on your user pages do not show up to the right of your journal entries-just forum entries; I missed two or three nice beginnings which died a natural death when the author of the article [me] didn't respond. And that forums you have posted in keep showing up if other people have posted, even if you only made one comment.

Peta has summarized this quite nicely in a post to Jim Lynn [U6]:
Check 'The view from the Tower' forum thread: 'just a quick comment'

Now I dont claim to have posted ANYWHERE near the number of times Peta has, but there's an awful lot of clicking going on at the moment, to keep track of who said what to whom. And theres this one thread that I'm quite fond of [great party] that takes forever to load, as they load from the oldest entry first. And sometimes I forget if the new posting was me, and sometimes it was, so I go there and wait for it all to load, only to find out I checked it already and completely forgot what I said.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I'm glad you dropped in. Care for some tea? Biscuits?

Oh, and have you considered referencing the Darwin Society in the evolution article?????

Firstly have you got a web address for the Darwin Society. I'll do a web search anyway. From on etype of tree organisation to another. I accept your points about entry and replies trees taking a long time to load. Big unwieldly trees are very difficult to follow. Consider this the chromosomes in each cell of an oak tree have all the information necessary to build the whole tree. I think this means that researchers can only participate in forums that they understand the structure of. For example the Earth forum is enormous but takes too long to load and I cannot yet hold all its entries in my mind at once. If I were to make entries before I understand everything about the Earth forum I just make the whole thing unnecessarily complex for those who do understand it. What should I do well I can start a new conversation tree.
Does this help?

The actual name of this group is the 'Darwin Awards'.
And I quote:
"Darwin Awards are given, usually posthumously, to the individual(s) who remove themselves from the gene pool in the most spectacular fashion. However there is an exception to the requirement to die. If said individual does not die, however does render him/her self incapable of producing any children - they may be eligible for the
dubious honor of receiving the award while still alive."

You will find the Darwin Awards at:
http://www.officialdarwinawards.com

Incredible as these accounts may be, they are clearly and carefully documented TRUE and FACTUAL

Hope you enjoy the site, whether it fits your research or not.

Philosophically sound as your points are, they do not obviate the need for a whole lotta clicking and waiting to follow the various threads a Researcher has contributed to.

As the Guide is in it's embryonic stage, there will hopefully be features, controls, and tools added soon that will help solve some of these problems. Indeed, some suggested solutions are in the works, according to the Powers That Be.

I appreciate your comments, thoughts, and suggestions, and hope to pop in to your Evolution article and contribute [in addition to the Darwin Awards] to your forum from time to time.

The guide will evolve tools which hopefully will be better. At present I believe that we should not add to a conversation tree that we dont fully understand. In other words keep the trees to bonsai size unless you have a brain the size of a planet and dont mind doing all the clicking.

I'm just going to visit the Darwin awards site. I wonder how they treat drones from the ant and bee families. They grow up not being able to procreate. Richard Dawkins has explained all this in 'The Selfish Gene'. I think it goes like this. Half the genes in a drone are in the soldiers and workers and there are a lot of them. It is therefore in the interest of drone genes to assist in the operation of the nest.

I kinda like the way this thing works. Picking up bits of conversation and babble fits in well with my disorganised mind. Although I can follow big conversations easily enough, which is one of the few benefits of having the internet in front of me 8 hours a day.

There will be changes in the organisation of the site, but I bet you a pound to a penny, that as soon as they occur there will be lots of threads saying how much better the old way was. Thats the 'net for you.