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

Some friends of mine introduced me to the existence of e2 a while ago, and I was curious to look at the differences between - and possibly build some kind of link between the two communities. On closer inspection, I found that there was barely any mention of e2 on h2g2, and barely any *positive* mention of h2g2 on e2...
Thank you for rectifying at least the first of these.

As usual, I did very little about it.
I was going to put some of my first impressions in here, and suggest we build toward an edited guide entry, but I have to goet to dinner now, so *bookmark*...

I forgot to subscribe to this forum!

Yes - I thought that was strange too. I'm building this towards Edited Guide standard. If you're still around, then please comment back and I'll credit you as a contributor...

Whoami?

[Took me ages to realise that you don't get auto-subscribed to your own entries: seems odd to me, but there you go...]

Hmmm...
Just off the top of my head - I'll think about it properly noos - you should definitely mention:
- soft links (the idea that by preseving other people's paths through the site, you'll be able to follow 'trains of thought', and the whole thing will be associated in a kind of human-brain way)
- the difference in writing for e2 and the Edited Guide here can be summed up as Pre-Editing versus Post-Editing: on h2g2, a page is written, then discussed, then reviewed, and finally enters the Guide; on e2, however (as far as I can see) you are expected to pre-edit your own writeups elsewhere, since as soon as they appear on site, people will start voting for them as good or bad. This contributed to a generally more serious tone on the site, whereas h2g2 tends to be welcoming to the point of very little getting done.

[ I started writing this about 4 hours ago, but got distracted.]
Where was I? Um, yeah: on e2 you can rate other people's work, but not discuss it so much [since one user can only put one writeup in any node, references to other user's writeups often have to refer downwards, and I dread to think how you could hold a conversation that way...].
The two sites are essentially focussing differently: once you get into it, e2 is (apparently) a very fun place to browse around (and that's one thing that's much easier there, IMHO), learning things and reading quality writing. This is harder on h2g2, but we seem to have a better grasp of the whole community side of things.
One final thing, and that is that my [e2 noder] housemate pointed me in the direction of a recent user survey on e2 [search for "E2 user survey", since they seem to want to get rid of deep links]. The main point about which is: they are aware of the shortcomings (or some are).

Well, this is making less sense by the minute, I suspect, but some things to think about, I hope.

right, bed

[IMSoP]

Thanks for the info! I'll be sure to keep on researching, and with that much help, you get credited on the Entry!

To deep link into everything2, use the url

http://www.everything2.com?node=[name of node],

for example http://www.everything2.com?node=deep%20link ,

or http://www.everything2.com?node=E2%20user%20survey%3A%20results%20part%203

(Some of these look mangled, but it's just how web browsers represent non-alphanumeric characters in URLs).

Thanks, Researcher 213879. BTW, you might want to give yourself a nickname by going to <./>UserDetails<./> (Preferences on the toolbar) and setting one up. It makes it easier for other people to remember you - and besides, you're more than just a number.

Alright, I've got to clarify some things on E2 for everyone. First, many if not most "newbies" (we call them Initiates) always say they have a hard time, because they recieve so much criticism. I even went through this part myelf, and I still get my fair share, 9 months after signing up. Secondly, EDB is not used all that often anymore. We only use it on trolls and other things that create the feeling of AOL breaking into the outside world. Thirdly, cussing isn't really prevalent in the Chatterbox, even though it occasionally happens. You would usually see full, constructed sentences in there. (There was an amusing discussion of God v. Nietsche in there. I hope I spelled that right.) Fourth, the text said in the Chatterbox can be found at ascorbic.net/catbox.

I believe that you, too,are comparing today's H2g2 with yesteryears Everthing2.