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

And yes, not seeing any of my Talking Point comments hitting the news site does annoy me.

*And* I'm more than confident that DNA could hack it. Maybe if DNA was running something so critical, then we'd see less downtime. Just think of the opportunities that DNA could provide them with in its current state - discussions, automatic 'most recent' lists, a robust personalisation system, etc. As for personnel, they'd be on the right track simply by having ditched the form-mail program!

It's definitely a political thing more than a technical thing. (BBC internal politics that is.) News Online are a spearate division, with their own teams, and presumably their own requirements. And even if they did choose to use DNA, it would look very different and behave more like their current talking points, only more interactive and instant.

It all comes down to who your target audience is. People stick around h2g2 quite a lot, so good conversation tools are important. People dip into the news site for a few minutes at a time, so if there's comments attached to every news story, you'd want them to be of a reasonably high quality, so rating and filtering becomes an issue.

Yeah, I'm with the ratings thing and all that - I just think that BBC News are missing out on an opportunity in that there's no continuity regarding who's posting the comments - they can't see who posts a lot and a little, and the scope for the future regarding personalised news bulletins that stretch far beyond the UK/world divide is massive.

And just think of the U-numbers!

Whoami?

Well, if they used DNA, even if they chose to use filtering and rating, the comments would be attached to personal spaces, so you'd get that continuity of user behaviour.

My point exactly! It'd be very interesting to meet a few of them... ...I said that already. Go on - prove that you're not afraid we'll scare them off!

Whoami?