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

Poor Blatherskite...

Poor me...

"The Army of the Average"

And yet... And yet...

Every writer has a fantasy. It is a tinier and tinier one as some of us grow more experienced and, in some cases, more mature. That fantasy is to some day make a buck off our scribblings and tappings.

Between us and the realization of that fantasy is reality. Reality is not filled with geniuses. Thank god, then everyone would want to be a writer.
Reality is filled with people who read V.C. Andrews (God rest her fingers) and Stephen King and "Bridges of Joan's Madison County Diary".

Passion is not enough for a writer. Survival often is.
This ain't the OED.
If it were, we might be having more fun...

One of the most fascinating and informative threads at the moment is
the "Stupid Things You Did/ Believed as a kid" one.

It writhes with the sort of marvelous information that you rarely find in any other medium. Soundbites from the edge.

I have been here nearly four years, making me ancient in h2g2 terms, and have been involved in a few spats in the past, including that with LeKZ. I quickly noticed during that spat that the heavy debating, especially when it turned to mudslinging, was diminishing my enjoyment of this site. So I tend to stay out of the majority of debate threads, though I occasionally toss a penny or two into religious-moral debates just for the heck of it. For me, though, h2g2 is and has always been an escape, and I find much of the escapism I participate in here to be intelligent, amusing forms of it.

Yes, the intellectual quality of many of the questions on Askh2g2 has dipped in recent months. This cannot be blamed on anything specifically, though I personally think it might be the influx of new users on the site who are subscribed to this forum and don't know of anywhere else to talk. I've asked my allotment of stupid questions here in the past ("what's your 'any' key" was one - and I really *was* curious about that). I think stupid questions like that can be okay - but a lot of the forums here have very *obviously* been started as boredom busters which just clog up the bandwidth.

What I would love to see is people using all of h2g2's capabilities - both as a place to meet and socialize with people from all over the world, but also invest time in creating entries as well. It saddens me to no end when people have been here for years but haven't even attempted to create a single entry.

Despite that, I find the level of converse here much higher than that of people I know IRL. The punctuation and grammar is generally better, too.

Ah, here it is! http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=250770

Don't cry for me, tonsil. That's an exhibition of the type of behavior I've characterized as belonging to the Army of the Average.

Yes, I have the fantasy of being paid to write, and I will write something that I fully expect to be able to sell. That fantasy is only somewhat related to my previous fantasy of what the Guide could have been. The things I would write and get paid for are not in any way related to those things I would write here... though I do value the exercise as a way to practice and refine my craft.

I make plenty of money in my mundane job that I don't have to concern myself with survival. Writing here was a way to keep the passion for writing alive and keep sharpening my skills while I unravel the last detail of a novel series that has been 12 years in germination.

I don't consider myself to be a "genius," that's your word. I only know that I'm a very good writer, and I like to have conversations that are stimulating. If you wish to challenge my assertion about my writing skills, then I invite you to read this A457067 and the first three articles of this A415865 and post your criticism to the articles.

And the moral of the story is, your entire argument is red herring.

After reading the whole thread again, it is obvious to me that there are people here who really care about the guide, and as a newbie I shall endeavour to care as well.

It seems all is far from lost on HMS HooToo...

i was reading some of DNA's postings last night, and i was pleased to see that blathers had an agruement with him. it was about the athiest article. brilliant.

Oh come on guys. Lets not turn this into a big b***hing session against h2g2.

This site is what we make is : aside from the occasional BBC intervention (sometimes s**t, sometimes minor). If things turn sour, it's pretty much because we aren't making the effort.

If you want a good debate, then start one! If people don't reply, then it's usually because of bad timing (not because they don't care)...

This w*r is dragging everything down. Boo.

Gorgias: Guess what Plato, the philosopher kings are all disillusioned, seems the masses are getting them down again.

Plato: Really? How tedious. Well, that Aristophanes play is on at the forum again: "Barmy of the Beverege". Laugh a minute they say. Lets go there for some intellectual diversion shall we?

Actually, I agreed with him. He just didn't know it was bad editing that had caused the issue he had with it.

Still, I believe I'm the writer of the only article DNA took time to comment on.

Watch that ego there BM...you need to be able to log out when you're done. Don't want to get stuck in the door.

A while back, someone mentioned that one of the 'pointless threads' had so many thousand postings, and therefore that spoke for itself.( i am of course paraphrasing, but that was the jist)

Can i just remind people that popularity is in *no* way an indicator of quality or worthyness! Quite the reverse in fact.

Most things in life that are 'popular' are usually the worst of their kind.

Examples; Supermarket white bread
By far the most bought bread, but few would say it tastes any good, or uses the finest ingredients. People buy it because it's cheap and readily available.

Saturday evening T.V.;
Need i say any more? The masses watch it, but it is almost entirely without exception, brain numbing cr*p. Again it's very popular with high ratings, but of very low quality.

Lager;
Again, few people savour the taste, it's just consumed out of habit. It's omni-present, and of course it's relativly cheap. But in the same pub, you could by 'proper' beers, or better quality foreign lagers...

I could go on, pop music, cars.. etc, etc, but i think you get the point!

Just because that thread is heavily subscribed too, isn't, in my opinion an argument in it's favour!


There will always be the argument that "if you don't like something, switch off, or unsubscribe", but that, to my mind misses the point. We are raising the issue, because we care about H2G2, and don't want it to become a glorified 'messager' chat room, full of inconsequencial drivel.

I agree that there is a place for these threads, i just echo the opinions of these people who say there is far too many of them now.

Well well well. Who'd have thunk it. So many people with the same opinion. It's quite good to know that Im not alone on this one. My faith in humanity is partially restored.

OK, maybe that was an overstatement.

I believe the very point that some threads are pointless is the attraction. It's *small talk* people! Social evolution have made it a great way to get to know people in the least painful way.

*has*,

Sorry, just remembered that line from Blackadder..
" Baldrick- you are just like a broken pencil .... pointless"

Or words too that effect...

I don't know how many people I speak for when I say this but I don't really want to get to know any electronic people. If it happens along the way thats fine with me, but I don't seek it. It's not what I joined the site for.

Naturally, if other people want to do that, it's fine with me.

Well, it's an interesting point.

Despite the fact that there are real people behind the electronic ones, at the end of the day(it gets dark), we are all just sitting like morons at a keyboard, getting fat and unhealthy, and not actually interacting with the real world at all.

In fact by doing this, we are really doing nothing we were 'designed' to do as human beings!!

It's all very sad and worrying really

[as he hypocritically carries on at the keyboard]

Has Blatherskite just inswinuated that moi was "average"?



Hmm, Wed Hewwing! You won't like me, trust me!

Actually, no, you just proved my point.
I say I am not a very good writer.
I have written many thought-provoking and kindly-commented upon items on this site.
I have also written many that nobody said nothing about, but I was happy with and might still am.

You say you be a good one.
Then you link me to historical nonfiction.
I think you sell yourself short.
Anyone can line their ducks up in a row and make sure their little hats are straight.
It takes brains and guts to reduce the complex and possibly confusing down to a logical progression of admissions that we really don't know anything for sure, but this is a reasonable speculation.


My survival is always in question.
Yet, I write here and on cocktail napkins, on manual typewriters and legal pads, because I do. I think I've made maybe $300.00 all told in my entire life from writing and most of that was from button slogans for a headshop supplier.
I just began to work on the final draft on a novel I've been chipping away at for twelve years and I just started a second one based on a twenty-odd year old idea.

I think the main purpose of H2 is not for us to become gratified by the response of the great unread, but for the great unread to have a chance to read something besides comic books and textbooks.

As for "genius", in the current climate of illiteracy, I consider anyone who can complete an coherent entry a genius.

Well, I'll admit I'm one of the ones that tends to stay on the 'fluffy' side. I do enjoy some of the more intellectual things, however--I just don't say much because I don't have anything worth saying much of the time. I'm not subscribed to askh2g2, nor do I ever stop by the page (I take that back--I've asked a couple of questions in my nearly 2 years, so obviously I've wandered over to askh2g2...) I normally come here from the stats page or from someone's conversation list.

Yes, I *have* noticed quite a few changes. Yes, quite a few of them result from people leaving. In fact, I could list quite a few people that I miss... And, personally, I've noticed a lot of people with various problems, but that's likely because I appear to have become a pain magnet--I'm sure there were the same amount of (for example) suicidal folks on here, but I was just unaware. I also know that there are more digibox users on h2g2 than there were in the past--quite a few who joined after the closing of a chat site, who may assume that h2g2 is similar. As far as the capitalization thing, I do know that it's been explained that it can be difficult to switch between cases when using a digibox--I have no idea if that's true with all digiboxes, but at least all lowercase isn't as annoying as all uppercase...

I may have had a point, but I've lost it, so I think I'll just post this stupid thing now...

I was not insinuating that you were average, tonsil. I was insinuating that, by reducing my post to crying, you were using one of the tools of the average. A psychiatrist would call it, 'invalidation.'

Anyway, my (former) participation on this site was an exercise of fantasy, but not one based on economic needs, and one that was harmless to perpetuate. Many people here still have that fantasy. I wish them well with it. There are times when, like a former lover, I miss its company.

I thank you very kindly for the compliments. They'll stand very nicely on my homepage, next to the insults I'm sure to get when someone comes in here and decides to take umbrage at my newly-coined phrase, and musters the rest of the army.