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

"I feel sorry for you both"

The phrase "smells of community" I thought was a funny and very concise way of summing up the peculiar (in both senses of the word) odour one associates with childhood, with local church hall jumble sales, mouldy school gymnasiums, and, well, things with the word "community" in the title. The smell of disinfectant, old floorboards, mould, and old people's cardigans. Things one remembers vividly but without much fondness. Quite why that would elicit pity baffles me - don't most people have these experiences?

The phrase 'smells of community' clearly evokes vivid memories of village halls and scout huts in England. So I knew exactly what was meant. Thanks Tiggy!

For those who remember how the h2g2 My Space button was
ripped off and expanded into a separate site, featuring
the ability to post photos and links (which were at the
time forbidden by BBC) you might be curious how that site
might now be doing...

http://www.news.com.au/technology/myspace-must-turn-itself-around-says-news-corp/story-e6frfro0-1225947672628

But the real lesson might be that redesign is not the solution
for failing websites. Content and community are the lifeblood
of any site. The rest is all packaging and branding.


~jwf~

<>

And just how irritating can that be?

What are they telling you?

>>Funnily enough, no. It's always been that the site staff do have to do things that we don't like, the difference is that they've tried to work through it with us. Ok, so that may have extended arguments a bit, but I think that's why the site was so sticky.<< Mina

Oh right. I thought 3Dots was meaning that the bbc should consult with us *before* decisions about changes are made.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F1951566?thread=7832769&latest=1

>>Quite why that would elicit pity baffles me

Context is most of it I guess. I didn't know about the English associations with the phrase you used (doesn't apply here), and read the comment as a pejorative of the concept of community.

I still don't understand what school gymnasiums have to do with the word community, but am struggling to think what the equivalent here would have been in my childhood. I suspect that the word community wasn't used, that that's a modern thing. Community existed inherently so it didn't need to be named and talked about, it just was.

We did have community colleges, come to think of it. They were the renaming and restructuring of polytechs, with the aim of making them more inclusive of the 'community' (the govt funded massive amounts of classes outside of what polytechs has traditionally done. That funding has only just been cut). That was in the 80s I think.

I think 'community halls' were a recentish thing too. And community centres. Things that had to be set up once the new right set about dismantling the structures that enabled community.

Interesting link 3Dots. I don't know what it looked like before, but I would hazard a guess that it's too late to complain about the changes afterwards, which is why they don't ask us ahead of time


Maybe we should count our blessings . Did you see the smilies on that MB? They're on DNA, why didn't they use our cool ones?

I wondered why community could have a negative sense, too.
But then I never experienced the community halls and whatever described here.

I'm worried what they'll change next. It doesn't seem a big deal to call it H2H2 instead of h2g2, but first, it is harder to type, and then if you add all the small changes we had to accept, it sums up.

The more important gthing to ask is 'Why?'

Was the acronym 'h2g2' broken? If not, why 'fix' it?

All the message board changes aesthetically have been change for change sake.

Why the hell they couldn;t put a new 'engine' in place put leave the bodt the same I just do not know.

They'll rip this site apart as it's form and thier needs and requirements over the needs of the people who use it. And based on the lack of response from the hosts of other mbs there aint much our hosts will be able to do to bring the site back to anything like it is now in usability.

h2g2 is so old and dated that it can't attract any new people. My daughters won't touch it, for example, and they're more than capable of writing, conversing, editing, etc. The BBC are trying to liven up the site and save it from dying. Hopefully, they will succeed.

>The BBC are trying to liven up the site and save it from dying.<

And losing the loyalty of those already here.

Doesn't that depend on what the changes are?

>The BBC are trying to liven up the site and save it from dying.

And losing the loyalty of those already here.<

I second that...

I'm not bothered about loosing the word 'community', Ask h2g2 sounds just fine IMO, it's the Caps that bother me.

I don't beieve that any redesign needs to change a word or part of a word from lower case to Caps, it's just change for the sake of it, and not in a positive way.

Typing it as H2G2 is a common newbie error, done through ignorance, not what I'd expect from our Editors.

The Eds haven't answered my question about the promise of extending our tag lines to 50 charaters, I guess we were just fobbed off about that

Anyone else noticed how boring the tag lines are now, most have just got their Researcher name on them...

I can't see hootoo surviving past 2011, I predict next year will be our last year.

If the Eds won't change something as simple as two letters back to lower case, or give us an *honest*, reasonable reason why they need to be in Caps, what hope is there for more complicated issues in the future...

Emmily

but nobody is actually insisting that anyone here writes h2g2 with capitals, so that doesn't really affect anything except the title of this page. And you never know, maybe the eds can ask someone to attend to that.

As for attracting new users - my Gruesomes have pestered me for ages to join and were heartily disappointed to hear they would have to be 16. However, the have finally had a look around (under my supervision ) and decided that it's too slow, too boring, no endless linking to pictures of themselves (which is why they and all their daft mates love facebook) and it's not instant.

None of those things are what message boards (especially this one) or a Guide to Life The Universe and Everything want or need to be. I just wonder if this type of thing is a dinosaur and is going the way of printed matter and watching things on TV at the time they are broadcast. A few of us oldies will stick to it, but the yoof won't get involved.

I was one of the researchers that went to the BBC to do some trsting. Personally I am quite enthusiastic about the refresh.

FB

If you examine the page title closely, you may notice that it's a typo.

H2G2 is uppercase h & g, lower case 2 & 2 whereas it used to be lowercase h & g and uppercase 2 & 2

Good one FB

Rod, how can you tell the case of numerals? Are you looking at the code?

"I was one of the researchers that went to the BBC to do some trsting"



Trysting?

Ooh - do tell. Which Ed is hot?

yes, well maybe, well not specificallyally, well no, well fell flat, dinnit