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

(Hope I don't get done for flooding? )

yeah so the lion has to lie down with the lamb for a bit...or the centipede with the millipede or the woodlouse with the water louse..

I want new h2g2 to endure and evolve.

I want to get people in my community joining.

I've been on a few punishments here already...and there are some of you I can barely bare...and god knows what else has gone down for months...

But if possible lets go for it? It'll be excellent I think...potentially..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viIdjpdE41I

(I'm pasting that as my favourite YouTube at present. Christ she's gorgeous.)

There's hardly anyone here; that's fact.

I am here!

I also think that there are a *lot more people reading the Entries than actually chatting.

I'd chat a bit more, but am supposed to be counting whether I have bought everybody I know a present. It's that time of year when you get dragged into shops to buy things that you know are going to be totally forgettable. I suppose a lot of people are doing the same thing too? Getting fraught over Christmas?

This is what I've been telling people for weeks now; if they want h2g2 to evolve and grow they need to make it happen, instead of just complaining that it isn't.

I plan to spend more time being Really Unsubtle about promoting this site and getting people to join. And hopefully we'll eventually get those little clicky whatsits that allow you to instantly share Entries on Twitter, Farcebook, Google+, etc.

Well what does it matter Lanza what you happen to be doing in RL?

There should be no obligation for anyone.

People would be be here cos they want to be...like any situation in life aside from a paid job or looking after a child.

I think some really hard talking needs to be done if we are to survive.

Hootoo has always had it's Seasonal quiet moments.

It begins to slow down in the run up to Christmas, when all the schools and colleges have closed.

A few will jump in with Seasons Greetings during the holiday, and then it all wakes up again for the New Year.




lil x

To be honest I don't know how the finances of the thing add up...but it seems to me that we are no more in people than at the end of old h2g2.

New people aren't coming and sticking. Some old members maybe have come back.

But others have disappeared.

That Noesis thing was bizarre. When I looked around it was nearly dead. But they have something called World chat as well.

As h2g2 presently is I wouldn't dream of asking anyone in RL to join.

I don't take part in other social network stuff very often, but I would more if I thought h2g2 was a thing to encourage people to join.

So often I find an unpleasant under tone. I do it myself; I get sucked in.

It feels small and incestuous to me...and really dying.

I truly hope I'm wrong about that.

h2g2 *is* a thing to encourage people to join. Do you honestly think it can get bigger and less 'incestuous' if you refuse to promote it?

What would I say to someone about this place to excite them to join?

The identity is weird now. What has a thing like Noesis to do with h2g2? Where's Robbie?

And the Guide?

I no longer care about the thing I submitted. The images fitted perfectly with the style of the story of the text...but I'm informed they are not up to *standard*..like its a recipe for images for the Guide...and an exact sizing, in all cases, like a decoration to the text

I'm dam well not going to ask any other creative person to join.

Yeah but maybe it will pick up in January?

Mr. D I don't want to lose my friends and acquaintances as it now is.

They'd detest it...it's so rigid...and all the undertones of prejudice that go on about anyone a bit different.

Those students living next door to me would be shocked at its 'middle agedness'. Truly.

I came here by word of moth. Somes of the in crowd tried to chase me off, but I'm licking being around now

People have been saying that sort of thing for years, and we are still here

The facts are that we more than doubled our existing members when a large number of old researchers came back - and they are still here.

We are adding more newcomers daily, and they are staying.

We need to be more careful about showing the negative side of h2g2 when newbies are in the throes of looking around their new home. We wouldn't want to put them off, would we?

Unfriendly tone are often misunderstood postings which have no smileys to soften the words and make the place far more friendly


lil x

The identity is the same as it was. h2g2 is h2g2 is h2g2 regardless of who's hosting it. And that's where Noesis come in, that's what Noesis have to do with h2g2... they're those guys who very kindly helped out with the bid and offered their hardware as a place to keep this eccentric little corner of the web.

The Guide is where it's always been; all around us (in a virtual sense).

I'm sorry that your pictures did not meet whatever 'standards' there are but is there truly any reason why you couldn't work within those requirements to produce something that would work? Really?

Oh, and there's one thing that will NEVER help this site improve: being negative about it all over the place.

Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, I'm just telling it like it is.

Oh and Effers, if anyone stopped being your friend just because you introduced them to a website they didn't like they weren't worth your time in the first place.

(Middleagedness? Really? How about you let them make up their own minds rather than assuming they'd look at it a particular way?)

We need YOUTH here. FRESH BLOOD.

There's a million things on the web to do now.

What would I say to sell this place?

Oh go to the 'Alternative writing workshop' with a poem and have someone quizzing you about your use of repetition. That thing is a farce.

So is the Guide IMO. The whole idea behind the thing I wrote is that it happpened long long ago.

And I'm told the images look a bit crinkly and stained...not all some are from a scientific paper. The images work perfectly as an IDEA with the text.

Artists reject them though.

Where's the vision of what the Guide really is?

It's a bloody joke.

NO. I'm not embrassing myself by recommending this place to friends or acquaintances.

We could be so much more as something NEW.

There were so many discussions on BBC h2g2. But apparently it was all decided by a little club on Noesis...but no-one came clean about that.

**

I still care about this place...and honestly am *addicted*.

I'm hanging around for now...

Okay, I have to leave this thread now.

Middle aged! I resemble that remark i'm only 23.

*takes off all official hats*

Effers, you begun this thread asking how we could improve the site. You were told that in order for the site to grow, we the researchers must share it with our friends.

You say your student friends would despise this site, I'm a student and I like it here. Why wouldn't they?

You go from loving the site to hating it. You huff and puff, you threaten to leave, but still you stay, complaining about anything and everything.

You need to decide which side you are on, are you with us or against us?

mini

Why?

Can't we hammer it out?

This is the oh so British problem here...let's leave or stop with the discussion about REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF.

(This is another reason I would *Never* recommend this place to a friend. When important discussions are going on about the very future of something...or something really really important...no-one leaves.

But I'll join you with being off Mr. D; it's a total waste of my time to post a bit of HONESTY..that lots of us talk about privately in email.

Best of British..

>You go from loving the site to hating it.<


Are there no longer any Romantics around that understand about Love and Hate? and they are one and the same....oh yeah the 'Alternative writing workshop' would probably dis the 'greats' for repetition...

Pointless thread.

I posted this elsewhere (most of you have probably already read it) in response to a question about where online North Americans are when Britain is asleep . . .


Well, not many of us come to hootoo, do we? I expect most use Twitter and Facebook and the amateur writers contribute to wikipedia. I expect the vast majority of people in North America have never heard of Douglas Adams or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and only a statistically insignificant number have heard of h2g2.(sadface)

It's certainly a rare person I meet who has any inkling of the Hitchkiker's guide. In fact, if memory serves, the only people I know to have any familiarity are members of my family (who probably only have a familiarity because a cousin who married an Englishman introduced me to the first book in 1983 when I visited them in Watford) and the guy who's doing my renos -- he's British. And the only reason I found h2g2 is because it was mentioned in The Salmon of Doubt, and I've never met anyone else in real life who has ever heard of that book.

Those who say we need to do the marketing ourselves don't realize what an uphill battle it is here:

"you should try hootoo."

"what's that"

"well, it's sort of like facebook, but without `pictures or `private messages, so, it's sort of like twitter, but without a limit on the length of messages and without any notification that a message has come unless you're logged in and always checking, and it's sort of like wiki`pedia, but it's not instantly u`pdated and doesn't have anywhere near as many entries -- it's the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Earth Edition. You know. Douglas Adams. . . "


(blank look then)

"I already use facebook and twitter and wikipedia. Who's Douglas Adams?"





(end of repost)

To be honest, the only reason I came here in the first `place was because of Douglas Adams' writing. The only reason I stayed at first was to contribute to the guide. The only reason I'm still around now is inertia. If I stop being here it won't be because I go to another site, it will be because I've finally pulled myself together and gotten back to real life.

The only reason I would suggest to any friend or relative that they come here is to contribute to the Guide. But the only writers I know these days do it for a living, not for the fun of being in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I've mentioned before that I've made a bit of marketing effort, but, seriously, can some one give me some help? What would your pitch be? Why would someone take a leap from here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada into hootoo? Converse with people all over the world? They're already doing it. Talk to people around town? Well, if they want to talk to Jaz'd or I, they can do that on hootoo, otherwise they'd do far better with Yelp.

What is the selling point of hootoo to anyone outside Britain (or inside, if you like) who isn't familiar with the works of Douglas Adams?

It kee`ps coming back to "we have to spread the word". Seriously, I'd like some suggestions on what the "word" is.