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

I think we all agree that h2g2 is big and confusing for the newcomer. The help pages, although Alex has given them a welcome refresh, are still a bit tortuous by design.

I was wondering whether we could have some sort of presence in The h2g2 Post dedicated to new members of the community. I don't have anything specific in mind at this stage, but I'd just like to kick off a conversation to see what people think. I suppose the questions are:

Is The h2g2 Post newbie-friendly?
Does it welcome them into the h2g2 community?
Are they encouraged to contribute?

Over to you...

I think that by its very nature, a lot of h2g2 isn't terribly newbie-friendly because we tend toward in-jokes

I was barely aware of the existance of the Post for a long time after I joined.

TRiG.

I must admit that I have only just found my feet where is concerned so I feel that at first I was afraid, I was petrified, thinking I'd never make it in and put it to one side. So the answer is no from me.

I think we've had this kind of discussion somewhere before, and we came to the conclusion that it isn't really worth doing anything specifically for newbies in The Post. Anything that appears disappears into the archives after a fortnight anyway, which makes it hard for newbies to find, and we'd be doing a job that the Aces and Help Pages should cover between them anyway. Unless I've totally misunderstood and you're proposing an initiative to get newbies writing for The Post, in which case I'm all ears

It's funny how people say stuff on h2g2 is hard to find. I heard a couple of weeks ago that people struggle to find Entry of the Month, despite the fact that it's a named entry, appears in the top three of a Google search of the phrase and is the top result on h2g2's own search facility. The same with The Post, except that we're always on the Front Page as well.

Opti, I think you're being a little uncharitable. As I recall, your first few submissions to us were, essentially, journal entries, and although they had potential we were quite right to unanimously agree that we should not publish them as they were. I also recall emailing you with a number of suggestions for ways you could improve them. We did our best to help you bring those submissions up to standard, and it wasn't really our fault that you initially misunderstood what The Post is all about

Rich I am very thankful for your help and help from others in team. for treading on toes....maybe my bf was right to gag me.

Don't be silly now, Opti. Tread away I'm not trying to gag you get you to shut up; I'm just giving the view as I see it, and I may be right or wrong in that. I was simply making the point that our rejection of a couple of your early pieces had nothing to do with us being unfriendly to newbies, and that we do try to give positive suggestions when submissions don't come up to scratch.

Well when I wrote that first post I was not thinking and was being rather in writing it like the lyrics to a song.