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

Dear Katy, I am finding h2g2 absolutely terrifying. Apart from anything else I can't work out how to start a conversation, so am tagging on to your reply to Annie last April. Heeeeeeeeelp!

Dear DD (I am not Katy, but hope she won't mind me jumping in!)

To start a conversation, go to My Space (depending on what layout you've chosen, there may be a link to this on the left of the page). Then click on the link to My Journal, and start a new entry.

This will be seen by anyone who has got you on their Friends list.

It's true that hootoo is HUGE and there is a lot of confusing stuff going on, but I just ignore most of it and concentrate on what the people I know are saying.

Hope you feel more at home here soon,
annie

PS: here - have some

Hi DD - I'm trying to get you onto the main MLers list, but have forgotten my log-in for the ML Mustering Station...

:O Katy

DD, I'm really in a mess, trying to find the Mustering Station log-in. Meanwhile, if you bookmark this page, it shows all the postings in the journals by the 'Friends' of the ML Mustering Station, and has become like a kind of central mayo over here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/MP1485019?show=100

Hth,

Katy

Ok, finally done it.

If you click on my name on the top of this posting, DD, you'll find the ML Mustering Station with a list of all the Mustardeers who've joined up. You'll see a list of all the threads (i.e. Journal Entries) they've started, and if you click on anyone's name, you'll get to their Own Space, where you can have conversations with them too if you like (just click the 'discuss this entry' button under the their introductory space to start a new thread).

Hth,

Katy

P.S. The new Mustardland won't be like this....

Thanks for doing all this for us, Katy. Could you add me to the list, please? Like everyone else, I'm barely finding my way around at here at the moment. Well at least I've got my name back! I don't like the idea of the personal space - but maybe it's because I don't yet understand how it'll work. Ah well, each time I have another go at h2g2 it becomes a tad clearer.

Hello Bette - I've added you to my list of friends too, hope you don't mind.

You're right, hootoo does get clearer the more you use it, and I have met some nice people in here (mainly teenagers learning French - don't ask!) by venturing outside the 'safety zone' of other MLers' journals.

Hi Annie. I've added you to my (so far tiny!) list of friends. I'm still finding this all very odd. Is this personal-space thing similar to what my daughter gets up to on MSN?

I see you are in Cambridge. I'll be spending Christmas there this year, at my sister's (Fulbourn area - anywhere near to you?).

Cheers.

Hello Bette, you're on the list too now!

I don't think you can compare these spaces with the MSN ones, really, because as far as I know, people don't post threads on them there.

I try and visualise it like this, to make some kind of sense of it:

The BBC boards, such as Mustardland, are Mayo-based: i.e. each board has a central discussion list as its hub, and the posters are all connected with each other as they start threads, post to them, dip in and out of them, etc. Each thread is irrevocably attached to one particular board too. No mayo = no connection between the individual members of the board community.

The community on here is Poster-based: i.e., each individual member of the community is like a tiny little hub, and they connect with all the others by talking to them via 'conversations', which are started up on their Own Spaces, either as threads there, or Journal & Guide entries, which others can reply to and discuss. Or by visiting people in their Own Spaces, and starting up a chat there. A thread started up/participated in by a Hootoo member anywhere will also show up on his/her Own Space, so that you can keep track of its movements/activity level, unless you dump it by unsubscribing to it. In other words, a thread with 20 posts in it will be duplicated 20 times on all the posters' Own Spaces, it's not 'static'!

If you add someone to your Friends' List, any Journal entries they make will also appear on your Own Space, whether you have posted to them or not - this way, you can keep track of what your mates are doing, without necessarily having to join in all the time. This is where the idea came from to have the Mustardland Mustering Station, btw: because all the Journal entries from the people on the List appear on one page, you get a kind of general mayo, a central 'hub' as it were, of what ML people are doing here.

Hth,

Katy

Katy, this is an excellent explanation of what goes on in here!

Hi Bette - Fulbourn is a bit out of the city centre. I'm lucky enough to live very near the centre. Not sure yet what I'm doing for Christmas, I often go to my sister's (near Hitchin).

Good morning Katy.

That is a very clear description. Ta very much!

I can't help wondering how such a system would cope with the amount of interraction that goes on in ML (everything duplicated x times!!). Still, I realise that the new boards will not be the same as hootoo.

Won't there be confusion if/when people change their nicknames? /All/ the previous posts are also changed - which may be good or bad :-S

What is to stop /anyone/ coming into your space and following what you are doing? Ok, I know this has been discussed elsewhere - I'll just have to plough through the various threads and see what others have been saying. It will all seem a bit clearer now that I have dipped my toes into the new system - I hope

Tot ziens.

Hi Annie.

I'm beginning to pore over maps of Cambridge (thank goodness for the Web). Yes - I see what you mean. I hope the weather will be ok at Christmas. I gather it has been glorious there the last few days.

Cheers.

Thanks Annie!

Bette,



Nothing - which is why it'll be so great to have an 'email me button' in the new ML, as it'll mean you can 'Unsubscribe' to all the threads, thus bumping them off your Own Spaces everywhere. You can do that now, of course, but then you'll have to remember/make a note of all the threads you've posted in to see if anyone has replied to you.

Hth,

Katy

Hi Katie

I didn't think we *were* getting an 'email me' button in MLv2 - at least not to begin with ...

Hello Katy

I thought I'd tag a reply on to your thread, although I haven't the faintest idea why.

It's just nice to see all the familiar names in these weird places.

I'm not entirely sure where I am. Yesterday I was in radio 3 and now I'm in something to do with a radio series that was trendy when I was at university. That is very strange.

I daresay it'll shake out when we get our own MUSTARD coloured board. Until then, thaks for all your (& Peets's) efforts at explanation and education - much apppreciated if not actually understood!

Lots of love

ermintrude

Hi ermintrude, and welcome!

I've added you on to the list of Mustardeers here - click on my name above this post to get there, then scroll down the page to get the list. You can 'visit' anyone by clicking on their name; this'll take you to their Pages, where you start/join in threads there.

Don't worry too much about it all, and don't hesitate to ask if you get lost in any way. Btw, the new ML won't be like this - think of this place as a kind of 'extra' to ML, with features it doesn't have, in the same way that the Lockin is. Not a replacement of ML, but a bonus....

Katy

Hi Annie!



Well, according to the Host on Radio3, they're working on it, but can't implement any 'extras' to the boards until they've all moved to DNA. He mentioned December as a possible date.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Katy

Utterly baffled Vicar requests inclusion in whatever it is, please. (Don't bother explaining anything to me here, I'm sure it'll come to me)

Hi Morty!

I've added you to the Hootoo ML List, just click my name to find it!

Cheers,

Katy