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

Effers, you are muddling up several separate things:

1) Aly and Brian Larholm - who are two people who own a company called Noesis. They also, separately, own a third of Not Panicking Ltd. I own a jacket, it is nothing to do with my jumper. They own Noesis. It is nothing to do with Not Panicking Ltd.

2) Noesis, which is a company they run

3) The Noesis forum, which is a service Noesis offers, and which is based on pretty standard software licenced to lots of companies including them

4) Not Panicking Ltd, which is the company that owns h2g2 and which we all hope will make a profit, because if it doesn't h2g2's future becomes very uncertain

5) Field Researchers Ltd, which will be the Community's not-for-profit company, and the way the community has represantation on the board of NPL

You are also muddling up people who do things purely for profit (there are none of those here) with people who want to do something to help (and there are lots of those).

It has just taken me 20 minutes to write this. This is your special answer just for you. That is time I could have spent working on a diagram for everyone. By writing this post just for you, the help pages for everyone are now 20 minutes later being delivered.

You say how much not having clear explanations is upsetting you. Well, I am really upset too, but I am not sure that matters much to you. What is upsetting me is not being able to work on explanations for everyone because I am working on special ones for you, and because I am answering your thread asking what we all do, and because I am writing a journal explaining what I have one in the last two weeks and why.

There were two things I wanted to be closer to having ready to publish by working on them this weekend, but they are actually further off being ready because of the time I have spent explaining why they aren't ready, explations demanded by you, and a couple of others.

Please, there is no conspiracy, there are just an awful lot of words to get right before we post them, and the 20 minutes here and there (half an hour on this one post now) that I spend writing things just for you is time that is quite literally stolen from the work I do for the community as a whole. No wonder I am upset.

Ben

I love muddling things up....thanks for your special answer just for me.

I'll stick with a lifetime of learning from my Dad about how business really works..thanks

it's as creative as hell...you can make as many bullet points as you want to do with the initial stages of a new company...it doesn't work like that at the start.

It's just like Art at the start..

And I'm an Artist to the core..

Don't try to simplify things and analyse things when that approach means jack..

You've completely and utterly missed the point.

But thanks for coming..

*sigh*

And you obviously know so much more about business than I do, despite my 30 years working IN business, 12 of them running my own start-up.

Thank you for explaining that to me.

And do you remember when I started that thread on old hoo called, 'How much do you care about noohootoo?' you said probably not much, as you would take a back seat once it started. You had done so much work to make it happen.

Hmm.

You should take a break.

I'm starting to think this thing is strangled at birth.

Taff has gone. anhaga is totally disenchanted..I am as well..you're are fast losing kea..all her excitement is turned to dull resignation..I see that.

But Noesis will emerge triumphant with their very own little h2g2 entity. They might even link us to their world chat site..and soon we'll be millions.

The reality is h2g2 is nearly already dead.

i suppose, Effers, that you may think you are doing some good here by warning people that dire things are happening... but maybe you should think it over and look at what you are saying... it is so down and critical and, mainly, so centered on you.

to read your posts sometimes, it seems like you think if its not happening for you then its not happening for hootoo.... what i am trying to say, albeit somewhat clumsily i am sure, is that

maybe its not all about you.

It's not about me. It's about my perception of *reality* that h2g2 is pretty much dead.

But others' ideas may differ.

We can all keep using the term 'hootoo' or 'h2g2' and attach that to any old thing. But if the soul ain't there it's just a few letters.

That's *honestly* how I see it now. I'm just one person. So carry on with your h2g2.

Anyway what are you doing here suddenly?

I prefer for you to leave due to past bad experiences.

I don't like you.

I'm a master of understatement.

Effers,

I cannot help but wonder why you think that people can't be altruistic.

I know it's rare, but I'm sure this is what people are around here. We all want this site to continue. People work hard to make it so.

It's hard work, we *all* have other things to do, and most have jobs that must take precedence, but it's a big job.

It's a bit complicated, since there are many players in this game, but it will work out. It's not going to be a profitable site for anyone, I think, not in many years, but in time, there might be enough income to pay some of the people who contribute to running it.

Is that bad? Is it bad to want to start paying for work done?

Is it bad that people want h2g2 to remain?

I've thought long and hard about posting here. You kind of left an open invitation on that other thread so I'm guessing it's ok.

You know what, Ben talks such a lot of sense. But you're like my kids (or my bosses) you actually only hear the bits you want to hear: either because they resonate with the idea that you already have and reinforce your belief or because they are 180° from them and you want to bang your head against them.

Funnily enough, it is possible to know how business works and be an artist. Some of us are artists in our own little way, have studied and so on and so on and have a wealth of experience. But you don't want to know about that because they didn't all go to X school, Y college (and have a shiny piece of paper to prove it) or show at Z gallery (or whatever)

It really doesn't look like a conspiracy to me, it looks like a lot of nice people trying to preserve something they feel is worthwhile for themselves, which incidentally (and not a small part of it, I guess) preserves it for a lot of other people. Then when it's a bit settled they want to grow it. And they can't do that as long as they are running around like blue arsed flies wondering which thread will throw a hissy fit next and demand their attention.

have a cup of and do something you like doing.

You are all welcome here.

I spent all my life growing up in a family where business was everything...

I got to learn a lot.

Plus I got to learn a lot about the fundamentals of how money will always dominate the concept of community and relationships.

I'm soaked in it so forgive my take on things. It hard to shake off a lifetime of experience to do with it. And I can't ignore warning bells when they are nearly deafening me.

That would be disingenuous in the extreme.

I have my take on things. Others have theirs.

I'm happy to accept yours. But I have mine. You can't get rid of a lifetime of learning.

My big idea at present for this place is for everyone to just enjoy being here and muck about..and get friends.do a few journals..try a few things on for size...banter..a bit of jamming..play with some ideas.

But I read that there is an endless amount of work to be done right now. It sounds hideous.

Any person here that I really like I don't want them working working working...or *feeling guilty because they are not*.

Given the last few months...I want all the people here I like to have some fun here..however they most like doing that here.

WE're not all working.... some of us are... working hard at being lazy...
I've just been away the past week at my parents, and didn't get much time to come online and now there's backlog to catch up on

>>My big idea at present for this place is for everyone to just enjoy being here and muck about..and get friends.do a few journals..try a few things on for size...banter..a bit of jamming..play with some ideas.<<

So nothing about expanding D.N.A.'s principles of h2g2, writing entries, enlarging the underguide or being involved in the gamut of things that is h2g2?

I wish I could write more entries, and write them in the style of our more gifted researchers, I'd love to write acrostics and for The Post.

And I now have 32 entries on the go, since the bedding thread started, that is one less than the number of solo entries I've written, way behind our esteemed researchers like Gnomon, GB etc, with 9 collaborative entries, notwithstanding the 33 photos on entries.

And my point? That following the antics of the Dolphins and having a good time will strangle h2g2. It needs more to be a Community. Not to say that your beliefs are wrong, but are just a part of the whole and nothing works without a structure, support and control.

At least I'll have the pleasure of meeting researchers, again, in February, which is one beauty of this site, and I've now added that ethos to my other web-based friends' site, who meet monthly. And long may it continue.

And thank you to those who have made it possible for us to still discuss these things, whatever our own beliefs

But that is just my

MMF

Things are easier since I realised h2g2 is dead..and faced it.

This is Not Panicking Ltd.

That's a fact.

I won't be contributing to a private company which is all about making a profit. They all are. It's called capitalism.

If h2g2 was still alive it would be a not for profit oeganisation. A charity or a co-op.

People are being manipulated to work for nothing. I won't be. It's profoundly unethical. It is h2g2 in name only.

I've lost my best mate Taff...he could see it. anhaga my best friend has made his opinions clear..he is gradually leaving. I lost kea already. tarrantoes never came back. h2g2 is dead.

Let Noesis put some people in to work for nothing. Let Robbie Stamp send some people to work for nothing..

They will be happy enough to enjoy the eventual profits.

I'm NOT having the wool pulled over MY eyes.

>At least I'll have the pleasure of meeting researchers, again, in February, which is one beauty of this site,<

It maybe the beauty of Not Panicking Ltd's website for you..it isn't for me.

If it was still h2g2 the beauty for me would be a new adventure of building a community that wanted to build the Guide and build a sense of Community.

Making a profit would be nothing to do with it.

And I like the fact that we were an online community..a new thing that has been made possible since the web came into being. A community of people from all over the world. I can do real life with real life people.

Facebook is about making money for its owners. Twitter is about making money for its owners. Noesis World Chat is about making money for its owners. All web *companies* are about making money..just like non web based companies..except now lots of people see the web is a good way to make money..if you have those skills to build sites and attract lots of people to them.

Facebook and Twitter are best at that at present. Market leaders. Not Panicking Ltd may one day challege them..

I am sorry you feel that way.

For what it's worth, which isn't much, the decision to go into a 3 way partnership and not to do a solo bid as a not-for-profit, was one of the hardest decisions that we had to make. If we had bid as a solo not-for-profit we would have bene unlikely to win, so there would have been no website on which to have this discussion.

We have spent so much time coming up with a legal structure that aims not to exploit people. Specifically to try and stop people feeling that way. We are in the process of setting up a not-for-profit with will own 1/3, and get 1/3 of the profits.

We didn't have to do this, we could have formed a normal, for profit company, with ourselves as shareholders, which would have owned 1/3, but we all felt that we would rather be volunteers than shareholders.

Once we have done this you can see the full details and then you can make an informed decision.

I'm really said everything I can on the subject. So I"m going to duck out of this conversation now, until we're in a position to publish the help pages.

I think that what the 3-way consortium is doing is great.

Why should h2g2 be a not-for-profit organisation? (are you all aiming to rival Bill Gates and his ilk? ) Why does it make a difference?

Nobody who is volunteering is being coerced (as far is I know) and (as far as i know) all of them are over the age of consent - if they want to give their time for free I don't see why it bothers anyone else, frankly.

And if I can be really frank, Effers, if h2g2 is dead to you - why are you writing so much about it? Surely if it's dead you don't care that much? or am i misunderstanding the phrase as you're using it (as far as most people understand it, maybe from Mafia films "it's/you're dead to me" means that it becomes a non-person/thing.

What 'they' are trying to build here feels very much like what we had pre-Rupert and I think the only way forward is to let the people who are doing it get on with it. In the meantime people (researchers) should carry on writing entries, journals, having conversations etc etc and making it at least look like a viable proposition, a going concern.

I worry that if, for example, the consortium are trying to find backers, advertisers or generally sell the site and those people lurk around and find this kind of negativity the "h2g2 is dead" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are people here who have been around a long time and find it great, very sticky (no matter how hard we try to get away) even if they (ok me) write an average of one entry a year and comment sporadically on (too few) entries in PR. That's how the site works.

Don't forget that origionally, the site was commercial, in the pre-BBC days, and, additionally, the BBC didn't take over and run the site from the 'goodness of their heart'; They're origional desire to take over the site from digital village, was in order to harness and steal the technology behind the site, which, at the time was pretty cutting edge, and use it, as they did to build the whole DNA engine thinggy, which powered (and possibly still powers), their other message boards, forum comment sections and such like... the archurs boards, the 606 football/sport thinggy, the writing project from way back, the world war II site... but, due to the financial pressures from the BBC board and the 'need' to make cuts, they had to reduce this down (yeh, and OK, that thing about the BBC not competing with commercial stuff)...

Without Robby, without Noesis and without the community memebers who voluenteered to put their life on hold for months and months, we'd not be here now, full stop, ultimately the site had to leave the BBC, that was something decided beyond all of our control, by the BBC, by the BBC board, I dunno, one of those I guess...
In the treads at the moment, as far as I can see, some people are hell-bent on sucking the life out of the threads and conversations by, at every oppertunity making up and inventing moans and complaints, and talking to death about the way the site is run, how X Y or Z works, rather than getting on with the bisuness of having conversations about actual stuff...
I didn't contribute a great deal at all, compaired to some of the others to the entire bid process, the moving the site over, etc., etc., etc., but I saw how much time and effort the others were putting in, the hundreds of E-mails a day, an hour sometimes, the hundreds of posts on the noesis forums, the hours and hours of real life meetings, skype conversations, writing and work some of the others put in, and quite how some of them manage to retain their cool now, in the face of all these silly petty wining about small aspects of the site, whilst they symultaioniously ignore that somehow a so-called bunch of ammatures have this site up and running, and functioning as well as it is... There are some things very much wrong, with the tools we got from the BBC, and that is making the work of those 'behind the scenes', very tricky and time consuming, and things are still being fixed, repaired etc...

Or...;

can everyone just chill a bit man?

Thanks Dr. Zen I find your total honesty about the reality of making the new thing.and it was about things being difficult decisions to make very helpful.

I started this thread here on *my* journal specifically to voice my concerns and inner thoughts as they came up. I decided that was a healthy thing to do for myself..and causing no disruption to general threads.which I knew was annoying some people. That's fair enough..people will get annoyed at a sensitive phase like this..and as the transition contiues.

I made it abundantly clear how I was going to use this journal from the start..and I've said anyone is welcome to post here, if they wish.

I shall continue to use this journal in that way, so that I can avoid expressing quite full on feelings and anxieties..partly due to the intensity of the way I feel and experience things..on general threads.

No-one need read this journal. It's on my space..and anyone can unsub if they are on my friends list and see it appear.

I'm hugely re-assured that I'm allowed to express my fears and anger here..and am not gagged.This is a VERY HEALTHY sign to me of an organisation. And it goes to the heart of what I love about my country..that strong tradition of FREE SPEECH..particularly when it is very critical of the State. And people gave their lives for that.

I'm not reading all replies here straight away..

I feel much better about this place now that I was allowed to express that stuff *here* in an appropriate part of the web site.

I've a still a lot to think about..but will post within House Rules here on and off. I didn't come here since yesterday tea time. And I was concerned I might be suspended again or worse.

It's a process to work through for me. two steps forward..and hopefully only mostly one step back

But thank you so much again Dr. Zen for your honest clear and calm replies.