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

It occurred to me while doing all the little things that make Sundays so restful chez Gheorgheni - mostly to do with the Post, the FP, and emails - that the reason I was just a tiny bit annoyed at the question 'what do I get out of contributing to the Edited Guide?' was that my first tendency was to answer, 'Well, for one thing, you get somebody on the Subediting Team to edit your Stuff and load it, and they do it for free. You could say thank you.'

Then I realised that I wasn't putting that poetically enough. So I decided to go to a better source for my inspiration:

JFK's speechwriters.

Somebody wrote this speech, which is memorised by schoolchildren. It's Public Domain (unlike Dr King's), as it was produced for the US Government, which is constitutionally prohibited from copyrighting its Stuff. So here it is - the Speech, with suitable emendations:

My fellow Hootooers:

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of the digital revolution. Let the word go forth from this website (h2g2.com), to friend and wikiwriter alike, that the code has been passed to a new generation of Hootooers - born in this medium, tempered by GuideML, disciplined by a hard and bitter Peer Review, proud of our ancient smiley heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those user rights to which this community has always been committed, and to which we are committed today on our PS's and around the site.

Let the whole internet know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price - as long as the site stays free - bear any burden - as long as strangers stay out of our private threads - meet any hardship - as long as nobody asks us to do too much work - support any friend - especially 2legs - oppose any foe - especially 2legs - in order to assure the survival and the success of h2g2.

This much we pledge - and more. We like to hear ourselves talk.

In the short history of the World Wide Web, only a chosen few have been granted the role of defending freedom of snarkiness in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other user-generated content site. The synergy, the anorak quality, the single-minded devotion to veering off-topic which we bring to this endeavour will light our website and all who link to it - and the glow from that hyperfire can truly light the digital world.

And so, my fellow Hootooers: ask not what the Edited Guide can do for you - ask what you can do for the Edited Guide!

Now, doesn't that just make you proud?



PS Like JFK, I had help with this. The idea came from Elektra.

That is very clever. to you both. Did someone really ask that question If so do we really want them here? This site has always been about giving, not receiving hasn't it?



Websailor

It's Brilliant!

I don't think the questioner was saying that about himself, Webbie - we're all givers, here - but suggesting that we needed to take the question on board if we wanted to get more writers. Which is true enough, although likely to strike me funny when I've just been removing someone else's curly apostrophes...

What I'd love for us to do, though, is to look at our writing as an opportunity rather than a chore, and thus make the EG explode with Fun Stuff.

had h2g2 been around earlier, you'd have thought of it way before JFK and his government at the time

Veni, vidi, sedi, I inmobiles

(I came, I saw, I stayed, I ain't shifting)

The Prof speaks Latin better than the Pope.

Bravo, Dmitri!!


That was a rousing speech!


lil x