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

I must have come in here through the back door and still don't know if anything in particular is expected of me.

Ask h2g2 is not a place I frequent - but have read a lot about it.

I mostly hang out in the different rooms in Hati's summerhouse and some of the many places in Pierce the Pirate's ship. And the salon for a year or so. To keep up with the people there is quite a lot really.

When I read an interesting comment I go to the reseachers user space and have a look see at their presentation and a few conversations. If I find the researcher or some of the conversations interesting I 'make them a friend' and/or subscribe to some conversations - and all sorts of interesting journals pop up.

I subscribe to Peer Review and Alternative Writing Workshop but have hardly the time for comments though I do feel it is a (dear) duty.

I've been here for five years and have yet to find out what is 'the right way' to participate. If there is any.

I have fun, serious discussions, meet new people ... and wonder about how different people are as are their interests and conditions of life. I've had my opinions nuanced - which is a good thing. If you ask my husband Sig. S. he'll tell you that I spend alltogether too much time caring about people here and checking on how they are doing. Listening, laughing, advicing, asking for opinions. Don't ask my employers. They'll tell you I'm meeting deadlines with a too thin margin.

I do think that in this place it's about 'what you give, you get'. And there are loads of interesting people still to meet.

Sorry, I don't really answer or comment your original journal, do I.

Still around - just not as often. E-mail sent.

I've been worrying some of the night if I have put my foot in .

I excuse if I've offended anyone.

It is the >>'what you give, you get'<<. It could be misconstrued as: 'if you don't get what you want, you don't give enough' or something like that.

What I meant was that everybody have their own reasons for being here. And therefore I don't expect or rely on getting the response or the crowd I need, when I need it. Allthough, most of the people I've met are caring and attentive and go out of their way to respond, react, discuss and comfort. And that is really amazing.

My husband has a proverb: You cannot expect anything without giving (it) yourself. I'm not sure whether it is Italian or Danish. I think it also works like that here.

I do get lot - I am enriched almost everyday - and I do my best to contribute.

kelli, you're one of my favorite people here ... no, wait, don't away...!

I've been on h2g2 for almost seven years, and I first joined to find out what the the rest of the world was saying/doing, because the US is so inwardly oriented. We (through our media) tend to ignore the rest of the world. Got really tired of that cr*p, and had my eyes suitably opened ever since on h2g2! Seriously, I am very grateful for the viewpoints I've been allowed to see, and the smartening-up I've received.

Here I am and here I'll remain, probably loitering in the alley waiting for Teucher, no doubt, as she trucks the cat and lightbulbs out.

I've also slouched off and started a blog of my own, but it's still unter construction (spacecadette dot wordpress dot com).
If you start your own blog, I hope you'll tell me where it is...


SC

Dear Kelli,

(am also already losing the question from the first post...)
I too lurk, occasionally post, worry over the disappearance of some people (probably others than your ones?) but still stay on, and try to keep up and contribute in conversations. (did that make sense?)
I even lurked the Atelier (without ever posting, I think) but the thread moved on too quickly for me - 100 posts overnight, I would do nothing else if I started to reply!

Hmmm. What I think I want to say is this - let's stay. Perhaps some lost friends will return. Perhaps we can find some of them and invite them back? Let's make new friends, the new people can't all be bad? and perhaps this again makes a golden age, even if different?

(About losing friends - see my journal, 'The Attic'. I found so many letters from friends I lost contact with, I had to cry. I wrote to one, and feel I should get going on a few more letters soon... And I'm not more hormonal than usual! )

<< probably loitering in the alley waiting for Teucher, no doubt, as she trucks the cat and lightbulbs out. >>

No doubt because she got them away from Ag...


And they say the memory is only the second thing to go? Wrong!

SC

Friends:

People have always left h2g2. I was deeply saddened when Kaeori left, but I see now that that was more that three years ago. And I was saddened when Bels and Old Hairy died. The important thing is to make friends with all the new people coming along.

Blogs:

I've never felt the need to say Bleep! in public, or at least only on very rare occasions, so I haven't any great need to go a-blogging elsewhere. OK, it would be nice to be able to doll up my personal space with photos: I still miss that from when we were allowed. But I've got used to it.

Why I'm here:

I've always considered h2g2 first and foremost as a place where I can explain things to people, and I can't think of a better place to do so. In wikipedia, my carefully phrased explanations would be edited into bland uninformative facts. In a personal blog, very few people would see it. I often think that writers for h2g2 would get a huge boost if the Eds would just once give us some indication of just how many people read our entries. They've hinted that it is a huge number.

Unfortunately, the lack of diagrams in h2g2 is seriously restricting me in writing any further entries, which is why my output has dropped so much in the last year.

>So I'm not leaving until I'm the last one out, with the factory cat under one arm and the light-bulbs in a box under the other.

Can I help you carry the light-bulb box, Ag?

Very dear Kelli,

So glad to find you back on. I am sorry that I have been silent, but I wondered whether I wasn't being a pain always being "cheerful" about problems!!

You are such a special person and having shared your lvely wedding with you and I assure you that I intend to share the birth of your firfrst born with you.

Go well, dear friend. You are a much loved person.

With much affection

Christiane AR1

*s Kelli*

I've been a lot more busy with work at the moment revising for exams that were harder than the ones I did at Uni, but with less time. I'm still here.

I've given up blogging because I find it more fun to be on the salon - and less self adsorbed as well!

I'm still here , though only now to ask questions about summat that would've cropped up in the day (like how to link Charlie Chaplin and Kirsten Dunst playing Kevin Bacon..etc.).

Glad to see you're still about though, you're one of the few people I consider (and please don't be offended by this) normal

Ask does seem a bit different to what it used to be, but everything changes, and it's up to us to change it again if we so wish.

So much for an early night.....


brownies and and always look on the bright side....

You guys *punches each of you on the shoulder* I didn't start this so ou could say nice things about me (but heck, you can if you want) but being described as 'normal' is one of the nicest things that have been said about me for a while

There was a time (when the fields were greener and ...etc) when topic drift often led somewhere interesting rather than a descent into knob gags and ooh-er missus. I don't know if people have been making a special effort in ask for this past week but it does seem to have been much better in terms of sticking to answering questions asked. I got lots of useful stuff when I asked about nappies for example. Or perhaps I just haven't read the right threads. Ask waxes and wanes. I wasn't happy about the Forum when it was set up - I understand why it was but I worried it would take all the proper conversation away from ask and we'd be left with the silly stuff. Now people have got bored with the atmosphere in there and are bringing some of the meatier conversations back to ask which I reckon is a good thing.

But I do miss the regular faces, and feel sad that a lot of the good and interesting stuff is hidden in journals (especially as I periodically forget we have the 'add to friends' feature) and, worse, offsite.

But maybe I was just taking people for granted? Expecting that because they had been here they would continue to be here, and that is an unrealistic expectation. People change and move on after all, it happens everywhere else so why not here?

Glad to see so many of you here at any rate

Hi kelli,

I know I'm not one of your very bestest hootoo friends, but I certainly like having you around here, and I can't imagine that there are any blogs where you'd be unwelcome. I'm another of those who's started a blog, but most (not quite all) of what I post there, I wouldn't post here, either because it's too long or not 'right' for h2g2. I still use my journal sometimes, but I never used it that often. I promise faithfully that my rehearsal ramblings threads will remain here, and you'd be welcome to lurk or post in my witterings about upcoming shows, as are all nice people - a 'Kiss Me, Kate' thread should start in about three weeks.

Hi David, I have swung by your blog, and many of the other blogs that belong to people that were once here.

It struck me that I don't know how one is suppose to comment on these things - they all look and feel less like conversations so much as announcements and comments thereon. They don't seem to be a good place to keep in touch with someone. Rather, they seem like a place to read someone's musings or writings and to comment on those, but not to chat.

For example, someone is having some building work done of a similar scale (by the sounds of it) to what we are having done. I was going to respond to the blog and (as I would here) say what is going on with mine but then deleted it all because I'm not sure it is the right place for that.

It is a bit bewildering...

That's why I want to keep my rehearsal ramblings here, as I very mucb enjoyed the conversational aspects of my last one. Blogging is very different to h2g2ing, and I like aspects of both. I'm certainly not leaving h2g2 any time soon. Some blogs do seem to end up with a conversational tone, but it's still not the same. Isn't that odd? Personally, I am happy to receive any comments on my blog, whether chatty or not, but I'm also happy if nobody responds, which probably makes me more than a little .

Feel free to come and make comments on my blog, Kelli. I'm up for a bit of mutual commiseration re dust and mess - should we ever actually find a builder.

That's pretty much how I feel about blogs kelli. I suppose over a period of time you build up a circle of friends and acquaintances who will come along and post comments, but there's nothing like the same feeling of a community there, the way there is here. A Researcher at h2g2 can see a post you made in any one of thousands of forums and then follow you back to your PS, read your journal and decide whether or not to join in any of the conversations. That possibility doesn't exist with a blog. I know that a lot of the people on my h2g2 friends list came to my PS because of my posts in PR.

I feel the same way about blogs too - that hootoo is a community and it's a place to chat and build convos and debates with other people - and I have a blog because of that. The blog's my journal. Everyone quite welcome to comment, and I'm quite pleased if people read it, but in the end it's for me - this is why I used to average about one journal entry every six months: wasn't what I did here (little as that may be!).

Particularly as it seems to have become an outlet for the inrussiaing I never felt particularly able to inflict on people here, or in RL for that matter.

I vaguely recall that in one of my first journal entries I remarked how h2g2 pulled all the best things about communicating on the Internet together into one place - the journals were like blogs, the forums and conversations were like messageboards/email lists, and... probably something about entry writing too.