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

Hi Ed's...

Some recent decisions and changes have again, it appears, brought about criticism of our hosts. I'm sure you are both fed-up to the back-teeth of it, but as always you manage to deal with it professionally and courteously.

The community are often too eager to comment or criticise when often, they don't have any understanding of the task you take on-board daily. I read all too often that you don't interact, don't respond, remain 'at large', when all too often I suspect that you are up to your ears in dealing with it all.

I remember sometime ago (and I'm talking years ago) when a short five-minute video on the BBC showed a Radio 1 presenter and just what they had to do between voicing the intro of a track and it ending. It went along the lines of shuffling and plugging in jingle carts, through to interviewing Joe Public before they went on air, collaborating with the news crew, reading letters, cuing the next track etc. All this rigmarole left zero-time before the mic was re-opened and the next track/item was announced.

I can remember thinking "Wow!" All that time I'd thought that they'd listened to the tunes *loud* in the headphones or waltzed off down the corridor for a crafty fag at the back of Broadcasting House. It was patently obvious that they had to work, albeit celebrities.

So, can we do something similar here? Yourself and Derek are our celebrities and I'd really like to know just how involved and complicated your working days are. I know it's asking even more of you both, but perhaps a little jotting of times on a notepad along the lines of...

08.30 Arrive at desk
08.31 Boot computer
08.35 Receive 27 moderation email referrals
08.39 Prioritise emails and respond
09.30 Planned meeting with New Media Experience team
10.45 Quick surf
10.47 Finalise tomorrows Front-Page
etc, etc

...could eventually be written-up into Guide Entry detailing the subtleties of being our hosts.

I think the wider community would be thankful and more educated for it. What say you?

Hello there DDD,

Thanks for this. We're part of a wider team that itself is part of the BBC as a whole and our day is diverse so we can't really segment it in this way. It's an interesting idea though and we appreciate your input.

We regret that people feel that we don't interact enough with Researchers, but most of our work isn't seen by our users. I think people notice if something goes wrong, but we spend a lot of time maintaining stuff and working with other departments in the BBC trying to raise the profile of h2g2 (for example, getting better positioning on the front page). It isn't all about changing promos though - and we can't share everything we do.

However, thanks again for your feedback.

Natalie