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

, both.
I won't post it without a strong consensus to do so (which even I can tell this clearly isn't).
The only exception to this promise is if my Lord and Master Jodes tells me to do so

...oh, yeah. The 'cause'. Can't think why I worded that so clumsily. Why, it almost sounds deliberately ambiguous.

'We don't really welcome newcomers...'

You're right, and that aspect has gone unaddressed for too long. We need to be grabbing them as soon as they arrive in PR and the EGWW and hooking them in. Psycorp and Fizzymouse in particular have been working very hard over the last few days in this respect, and we've all been spreading the word among some 'lapsed' Researchers who've been disgruntled with the PR process and are slowly encouraging them back in. If we succeed in keeping a few of those people active in PR, we'll have a healthy review forum that's much open to debate. Personally I think that's a great, if a little unflashy, use of our time


I don't know if it's true or not, but this reminds of a story that the Corrs owe part of their success to the Republican movement in Northern Ireland. When children asked their parents for money for 'the Corrs', the parents were often all too willing to give, hearing that they wanted money for 'the Cause' instead...

Deliberately ambiguous? Yes, that works sometimes

If you want to encourage newbies, may I recommend the EGWW? Many of the more conscientious submit their stuff there first, because it says to in the directions. (I remember I did that for my first few entries.) They never get any answer and they drift off and that's it...

Yeah I always wondered why the EGWW was not used properly. Perhaps there should be a push to get it working, not unlike the move which created the UnderGuide... why is the EGWW such a dead end, to paraphrase a respected Guide Researcher.

See maybe I should be your guinea pig. I'm a slightly disgruntled (albeit with redeamable features - allegedly ) former contributer (on a vastly smaller scale to most other people) to the edited guide, where most of my contributions to the site have been in ways that are not creating entries. But I'm open to the idea. I've tried to make myself a little less disgruntled with the site with varying degrees of success.

How would you entice me back to the Edited Guide? And/or make me a little less disgruntled? (I know this is the lazy mans way of trying to get an answer but humour me )

*gruntles*

Does this help?

Part of the reason the WW isn't used well is because newbies post there and no-one replies to them, and oldies just go straight to PR because they know that if they post in WW no-one will reply. I overstate the case, but not by much.

I really like the WW, and think there is much potential there for guiding new or struggling writers, or anyone wanting feedback, support, suggestions about an entry they are working on. It definitely needs more commentators though.

Wow, it certainly is pretty dead - poor old Opti has a brilliant looking article there (A28009938), and no bites at all...If only I knew anything about the topic in question...

"*gruntles*

Does this help?"

A little but it sounds too much like gruntbuggly, which just reminds me of vogon poetry

There are quite a few established researchers in the WW at the moment, glad I was wrong about that.

The Eds have put a Talking Point page on Elvis there too.

Just a quick note - I'm in South Carolina for this weekend, and my hotel does not have internet (despite advertising to the contrary) so I'm just quickly stealing a bit of WiFi. I'll be able to give my thoughts in depth Sunday night or Monday.

I sympathize a bit with Terran - persuade me that my time is better spent writing an entry than moping about on Facebook. As of now, I'm not entirely convinced and rather far from motivated.

Isn't the enticement to write (or to come back to write) going to be specific to the individual though?

Yep, it's different for everyone.
My :

If it's companionship you're looking for, you're probably better with Facebook, but you're surely better in RL than in either. If it's a means of contacting remote friends, then the various social networking sites are surely better too. Telephony and television beat writing in most contexts. If you want the special intimacy that writing can confer, a letter is special. I always think that the internet is a sham on that score. "Hey, world, look at us being intimate" is a bit phony.

If you're looking for breadth of outlook, then that's where h2g2 first has something to offer. Intelligent people with a broad range of viewpoints. It works best for me as listener/lurker than as orator, but it's stimulating and valuable.

And writing motivation? Well, if you want a critical audience, this is a clever and (usually) thoughtful one, though it is a little diminished these days. I think h2g2 is an excellent (and free) course in writing improvement. I personally think that PR/EG is an arbitrarily-bounded part of a more general whole, but that perception will depend on what genres and styles a writer wants to try out.

The piece-length discipline is good here. The attention-span of the site enforces economy, which is good for the learning aspect. Writing effective short pieces requires attention to message, structure and style all at the same time. One disappointing aspect of that, though, is that the really incisive genres (journalism and essay) are little encouraged, thanks largely to PR's rather silly "no personal opinion" stricture. It might be a bit of resentful self-delusion, I guess, but I've always thought that former Slants (certain of them anyway) stifled journalism out of jealousy. It must be tough to join the hallowed Beeb all full of ambition and optimism, only to find yourself minding a backwater where the enthusiastic amateurs are at least as good as you are

Does all this that mean you grow out of h2g2? I think the proper writers do. Most of the real stickiness is more social. That's the challenge for keeping the site alive, really. Its format, appearance and features are very tired nowadays, and won't draw in new blood. In that respect, I think it's a half-assed throwback, unworthy of the BBC's aspirations but unfortunately typical of it's actual performance. We desperately need some disrespect towards the landlord, IMO, and get him to redecorate the place.

You won't find a community as sharp as this one in Facebook, though. As long as we've got attitude and wit, we're still kicking.

"Isn't the enticement to write (or to come back to write) going to be specific to the individual though?"

Quite so. But then isn't the point to find common themes of disinterest/unhappiness amongst people? On my travels across the guide, although I'm unique, I've come across quite a few people with similiar grievances as myself. And the trick I suppose is to find what will please as many of those people as possible. Politicians seem to be doing that all the time - although I'm sure we'll do it far more successfully . Somehow they always seem to get enough people to vote for them.

"You won't find a community as sharp as this one in Facebook, though. As long as we've got attitude and wit, we're still kicking."

That should be put on the front of the site in bold brass lettering (or which ever way will get the most attention, maybe just good old ariel bold font size 72 will do ). Exactly!

And simultaneously its what frustrates me the most. And it is that the raw potential of this site is staggering. I've made suggestions in the past which have come to naught, so I think I'm more interested in what other people have to say. Over the years we've probably had some of the most talented people come across a spectrum of abilities ever to grace a keyboard, and not enough has been done to encourage it. I think its now time for us as a community to do that for ourselves now. Before the community dies completely.

Thanks for that, Pin. Well said.

I'm not sure if I'm envious that you've found the lure of Facebook while I haven't, or relieved.
Nobody on Facebook gives a darn what you write or will spend the time to read it, though they may give a polite grunt if you superpoke them for it.
If you learn something new and become wildly excited about it, h2g2 will grin along with you. Not sure about the folks busy throwing sheep on Facebook...

Well, I'm just back, more than a little crush because of the loss of the top ranked Ohio State football team (previously undefeated) but otherwise fine I've had some of these ideas bottled up in me since Wednesday, so forgive the long, steam-of-consciousness post...

I'm not sure what facebook has to do with h2g2. It fills an entirely different purpose. If you would rather spend your time shuffling through facebook photos, fine. h2g2 is more intellectual, and it's more about meeting new people rather than staying in touch with old friends. Both are very social, and can be entertaining, though.

"Personally, I think that the momentum in PR is just beginning to pick up again and you should keep your powder dry for a couple of weeks."

I find that whole idea to be ridiculous. Really. It reinforces the misconception that focusing on quality somehow diminishes the site's capacity for absorbing more entries. It's not an either-or situation. People are capable of being convinced to write an entry and write it creatively.

Furthermore, debate does not hurt Peer Review. Debate, especially at the critical junctures when it is most relevant to the site's present, is essential to Peer Review. The fact that some people bring or otherwise find conflict and strife in such debate is unfortunate. I'm generally vigorous in my beliefs, but civil, and I think that that is the only way to change anything.

This debate needs to happen, and I think that in order for precedent to be set, there needs to be an example. Just like a high court can only set precedent or make a decision based on a court *case*, precedents in Peer Review will only be set by getting *entries* through the process. The timing is irrelevant, though I would say the sooner, the better if we want h2g2 to have a long term future. Things are not changing currently, and based on the present system, PR activity will begin to decline soon once again. Why? Because the "pull" of bringing entries into PR through a movement will exhaust itself, and there's not enough "push" in the community to make up for that. I don't mean to denigrate this burgeoning movement, I really don't, but it (and any movement of its kind) must by necessity motivate people to write based on survival, guilt, favors and pleading. Those are not things that will inspire people to write once those factors are removed. It is a short term fix.

I very strongly believe that bringing more openness and inclusivity to the guide will result in more "push" - a long term fix. In that sense, an effort to open the guide up - the value I am concerned with - is complementary to efforts to increase the quantity of entries. They have the same ultimate aims - the survival and relevancy of h2g2 and its content. That's why I reject the idea that pushing for opening the guide up will in any way be detrimental to it, in the short term or the long term.

These issues of a lack of entries are merely symptoms of a larger malaise and lack of interest in the guide. What's happening is we're treating the symptoms, but not the disease. I've spoken to Skanky on his PS about this, and I can't think of a better way to put it... we need a new culture of writing around here. It should respect alternative contributions and really allow the site to grow. For an encyclopedia that's all about being 'unconventional', our Writing Guidelines are inflexible and unchanging, which is a problem.

h2g2 is irrelevant unless we focus on producing high-quality entries. I'd rather have 1 excellent, entertaining, unconventional entry on the front page a day than five wikipedish entries. By focusing on quantity, we are in effect trying to compete with sites like wikipedia, and when we do that, we lose. h2g2 must play to its strengths, which means having interesting and entertaining content, written with élan. If we want to attract new writers, let's give them an example that will make them aspire to the level of entry which the guide expects. Without that, we will continue to lose new users and we'll have nothing with which to entice the old and new to stay put.

Surely it depends who you're friends with on Facebook. If I want to reach a wide sample of people my age, Facebook is the most efficient way for me to do that.

D'ya suppose this topic has life to it? Because if so, we ought to take it elsewhere... but my impression is that you can't exactly look up "high school students" on Facebook and befriend them all. You need to know who you're looking for beforehand. Unless you have found intelligent life on some group or another.
h2g2 has a built-in audience in the AWW and in PR.