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

Ooh. For me it's probably that a lot of my online talking time now seems to be on my smartphone. It bleeps when I get a new twitter update, don't get that on h2g2.

But I do miss in depth cconversations about controversial topics. Maybe I should start more.

Yes... same here; esp with DMs on twitter, or @ replys, I'll useually reply to em quickly, if not straight away, as my mobile is useually in the vacinity, and when I hear the screatch of a seagull, I know someone has sent me soemthing facebooky twittery, smsery linkeinery etc...

I don't think h2g2 should at us. We like to take our time over our answers, and it doesn't matter if there are 6 hours between posts in a coherent conversation.

We are the slow food version of the internet. when we want to be.

You got a seagull, too? I was riding in a taxi once, when the seagulls started - it was the driver's phone. I asked him why, in the middle of this huge continent with no sea for 1000 km in any direction, he had thought of having a seagull ringtone. He said he liked it - it was better than music.

Which may be prudent, considering he was Turkish and you get enough Turkish music thundering out of cars on our streets. The music's OK, but it is usually rather loud and there seems to be some rule that the quality of the recording must be of the worst possible kind.

I feel sort of negative about "Busiest Conversations" -- it becomes competitive in the wrong way, encourages presence over substance if you know what I mean. During the BBC years it actually had an adverse effect on the Atelier. People came to the salon expecting to be entertained or because it was perceived as popular, a place to be In With the In-Crowd, and sometimes the quality of conversation suffered as a result.

HN's point is well taken (and is tangential to mine): how do you know that there's no activity? How do you measure it? By seeing who's hanging out in Ask and blaming 2legs for this and that?

And there's another metric to consider, the quality of participation. Who wants to actually talk about stuff, and who just wants to inject five snarky words dressed in two dozen smileys? Are five snarky words perfectly ok with what's going on in the thread or is it a derailment of a straight discussion that causes potential participants to quietly unsub in disgust?

The foregoing is not meant to be accusatory. As a community editor I think about this a whole lot. How can we get people talking, playing, creating? When's it appropriate to help things along?

I wouldn't call The Atelier - a conversation group with its own rules - the model for a participatory community. It's more a subgroup of it, attracting people who enjoy that kind of thing. I think it does a great job - it's been consistently maintained - but I personally prefer the creativity and wit and anarchic humour that comes with the open forums like Askh2g2. It is this that has inspired me to write for the project.

We used to have all sorts of role-playing sub-groups, of course. Most were active before I joined in 2003, but I occasionally stumble over the archaeology when I'm searching for something.

Yet, these sub-forums and sub-communities reflected a time when the h2g2 community was large and active, following the site launch (or relaunch). They helped divide the community into manageable chunks that researchers felt comfortable within. None of us want a monolithic bear-pit - we prefer a choice, and we like to hang out with the friends we make.

I don't see the h2g2 community currently having the size or collective motivation to recreate and maintain such a diverse site, but in the event of a relaunch, that may be exactly what it has to do. For now, even the once-reliable places like Askh2g2, Games Room, Peer Review, etc are very quiet.

As to metrics, well, those who operate the site have all the metrics they need in its database of conversations and guide entries and user accounts. You ask 'how do I know there's no activity?'. Well, I 'see' there's no activity. If you run the site, you have the metrics. Look them up, and tell me that Peer Review and Askh2g2 are as busy as they ever were, that we have as many new users joining up as we ever did, that we publish as many edited guide entries that we ever did.

I'm not going to be alarmist, as it helps nobody. The responsibility for increasing community participation is with the whole community, not the hosts. The good ideas are also out there in the community. My suggestion for this brainstorm is for the community editors and community members alike to engage with them. Not in rule-based sub-groups, but in the open forums, to which our once-active researchers still subscribe and occasionally lurk. There are some immensely talented people who still live on h2g2's periphery. Engage with them.

I'm afraid I have nothing new to add to the white board, you heard it all before

In terms of personal responsibility, I keep an eye out for newbies and usually drop by there journal, or post a reply to something they have posted along with a hello. Offer to help out in terms of pointing in them in the right direction, or if they are upset or confused by something drop by with .

I do this because I like to meet new people and I would like to do it here.

In terms of community development, in rl, while I would be pro-active in encouraging community participation, organising events, meeting to listen and discuss any issues within that community and see how they can be resolved as well as those new ideas to make it better more active place

Having done that,I also stand back, the community has to be given opportunities and sometimes encouragement to come together and participate but community development in terms of dynamics should be organic and given the space to grow itself and grow into itself, with it own characteristics.

This is why I struggle with threads being moved from Ask *at this time* when participation is so low, please don't jump on me. All I am saying is goes against the way I operate. At this time I would just let Ask get on with it not try to impose an idea of what Ask should be, I think it is counter-productive as it is stifles that organic development.

Perhaps we do not know whats going on or what is wanted, yes its there if you search but it make it more prominant. If you want more involvment, as a start we could use what is already there.

The thread by Icy told us who in the outside world was useing our entries is excellent, but I have not seen an update for some time.

The artists/photographers often ask for illustrations to encourage participation. The photo competition was good fun.

The challange thread listes the gaps in the entry list.

We have them already and could start blowing the dust off them and expanding them. They all created intrest and some activity.

If help is needed and we are willing to help we should step forward, count me in.

One thing to bear in mind with this, and it's Icy's remark about the community editors and the community members that brings me in to say this, the community editors *are* community members.

We've not been at the beeb for about two years now, there is no "us and them", and it would really help to get the community together, I think, if that thought was banished for good.

What we have is the community, those that are lurkers (and it does amuse me that the first post to this thread was a lurk ) those that are participants, and those that are volunteers. They're all community members.

I like Bald Bloke's idea of a Latest Activity window/list, and I've actually been working on one.
However I have to disagree with leaving Ask as a general chat room. The site's confusing enough as it is without taking one of the only defined use areas, and turning it into a free for all, there's forums already for those, and there's more stuff soon to come.

Icy, you said
"As to metrics, well, those who operate the site have all the metrics they need in its database of conversations and guide entries and user accounts. You ask 'how do I know there's no activity?'. Well, I 'see' there's no activity. If you run the site, you have the metrics. Look them up, and tell me that ..."

You know Icy, I used to do just that, back when I was a volunteer. It was really interesting to see what people all over the world were reading. And I like to think some researchers were pleased to know their entries were consulted. But compiling metrics didn't reduce the amount of bemoaning one iota.

No matter how many readers h2g2 attracted worldwide, no matter that researchers and volunteers managed to persevere despite technical difficulties, some folks would find something to bemoan.

Bemoaners gotta bemoan, I guess.

People are going to use h2g2 and the Internet differently over time. For example, I don’t as a rule post questions in Askh2g2. I use duckduckgo.com for most of my information needs.

If we're bemoaning that h2g2 doesn’t yet have all the features of a modern CMS, I might join in for one quick moan. Oh, how I wish h2g2 had a few more of those modern features I like so much on other sites! Okay, done. Maybe now I go back to being patient because the Tech Team is working on it.

I see no evidence that your policy on regulating the askh2g2 forum is having a positive effect on membership, participation, activity, creativity or general community happiness. Some may think it is having the opposite effect.

Sometimes the hardest thing is to recognise when your best intentions aren't working; to take stock, recalibrate and make an alternative plan. To do so is a sign of strength, not weakness.

To not expect results overnight is a sign of intelligence

There's a lot more being done behind the scenes.

Which spawns another idea.

What can you share about the good times around the corner which will promote good feeling and increased participation across the wider community?

What can we in turn be doing in preparation for it?

It's just a shame that we've never had, nor I guess are we likely to get a time frame for this.

People are saying 'if', not 'when'.

We're still working on it, but we're looking at cleaning up the different Forums, making it clear what each of them is for, so being able to get answers should be a lot easier.

But, probably the biggest thing we're looking at is what we're calling The Lounge. Which will be a sort of chat room where anything goes. Chatting about the news, the weather, what biscuits are best to dunk in tea.

Because we're also working on a totally new method of search and results, you'll even be able to ask questions in the Lounge, but those asked in Ask, and their answers will get a higher weighting and therefore likelihood of being returned in searches.

I don't think a top-down approach to community development works and this is what it feels like and seems to me

Top down? Will you stop thinking along this "us and them" route, it's utter rubbish. Every member of your so-called "top" is a user of the site.
Every decision that's made is made by consulting a wider pool of users than just those whose name you see in italics.
And the larger a decision, the more people involved.

Be constructive, come up with good, workable suggestions and they're very likely to be done. But keep moaning about hard done by you are, and you won't be listened to.

I do not think in terms of them and us, it is you who is subscribing that to me. Could you please stop it.

Icy: "As to metrics, well, those who operate the site have all the metrics they need in its database of conversations and guide entries and user accounts."

Pastey: "I like Bald Bloke's idea of a Latest Activity window/list, and I've actually been working on one."

If we're having a list, why not bring in some of those metrics? Most read entries, most visited forums, etc. Show that people are using the guide?

oooo! that'd be champion... 10 most recently updated conversations, 10 most recently created user-accounts, 10 most recently read entrys, and perhaps a top 10 list of the 'most read entrys', (updated from the database/site-visitor stats type thinggy) We all know the site gets far more people visiting, and just* reading entrys, than active reasearchers writing/reading/forums, but as a user one doesn't necessarily even know 'that great entry' we wrote, has ever* been read, as, and as we've often mentioned before, so* few entrys end up with conversations attached to them A way of increasing that would be good, but I'm sure I've a vague memory of discusions of exactly that, time and time again, and no real way ever found, to increase commetning/conversations off of entrys...

I do like the idea of listing new researchers. There's no easy way to find out who's just joined.

Given that we are "slow chat" by nature, I don't think having more active threads would dilute the ones we have now; in fact, I'm not sure what that means. Living in a far-off time zone means I have lots of backlog to read when I log in to h2g2 in my morning, but I'll still participate in as many conversations as I care to. Let researchers invent forums. If the idea is a good one, people will come. If the host is persistent about maintaining the idea, people will stay.