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

I think that chap being put off by his ACE greeting is a one-off. I am sure most people would take it in the spirit it's meant, maybe finding it quaint, charming, or original. The ACE's could point out in their greeting message that this welcome is a tradition on the site, and not intended as an intrusion, but here are a few tips to point them in the right direction.

Looking at the new Pliny layout, I don't see how much can be done to improve the navigability, and the "search conversations" surely finds everything...

Maybe it's because I'm still in Goo, but there is a 20 Most Recently Updated Conversations list already, on the h2g2 statistics page. I have it on my page and I often use it to see what's going on if I haven't been here for a while.

However I can't post a working link here.

The chap wasn't put off by the ACE greeting, but by others going over and in his words "desperately trying to be my friend"

He thought the ACE greeting was a good thing.

More useful points raised in this thread, but care is needed to make sure our communication works as well as possible... "we actively consult them" inadvertently comes across very like "us and them" and some points made inadvertently come across as moaning about "us and them" rather than being constructive...



I joined h2g2 after stumbling across it from another BBC board, and the ACE welcome I received was very informative and helpful - I was pleased to have been noticed, although it was a surprise to receive a message, then I pondered the information for a month or so and jumped straight into Peer Review

My pet newbies with supercool U numbers only have an ACE message on their PS...

The chap must have seemed interesting to attract others to send him a message

Ok I am going back to approach of community development because I think it really is an a fundamental and important point

I don't think that having a community discussion on any issue is impossible here. I do think there is an inability to 'manage' one.

This is not just due to 'the same old voices and a load of yelling', a vocal minority derailing a silent majority, and I do think that is unfair to say that of any one and many discussions


In terms of community development, if you can not have a discussion in the community it is dead in the water.

It is not a solution to take away the discussion from the community in which it needs to be taking place in, have it elsewhere, decide on solutions and then implement them.

My post now is *just* my personal observation and some words advise.

I have seen many a great plan like the lounge just not work because of the way it has been implemented.

I am worried that there are many good ideas for 'the community' but the way in which they are implemented may scupper them in terms of longer terms goals and make for a whole load of unnecessary difficulties and headaches getting them off the ground in the short term

Feel free to take them or leave them, that is all I don't mind either way

I think this thread does show that it is perfectly ok to have a discussion

there has been a variety of ideas, postings and contributions

sorry if I have waffled on a bit

Peanut said:
"I have seen many a great plan like the lounge just not work because of the way it has been implemented."


The Lounge has been implemented? When did that happen? Can you please post a link to the Lounge please?

Hi HN

I didn't say that it had been implemented, just that I have seen very good ideas like the lounge not work as intended or fail because of the way in which they have been implemented, which is different

I think that a lot of forums and web communities have died away now people do a lot of chatting on Facebook and Twitter.

So it's worth thinking about what we can do on h2g2 that we can't do anywhere else - and how we can work on that.

For me: it's interesting discussions that really make me think, discussions where people are respectful and entertain all sides of the argument. I am scared to post on the comment forums of most newspapers, I shy away from controversial topics on twitter, which is after all my public profile. Facebook has almost everyone I have ever met in real life on it. Also h2g2 has been a great source of *new* friends, though I'm now getting to know people on twitter as well. And some of the people on twitter are getting to know my h2g2 friends on twitter.

Peanut said:
"I have seen many a great plan like the lounge just not work because of the way it has been implemented.”

Peanut said:
"I didn't say that it had been implemented…”

Okay, Peanut. You seem to be alluding to something that did not work because of the way in which it had been implemented. You have just clarified that this great plan is not the Lounge. Could you please be specific about which great plan didn’t work because of the way in which it had been implemented?

Hi again HN

I think I have come across wrong to you

When I said I have many a great plan like the lounge, I mean that that plans like this are good, I have seen good plans go astray because of the way in which they have been implemented.

The concept of 'the lounge', has been mentioned on h2g2 before, as in the pipeline, being planned offsite for a while and I am not unsupportive, quite the reverse really...

I have never said it is not a good one.

My post was really much more general, and also personal, so really I draw on my experience as a person, active member of communities, community worker, I have management experience and have also been graced with the odd community leadership thing

None of which I am looking for here, and just looks like cv



I like to think though that this experience, knowledge, those skills are in some way, well transferable, which is why I just offered my thoughts on take or leave it basis

because I really don't mind

In pliny we have http://h2g2.com/info

Sorry, Pastey, misread Post 51.

I hope there are several people here who can vouch that I am not a troll. I’ve been with h2g2 since 2000 when Douglas Adams was still around, and I’ve contributed several Guide Entries, am still contributing the columns ‘Colours of Wildlife’ and ‘The Phyto-Philes’ to ‘The Post’, and have also contributed thousands of postings in conversations. There was a time when I think some of what I posted was negative and detrimental to the Guide but I hope those times are over now. I hope I can be seen as not just a complainer.

I am not really complaining, in fact … but I do see a problem here, in that the Guide is not flourishing … while it certainly has the potential, and by rights should flourish.

This has been one of the first really interactive ‘community’ sites on the internet. The growth of this site has unfortunately been hampered by various constraints and poor decisions, and now we have been overtaken by other social sites. In spite of this, I think h2g2 still has a claim to existence.

There are sites that do certain things much better. Facebook is a good place to stay in contact with distant friends and casual acquaintances. It’s a good place to share photos, frivolous nonsense, jokes and funny images, and the occasional interesting and insightful link. Wikipedia is a good place … at least a good *starting* place … for finding information on almost anything. We can’t compete with all that, but there are some things we can do better.

For me what we do best is having a bunch of intelligent people working together at sharing information in an entertaining way. There are the entries … there is still much we can do to become better at presenting them, I would say more pictures, and other people here will probably have their own good suggestions. Some members here are great at writing entries from a unique angle, taking up a specific point of interest about something. This site has a great value in *developing* writers, getting them to be more attention-grabbing in their writing but without resorting to cheap tricks or manipulation. I think that can be a very strong point of this site.

Then there is so much of this site that goes beyond the actual entries. There is a huge amount of creativity going on here. Our journal postings, our conversations … for me, the real treasures are in these. We can chat with a sentence or two exchanged here and there, but we can also write at length and go in depth. Sometimes we are talking about things in the world, sometimes about ourselves, but the thing is that here we get people who are clever and creative, but still grounded and there is really a kind of honesty here that is missing from much of the ‘net. We are not like Facebook, with people trying to cram in flattering images of themselves and collecting long lists of superficial ‘friends’. What I see here is people genuinely engaging with others. We can choose how much … we can ‘hide’ behind screen names, or give our real names. The entries and discussions allow us to find people with similar interests, in a way I haven’t yet seen on any other sites. The way that discussions and entries are stored and can be accessed, things really being ‘on the record’, makes the site a wonderful resource. We can have fast or slow chat, conversations can go on for months or years. There is so much humanity here.

Well, I am sure even more could be said. But … my own suggestion is
that we emphasize these *unique* points of h2g2 when trying to attract new members. Try to get a true impression of what we are doing rather than comparisons with Wikipedia, Facebook or whatever. Also I’d like to know … are we advertising? How are we making the web world aware of our existence? I am willing to try and help out with advertising, with creating funny pictures for adverts if possible.

I hope there are several people here who can vouch that I am not a troll.
I will vouch for that Willem and the valuable contribution artisticaly you have made

Thanks for that great post Willem!

Definitely not Facebook! As a relative newcomer may I say how valuable the ACEs welcome to me personally was, I'd spent ages debating whether h2g2 was, well, just too intelligent for my tastes. Drawn by a love for all things DNA, but to be blunt, slightly intimidated by what greeted me on first dipping my toes into the site. Having sought advice from those same welcoming members ( my apologies for being a pain) I decided to take the plunge and become as involved as I could.

Maybe a 'welcome visitor' type forum/ link on the FP that gently guides those dropping in for the first time, put simply and in none technical terms, would encourage those like myself not to run away when faced with the prospect of submissions in codes etc.

I appreciate not all entries are for the masses, but with such a brilliant and diverse membership there's something for all, you just have to dig around a bit! For me it was searching for stuff I was already interested in, that lead me to see what else the researcher had written.

As with everything the more you become involved, the more you'll get out of life. There's still a lot of things on here I won't add my thoughts to as they are well over my head, but ask me to create a pretty picture or scribble a tale or two and I'm a happy guy.

Please don't dismiss the Luddites like myself, but if we're ( and I presume to include myself in the we) to encourage more members maybe an obvious H2G2 for dummies section may help?

I will now attempt to leave this post without inserting a smiley......

From the way you have fitted in so well, seemingly right from the start, Freewayriding, it felt to me that there was always a Freewayriding-shaped hole there for you to come and fill.

Look - no smiley!



(whoops)

I second that idea - both for Willem and FWR. We're glad you're here.

Isn't that what we want to do with newcomers, though? Find a way to make them feel welcome without being too intrusive? I think that's a delicate trick, though.

When I started in 2005, I had no idea you people were so friendly. I just sort of slipped in to use the favilities. I would have lurked quietly in the shadows if it hadn't been for some rather pushy people who kept saying things like, 'Hey! Stick that story over here!' and 'We want you in our forum over there.' Before I knew it, I was part of something.

So, any i deas for how we make sure everybody has that king of experience would definitely be welcome. Me, I think it has a lot to do with being positive. Find encouraging words.