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

Hi FordsTowel,

I read your Personal Space opening comments when I first found H2G2 last month and thought that you were being unduly cynical and elitist (never one to beat around the bush).

However, now I've been browsing around the site for a while and totally agree. There are a few gems here, but an awful lot of it is personal chat that can be found all over the net: many of the conversations I've come across are inane blather, which could be texted / emailed / chatroomed / telephoned. Isn't H2G2 supposed to be much more than that?

Your discussion with Farlander highlights another grouch I have with H2G2: the editing out of humour. For those lucky enough to have the gift to instill humour into a subject, let it happen. That is where all this started after all.

Guide Entries cover an enormous range of topics, which I applaud, and there are huge gaps, which is as it should be. May there always be gaps.

I can't help feeling that DNA's legacy here is being subsumed by mediocrity and lower common denominators than he envisaged. Whilst I applaud the ideal of allowing H2G2 to evolve, depending upon the inspiration and motivations of its researchers; by doing so it could lose its focus as an Earthbound Guide.

I can't be the only one feeling disappointed can I?

Presumably the way to resolve some of it is to refrain from inane conversations, to submit humourous (or at least interesting) Entries and to promote debate about the role of H2G2 in modern society.

Oh, and by the way, is anybody else on this site over 40?

Thanks for provoking my thoughts and helping me to look at H2G2 with a critical (but hopefully not too critisising) eye.



Frenchbean

Hello, to you, Frenchbean:

Thanks for visiting my space, while it lasts. I'm not sure what brought you, but that's the wide-open landscape that is h2g2.

I regret that you read my comments before you formed your own opinion, rather than after, as my original thoughts were more optimistic. Those last two paragraphs were added when I changed the heading from - the equally cynical sounding, but toungue-in-cheek - 'Life, don't talk to me about life'.

Perhaps I held DNA in too high of regard. He turned out to be only human after all. He appears to have fallen for the seduction that is a sense of self-importance that demands serious stuff, when his forte and legacy - whether he liked it or not - was humour. And, it's not as though I don't respect the work he did for 'serious causes', but it's rather like if Elton John wanted to be remembered for his fashion sense.

If Adams had truly wanted this to be a guide by, for, and about the people of earth, he should certainly have been clear that most of us only survive BECAUSE we have a sense of humour. Most of us would have readily succumbed to the Infinite Perspective Vortex.

You would perhaps think that enough people begging for a more open formatting for entries (re: humour), would incite change, if this is truly to be OUR evolving, earthbound guide. What is probably worse is that I'm not sure the entries go through any verification filters. As an example, check out some of the conversations on 'Inertia = Gravity', one of the silliest concepts I've ever heard, admitted by the author to be a hypothesis, in private, but stated as science fact.

You certainly are not the only one disappointed. And, the over 40 question is one I should have asked early on. I sort of assumed that most people familiar with Hitchhikers would be of that age range. Obviously, it has spanned a generation, at least.

I hope you enjoy the site for whatever length of time you stick around. I am finding less and less to keep me interested, but that's the way all web sites are; once you absorb what they have to offer, there is little reason to check back in on a regular basis. Most of even the good stuff here seems to be vanity press writing.

BTW: I'll admit that I have occasionally joined chat stuff, like 'Monty Python Phrases', just to find a chuckle while on the site.

Please keep the critical eye, as the information here is no more trustworthy than your standard personal web site. But, don't let me spoil your enjoyment, just because I'm getting burned out by the oppressive attitude of the powers that be.

Live long, and prosper.