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

Hi Ben,

I am Madhur, a student studying the h2g2 website and its community, for my class called 'online communities'. I find the community very interesting and want to know what is it like to be a experienced member of the community.

I came to your homepage after reading your views about 'H2G2 announcements page', and think that your views are quite pertinent. If you have time, I would love to talk to you more about your experiences on h2g2. Please visit my personal space U1297534 to find out more about me and my study and leave me a message there.

Thank you! I hope to hear from you soon...

Just Another Researcher,
Madhur.

How long have you got... ?



B

This post has been removed.

I am in the UK, so a phone conversation might be tricky - Instant Messenger could work, either this weekend or next weekend though. I have MSN, Yahoo and AIM IDs, so let me know if any of those are ok, and I'll let you have the ID.

Cheers

Ben

Incidentally, you should spread the word among your classmates not to request phone conversations with people. It is against the rules of the site, and Peta, (one of the big cheeses here), has said that posts which ask for phone numbers should be referred to the moderators. Personally I am not that bothered, because I am very picky about who I give my phone number to anyway, but I do see her point.

F82761?thread=601128&latest=1

I'm not going to be on IM this w/e but I assume we could chat next weekend?

Ben

Thank you B,

If you don't have time this week, the next one is fine enough for me.
For privacy issues, you can send in your email/chat id at my address: madhur[AT]cc.gatech.edu

But before that, can I ask you for some advice? I went through the conversation F82761?thread=601128&latest=1 you sent me, and it seems people are not happy with us. I cannot even reply to the conversation to present my side of the case over there (I donno y, but the site is blocking me )

What shall I do now? I am ready to go to some 'central authority' to authenticate myself and ask for permission, if thats what everyone is comfortable with. But please tell me where to go for this?
I have been using my real name, and have provided as much information as possible on a public portal, for this very reason...

thanks,
Madhur

oh.. forgot this:

I have MSN and Yahoo!, so give me the one that you prefer.

-Madhur.

[email protected] gets me on MSN.

I think that there are a bunch of things going on here, and you have inadvertantly got caught up in some over-reactions.

First off, I think you are all behaving responsibly (or would do, if I could spell the darn word!). You are using your real names, you have provided links to the educational programme you are a part of, there aren't that many of you, and you have chosen to contact only people who have shown that they have opinions about online communities in general, or about this one in particular. So... I have no problems with what you are doing; I think it is interesting, you are showing good nettiquette, and - don't underestimate this - you can all spell.

I think two or three things are happening. Some time ago someone called Prof Burnham encouraged his students, (her students, perhaps), to sign up to the site, and put pieces of writing into Peer Review. They would get extra credit if their piece was picked for the Front Page. Tweet effing tweet. The problem with this was that most of the writing was cr@p, none of them (so far as I remember) complied with the guidelines for writing Edited Entries, and it can take months for an entry to go from Peer Review to the Front Page. There was - rightly I think - a lot of resentment against the Prof for seeing the site as a free resource for providing critique for his students truly awful writing, especially as he was implicitly encouraging them not to adhere to the guidelines. I suspect that you are picking up on the backlash of resentment against American Academics using the site as a resource that was created by that experience.

Secondly, the site is open and friendly... up to a point, at which point it gets very cliquey. The longest serving members here have been here over five years, and it is like a small town. There are people who have married folks they met here, and countless relationships have been formed between people here. The friendships here go back a long way. Folks know each other. I suspect you have irritated one of the town grouches. I cannot be bothered to work out which one, but my guess is that someone is being overly precious about the sacred vision of the site, or something...

Why the folks who used to run the place, (Mina and Peta), are being so spikey I am not so sure. They will have their reasons, but I am not privy to them, and cannot tell if they are based on eating bad fish yesterday, or if there is some subtle point of BBC-ness or nettiquette that I've missed. I respect them both hugely, but have on occasions disagreed with them publicly in the past.

I am sure that the responsible way in which you are all behaving will win folks round, and even if it doesn't there are enough people here who can think outside the bbc-box to be willing to help.

Ben

PS - I am on MSN now, if you want to chat.

B

It took me quite a long time to realise that Ben _wasn't_ "one of the town grouches"

An additional word of advice. As Ben said, you are going about this professionally, but don't underestimate the human touch. There are a lot of people on this site that know an awful lot about computers ('geeks' is the word, I believe). They are awfully suspicious of 'officialese' from new sources because it smacks of scams, spams or cons. Be yourselves, and you'll learn a lot more.

B

I am shocked that you ever thought I was one of the town gouches, Master B! After all that flirting, too!

B

Flirting? Moi?

I demand evidence.

B

*waves to Ben*

Madhur,

The most likely reason that you are unable to post to conversation F82761?thread=601128&latest=1 is that you have not accepted the terms and conditions of the Hub. The hub is a separate area of the DNA engine where I believe Mina's user space is housed.

Sorry for the intrusion.

*waves to WM*

>> I demand evidence.

It's all in the backlog, sweetie. I remember some fast and furious posing on "Back Again" that was pretty hot stuff!

B

That's not flirting!

B

Damn! I must revise my "Flirting for Dummy's" book then.

B

That was just filth.

B

You say the sweetest things!



B

hello gentlemen,

i just wanted to say thank you for being supportive and taking time to weed things out with us.

britt

No worries! I am on MSN at the moment: [email protected] if you want to ping me.

Ben