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

Hmmm. You make me over-analyse, you know? I don’t think like you do. When you force me to take things in rational steps, I tend to construct ideas that sound OK at the time, and revelatory even, except not long afterwards I realise that I don’t really believe in them. Anyway, I still want to give you the best answer I can, because I think you’re probably the best hope here for a good outcome.

There is one other thing you should consider when using me as a sounding board. You’re getting Saturday morning answers to questions posed by Friday night. These places are only in the same world for people who spend too much time on line. I think I’m a lot more changeable than you are. You probably know it if you think about it, because you can’t reconcile the Pin you met with the Pin you hear, right? In your terms, that means one of them must be false. Well, no. Personality has a lot to do with it. So does alcohol, probably.

Anyway, enough of that.

1. <>

See above. Cross-purposes are inevitable, because you’re always completely sure what you’re talking about. I’m sure of my ideas quite a lot of the time, too, only the big difference is that with me, that’s the time at which I fall silent. Still interested in this strange way of looking at things? OK, let’s continue.

2. << If I have heard you right, then my response is "not only but also". I have a vision of noohootoo where we *not only* accommodate those styles of reading and writing *but also* accommodate other ways of writing and reading. Do you believe that's doable at all?>>

To a point, yes. It’s a good guiding principle. There is no single right way to write, if that’s what you’re getting at. I’ve just cut out a big chunk of what I originally put here because it actually follows better from your question 5, so that’s all you’ll get for now.

3. << What have you read so far on the site that makes you think it's not what we're aiming for?>>
Exactly who you mean by “we” is important here. YOU are clearly trying to accommodate everyone, which is fine and understandable. Some of the people you seek to accommodate are IMO as bad as the people we’re saying goodbye to. If you insist on having names named, then we can have an offline correspondence, but it will suffice here to say that I can already see rather too many proto-Charlottes for my liking.

Don’t worry about the lack of substance, btw. I do have something more helpful and specific to say later. It’s just that you always ask the wrong questions...

4. << How do we make the site somewhere that existing researchers want to stay and contribute to AND make it somewhere that new researchers will join and stay?>>

I approached this by asking the one potential newbie among the occupants of this household what would attract her to join h2g2. Verm knows what she’s talking about because she’s lurked long, but avoided joining with a bargepole. Facebook is her thing, and as an early disciple (of its UK manifestation at least) she has the same kind of proprietary mindset about it that we have for h2g2. She reckons that our appeal is always going to be to older people. We are an on-line extension of the Radio 4, she reckons, and she thinks that separation from the BBC will be accordingly painful. She thinks that we are in the shadow of Wiki and that the only thing that stops many of us moving their efforts to Wiki is resentment that we've screwed up our chance to be them.

Something similar applies to our community who use h2g2 for social networking, only in that case a not-cool-enough self-perception as well as we-came-first insularity is in play. She thinks that nobody will ever start with h2g2 any more (she doubts they ever did) and that our best chance is to catch the Wiki/Facebook rebounds by being both intelligent and welcoming. To achieve this (and here I profoundly agree with her), we have to lose the self-pitying character of the site. She has been known to describe h2g2 as “the place where everyone thinks they’re ill”.

5. <>

It’s simple at one level, and we’ve all said it many times. Writers and readers. The look of the place and its navigability are important but secondary. The same applies to the would-be administrators and designers and taxonomists: important but secondary.

Asking about publishing so specifically, too, is a result of Ben-think. You’re outcome driven. Remember those who are journey driven. h2g2 is about learning to write as much as about showcasing how good we are. Our kind of readers don’t subsist exclusively on finished product, and really the distinctive proposition is the interaction between reader and writer and the iteration that brings improvement and reveals possibility. The final piece, whatever its appropriate pigeon-hole, is no more than one aspect of what we are.

I think one of your biggest errors at the moment may be over-listening to the outcome-driven thinkers. Taxonomy is for dead things, Ben. Interesting things are characterised by change, and classifiers are eternally prone to conservatism as a result. My next door neighbour is in IT systems design, btw. His thirteen-year old daughter (my own daughter tells me, in case this story sounds dodgy) still sleeps in what amounts to a nursery. I guess her Dad put a lot of heart and effort into it all those years ago.

But I also go back to the point about excitement. In September 2001 a friend led me here and said browse it for an hour and tell me what you think. I thought Wow. I found some truly extraordinary writing (Loonytunes prominent as I remember), but most of all I was enchanted by the Cave of Wonders feel. h2g2 seemed to be boundless. Wherever you went, you could find stimulation, and none of it was remotely predictable. There were whole towns in there. There was repartee between brilliant people, just riffing off one another. There were outrageous experiments in communication, of a kind I was attempting myself just then, but way better and immediately suggesting all sorts of unconsidered possibilities (that’s why Lion showed me the place). Here, ready-made and welcoming, was the perfect vehicle for my development as a writer. h2g2 opened up my imagination more than any other experience in my entire life.

It took me around a week to realise that the Edited Guide was supposed to be central. By then, I was hooked, so it didn’t matter. But I’m certain that if Lion had directed me to the official site tour on that first day, I would have been turned off there and then, and gone forever. That’s what confirms me in the belief that the people hootoo needs (people like me, of course) will always be driven away by the formal structures and the abysmal failed-Wiki ambience of the central project.

I think there’s some sophistry about the way you’re leading this discussion, but if the right outcome ensues, then it’s allowable. I’m more worried about your fellow travellers, many of whom have none of your wit and little of your intellect.

I confess to an elitist streak forever telling me that the less good will always pull down the better, wherever the two cohabit. And you will rightly discount the snob in me. But there is surely something in a fear that the inclusiveness-seeking version of hootoo, whoever runs it, is always going to be prone to dominance by dreary, self-important pedants who just don’t get it.

You didn’t expect objectivity from me, and you didn’t hear much. I know what you’re next question will be: how can you reconcile the obvious critical mass need with such an elitist perception? Maybe you won’t ask it, because you know there’s no answer. You’re smart and together and you know that success here will be a compromise, the one in which all the very different key people mutter a lot but never actually jump ship. If anyone can lead us there, it’s you.

But be careful, Ben. As if you didn’t know it, you’re dealing with something truly special and precious. Both the challenge of rescuing hootoo and its value are bound up in the same thing. This place is a lifeline for many, but it’s a lifeline for different reasons to everyone who’s counting on you.

That’s my lot. There’s RL out there, and the Weddell’s patience is all nicely used up.

Thanks for this Pin. I'm reading it, marking, learning and inwardly digesting as I go.

Ben

Jordan wasn't too impressed with me for not saying what I wanted a future h2g2 to look like. So here goes (though it's not quite right in the way the Showcase should build). The principle are there though:

Pin’s concept of a new h2g2:
- Central activity is writing as a community.
- Everybody’s work remains permanently in the Guide (as now). Existing concept of Personal Spaces, Journals, Convos all replicated in the new h2g2. Old Edited Guide preserved as-is, but no new additions to in future.
- Main change is abandonment of Wiki-like EG concept. No special precedence for factual writing (and some minor corollaries, eg no restriction on replicating topics).

Inasmuch as we need a Central Project, it would be:
- Showcase for finished work based on the UG model (ie generally higher quality standards for acceptance and a far smaller collection than the EG admits)
- Only 2 non-Admission rules for Showcase (no plagiarism, no calculated offence)
- New site initiated with a starter Showcase consisting of 100 Entries (50 each from EG and UG), chosen by the community in a process completed before the Beeb site closes. Rule of maximum of 1 Entry per author in this starter set
- One new Entry added to the Showcase per week (initially) rising as soon as we’ve found our feet to one per day, or more. (We need a way to favour new writing and to admit filling in from the old collections only as a last resort).
- New nominations for Showcase require a seconder. Each new nomination by a given author requires a different seconder (to restrict cliques).
- Acclaim system (probably “like” buttons) for nominated pool. Promotion to selected pool based on acclaim threshold.
- Admission to Showcase from selected pool decided by an Editorial Committee (basically a panel of UG-like QAs)

Changes in style (these are important):
- All Researchers should be encouraged to write, contributing a minimum number of new Entries per year [say three]. (I realise we may lose people who don’t think this is what h2g2 is about by marginalising them , but I think a small site of high quality and commitment is better than a sprawling site largely populated by idlers. In particular, we can build on a committed group but not on the nebulous one).
- If the new site is to thrive, it needs conspicuous quality and a promise of results (ie real chance of breakthrough into professional writing and/or high-profile publishing for participants). This will need a creative approach but there would surely be literary competitions and there would ideally be high-profile patrons
- The new site needs to look much better and respond much more reliably than the old one, and have a cool feel. (I’m not actually convinced that having a literal site of our own is all that important – we’re a community and its ethos. We could probably be h2g2 on facebook).

A few corollaries, relating to what I consider to be non-topics among the current discussions:

- If anyone wants to attempt a classification system for all Entries, fine, but it wouldn’t be a central feature of the site, because it’s unnecessary.
- I have no worries about advertising, providing it doesn’t overwhelm our own copy. I have no problem with the mobile pitch either, but I don’t think it’s our fundamental proposition.
- I think your (ie Ben's) travel guide proposition is fundamentally wrong (and also pretty boring, but that’s not the point). I don’t see value in h2g2 as a work of reference. The most fundamental reason for this view is that the stuff we’ve already written simply isn’t what we’re about. We exist for the stuff we’re yet to write.

No surprises I guess but if Jordan needed it spelling out, maybe others do too. I have no expectation of this coming to pass of course, because I'm probably in a minority of one in seeing the site in the terms. I do wish, though, that the writing was more to the fore in all this. Some of the contributors to the debate are very depressing indeed, and the curmudgeon in me doesn't think their right to an opinion (even were it a good opinion) is sufficiently earned.

Two thoughts here

1) it's inspiring all right - it's bloody dynamite

2) Why the bloody hell did you leave it so late to get over your super-special ego and SAY it?

I am really blindingly furious with you.

Yes there is little here that's new but this sort of thing - step by step on somple language understandable by outcome-focused business analysts is what I needed from you a month ago.

I'm livid with you Pin. You are so super-critical of those who DO try to build something because their vision doesn't tally with yours, and you only express yours in a usable form when it's too bloody late to use. I don't know if you are a smug self-satisfied game-player or just stupid. I prefer to assume the latter because the malice in the former disgusts me. But I know you aren't stepid.....

Why the blithering fekk didn't you say this a month ago hen these were the questions we were asking and the part of the bid we were framing?

I am too angry to say more.

Ben

Yeoch.

Er.

Sorry.

I stand by the content, but can I soften the tone a bit?

Here... have a

FYI - F20484620?thread=8099040&post=106917478#p106917478

>> I think your (ie Ben's) travel guide proposition is fundamentally wrong (and also pretty boring, but that’s not the point). I don’t see value in h2g2 as a work of reference. The most fundamental reason for this view is that the stuff we’ve already written simply isn’t what we’re about. We exist for the stuff we’re yet to write. <<

Putting a muddy boot in...

Pin, do you think the "travel guide proposition" as discussed in the thread 'Octogonally parked...' is proposed as -THE- (only) way to go or as a way to present the Guide to the Readers or something ?
My interpretation is that it is -A- way to approach the Guide, same as the Catagories thing and Improbality Drive is. For a site like h2g2 there are a multitude of ways to approach, read and delve the Guide.

The stuff that's been written is our fundament as a showcase for high quality writing and so on and cannot be dealt with in an offhand manner as I percieve you do. X-cuse me if I'm wrong.

It is true the stuff we have yet to write is something that we must facilitate to the most comfortable level but let us not forget that the stuff already here is written by those that were Readers first, became Researchers second and have grown to Writers in time. I have yet to hear from one that thought "Oh, I have written this nice essay about turnips. Now, where shall I put it? Let's google for a site that has nothing on turnips already. Hey! What's this? h2g2? Oh well, I'll just put it there.", meaning the Entries came from them that found h2g2 and liked it and were inspired to write. The inspiration (instigation?) to write needs to come from reading entries and interaction with the Community.

Catering to all tastes is indeed a difficult game of juggling wants and needs of the many but in this day and age of technical advancements it is possible to do more for the -not so- separate interest groups (Readers, Researchers, Writers) individually and in the whole than before. If there is something to do about the layout of a page to facilitate the Writers it can be done without impacting the other 'groups'.

The Old Entries of the Edited Guide would be enveloped in the (not so) new principle of the Unified Guide Theory and by that time the names and distinctions of Edited Guide and UnderGuide have ceased to exist. Do you mean to say that these entry points to the EG and the UG and the Entries accessible that way need to be kept, like a Historical View or something?

It could be I've missed reading something elsewhere but what do you mean by "Central Project" and "Showcase" ?

To what purpose do you want Researchers to contribute a minimum number of Entries? When they don't make the quotum do they lose the 'Researcher' status? Will they be 'elevated' to Writer status when they do meet the quotum? Does this not encourage quantity instead of quality in the submissions?

Do you have an idea on how to deliver the "promise of result" or how that could be arranged?

I agree with you on a lot of points and I've expressed my sentiments or puzzlement above. I respect your point of view and to better understand it I hope you can make time to answer my questions. It's OK to tell me to b00ze 0ff and I will not take it personally.

! Martin
--- I got this itchy feeling in the resistors in my right ear

As I see it, you want a sort of online Granta.  

While it's a heady mix, I don't think it will work as the main raisen d'etre for the site simply because we won't get the readership without the pull of actually *being* Granta.  The site died in 2000 because there was no way to monetise websites then.  The italics worked for 3 months without pay before the BBC took it on.  But now there are way sto monetise websites and, call it whoring or call it professionalism, we have to learn to write for a market.  

The only questions are "what market?" and ".... ok, how?"


>> Jordan wasn't too impressed with me for not saying what I wanted a future h2g2 to look like. 

Too right - it places you in the vampiric role of critic.  Well done for stepping out of that role and trying to be creative, rather than sniping from the side.


>> Pin’s concept of a new h2g2:
>> - Central activity is writing as a community.

Personally, I want to extend it to other forms of creativity, though in practical terms I'm not sure it's worth it.  Other sites already do art better than we ever could for a start. Ditto photography and music.  So I suspect we should stick with the Word, but maybe extend our reach into podcasting.  But that's counting our chickens when in fact the eggs may be addled.

And I'm not as fast as you are to dismiss the value of the community, though I agree it isn't unique in the way the Guide is and could be.  Having met my spouse here I believe it's untenable to say "look at me the writer, full of sensitivity and humanity" and not acknowledge what the community has meant and probably will continue to mean to the people here.  You chose not to join in in that way, but that doesn't give you the right to be dismissive.  If anything it gives you *less* right, since you know not whereof you type.


>> - Everybody’s work remains permanently in the Guide (as now). Existing concept of Personal Spaces, Journals, Convos all replicated in the new h2g2. Old Edited Guide preserved as-is, but no new additions to in future.

Agreed, agreed, agreed and agreed.


>> - Main change is abandonment of Wiki-like EG concept. 


I disagree for a whole bunch of reasons

1) Most writing is improved by being edited - if only because a fresh pair of eyes picks up typos.  To think anything else is hubris.  What matters is the quality of the editing and whether editorial choices are suggested or imposed.

2) Most peoples' skill as writers increases when they are challenged and tested - I cannot think of a decent writer who has not had teachers, mentors, editors or writers in one form or another.

3) Collaborative work is a skill in its own right and one that's hard to gain in an educational system which examines individuals

4) The other skills like spotting a piece, like subbing it, are also skills worth having, and the EG is a good place to learn them, as our alumni who now earn their living that way can testify


>>  No special precedence for factual writing (and some minor corollaries, eg no restriction on replicating topics).

My heart says "agreed". My head adds a minor caveat.  


>> Inasmuch as we need a Central Project, it would be:
>> - Showcase for finished work based on the UG model (ie generally higher quality standards for acceptance and a far smaller collection than the EG admits)

I really like the Showcase idea, and I think it could work within the larger Guide.


>> - Only 2 non-Admission rules for Showcase (no plagiarism, no calculated offence)

Agreed.   


>> - New site initiated with a starter Showcase consisting of 100 Entries (50 each from EG and UG), chosen by the community in a process completed before the Beeb site closes. Rule of maximum of 1 Entry per author in this starter set 

Good plan.  Do you want to get it up and running?  Put those flippers where that mouth is?   You've as much right as anyone to initiate and run such a thing, and more rights than most.


>> - One new Entry added to the Showcase per week (initially) rising as soon as we’ve found our feet to one per day, or more. (We need a way to favour new writing and to admit filling in from the old collections only as a last resort).

Agreed.  That works for me.  I'd like to see non-Showcase writing promoted alongside it though - perhaps more from the same author, or more about a similar subject.  


>> - New nominations for Showcase require a seconder. Each new nomination by a given author requires a different seconder (to restrict cliques).

Seems sensible.

 
>> - Acclaim system (probably “like” buttons) for nominated pool. Promotion to selected pool based on acclaim threshold.

>> - Admission to Showcase from selected pool decided by an Editorial Committee (basically a panel of UG-like QAs)

OK - so the pool of possibles is selected in much the way the Minors picked the Gems, and the final entries are picked by the Editorial Committee.    Let's assume for the moment we find such dedicated and skilled volunteers.  

I think we might need two pools, one for Showcase entries and one for the more mundane ones.    Or maybe one pool for all entries, but two routes out - one as a Showcase entry and one as an Approved entry.  


>> Changes in style (these are important):
>> - All Researchers should be encouraged to write, contributing a minimum number of new Entries per year [say three]. (I realise we may lose people who don’t think this is what h2g2 is about by marginalising them , but I think a small site of high quality and commitment is better than a sprawling site largely populated by idlers. In particular, we can build on a committed group but not on the nebulous one).

I am really tempted to endorse this... Very very tempted.


>> - If the new site is to thrive, it needs conspicuous quality and a promise of results (ie real chance of breakthrough into professional writing and/or high-profile publishing for participants). 

Um.  It alredy has given a number of people not just the chance but the reality of writing professionally.  Our alumni include journalists, reporters, reviewers and copy-writers.  Of course that's not Art, but IS Professional.  

So the site is doing this now, and it does it by being a place where people are given advice and guidance and the chance to re-draft and re-write in a way that improves their writing for readers.

By the way - professional writers accept commissions, which means writing within editorial and style guidelines, to a specified word order, on specified subjects.  Just saying.

>> This will need a creative approach but there would surely be literary competitions and there would ideally be high-profile patrons

Very interesting.  I think we should consider running competitions ourseves.  That would certainly get us noticed in the creative writing community.  


>> - The new site needs to look much better and respond much more reliably than the old one, and have a cool feel. 

Agreed.  


>>   (I’m not actually convinced that having a literal site of our own is all that important – we’re a community and its ethos. We could probably be h2g2 on facebook).

Ah.  Well.  Bog off to Facebook and form a community then.    Like the man said, "if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it"


>>  A few corollaries, relating to what I consider to be non-topics among the current discussions:


>> - If anyone wants to attempt a classification system for all Entries, fine, but it wouldn’t be a central feature of the site, because it’s unnecessary.

You are so wrong about this that your opinion's irrelevant.  I can't be bothered to rise to the bait.


>>  - I have no worries about advertising, providing it doesn’t overwhelm our own copy. I have no problem with the mobile pitch either, but I don’t think it’s our fundamental proposition.

Good and good, though I do think the mobile pitch is fundamental.  This isn't the Century of the Fruitbat any more.


- I think your (ie Ben's) travel guide proposition is fundamentally wrong (and also pretty boring, but that’s not the point). I don’t see value in h2g2 as a work of reference. 

Fine.  It's not my idea, by the way, but it's one that I recognise as being a way that we can cover our indemnity and legal insurance premiums.  I also think its (a) cool and (b) fun and (c) achievable.


>>   The most fundamental reason for this view is that the stuff we’ve already written simply isn’t what we’re about. We exist for the stuff we’re yet to write.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea.   That's pollocks.  We exist because an intelligent man wanted to find out how online communities would work and had a peg on which to hang the experiment, and because a public service body took us on when his idea crashed and burned after being launched five years too soon.  
 

>> No surprises I guess but if Jordan needed it spelling out, maybe others do too. 

No sheet Sherlock.  And thank you for finally coming down from the mountain and sharing your ideas with us in a constructive form.  There's some really useful things here.


>> I have no expectation of this coming to pass of course, because I'm probably in a minority of one in seeing the site in the terms. I do wish, though, that the writing was more to the fore in all this. Some of the contributors to the debate are very depressing indeed, and the curmudgeon in me doesn't think their right to an opinion (even were it a good opinion) is sufficiently earned.

Do you know, I think it could.  I think it could exist as a strand of gold, within the guide-based approach.  The guide-based approach IS what we are about -  it is after all embedded in the branding, it was the vision of "Our Founder" and it's the only thing so far I think will earn us enough bread for butter.  We can forget jam.

There's some really good and useful stuff in here Pin, but I do have to say that your purist elitest vision is once which you can achieve elsewhere.  I was serious when I said go found that facebook group.  Submit your stuff to Granta.  If the site doesn't give you want you want or need after the dust has settled then the best advice I can give you si to find a better 'ole.  

To Martin first: please go away and leave Ben and me to discuss this. I'm afraid I'm not going to discuss anything with you, so just leave us, OK?

Ben - before getting into the detail, I want to answer your anger. I'm sorry, but you knew what I thought. You've known it for a very long time.

But that's only the lesser reason for my silence. It was the thing that made me feel able to entrust my hopes to you, that's really all. The main reason for my silence is that all of our shared experience down the years tells us that my opinions about the site's true purpose are toxic. Whenever I've said any of this before, all those many times, the community has come together in its disapproval and contempt. Remember PROD? So completely reasonable, and I reined my views in so much to get on board with the idea, and still it was toxic.

That's why Ben. Not stupidity, and not vindictiveness. I didn't want to poison your chances, and nothing more.

OK, Pinniped.
Unsubscribing from conversation after this post.

! Martin
--- Excuse the footwear induced halitosis

No, what was toxic was the fact that there is so much in here which is great, and I feel you witheld it. The practicalities in particular.

Here's what I like, in no particular order:

The terms "Showcase" and "Showcased entries".

The selection process you've described.

The focus on excellence in general and for Showcased entries in particular.

The tie in with competitions - I do think we should run writing competitions to attract users

I am so going to promote all of these ideas in NooHooTooLand.

What I disagree with is the idea of the site as a sort of online Granta for literary onanists. Convince me that this is not your vision ...?

I think there are many places on-line and off-line which work with and for Creative Writing. It's not unique. But only this specific site can be the hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, so for me the question is how can we do that in the "best possible" way. That of course begs the question "what do we mean by 'best possible'?" For me the Edited Guide and Peer Review were not bad or wrong, just limited. I wanted them, but I wanted MORE. Not something instead, but something as well.

What haunts me in this conversation is your imagery from your opening post of the site as a box of delights, an infinite wonderland. I don't see that in the rest of this conversation.

I worry that by giving no rules and no starting points you give people nothing to spark off.

Ben

PS - Martin, to give you some back story, Pin and I have been having this conversation since... when, Pin... 2003, 2002? It's part of the Greater Debate about the soul of h2g2, but he's right, it's in a personal space for a reason. It was a bit of a betrayal on my part to point people here.

PPS - do you know, Pin, I *don't* remember PROD though I've seen the links siince. Maybe I was off site at the time.

I've typed and then deleted paragraphs several times over in the last few minutes. I so much want to say the right thing here.

OK here goes. I'm resolved to hit the Post Message button this time. I have to be honest, even if you're going to hate me for it.

We agree about all the important stuff above, and you've picked off the silly rhetoric in your usual sharp fashion. You spell out a choice for the incorrigible elitist, but it's not a choice I'll make, because I'm not that sort of elitist. This is not about me thinking I'm better than the majority. It's about me thinking that I have to get away from a minority.

<>

Like everybody else, I write well when I'm in that state of wonderment. I can always find it by withdrawing. h2g2 has taught me that I can also find it in the community, as long as I stay serene.

I'm mute when the community overwhelms me. Sometimes I withdraw. Sometimes I try resorting to reason. There's never any haunting imagery whichever way I go, though, because either the wonderment has been switched off (the latter state) or else h2g2 has (the former).

Now here's the nasty bit. It's inclusivity that overwhelms me. You laughed a while ago at the self-pitying wimmen reference, but I was raling at them because they overwhelm me. Martin barges in, not just in this thread but everywhere in his continuous broadcast mode, and he overwhelms me. The Peer Review crowd, and the pickers-over of factual Entries, they overwhelm me.

That's why I'm a loner. I'm trying to keep my distance than the dead-handed people who shake me out of wonderment. And that's why I think that there will need to be a qualified form of inclusivity to make this thing work. Sooner or later, the not-too-clever who will otherwise just go on and on drowning out the wonderment will have to be told to shut up.

There, I said it. It's that kind of elitism you see, Ben. We have too many Gentlemen from Porlock screwing up our Coleridges, and for once this has nothing to do with any albatross.

Now THAT is interesting. How do we foster this as a place where intelligent people can be playful? There is indeed an inspired silliness in this site at its best. And you are right, it's a thistle-down thing. How to keep it? How the devil do you enable spontaneity? Rhetorical questions, this time, because I feel I've pulled enough deep rooted molars out of your jaw for the time being.

I was reminded the other day of the clip in youtube of the QI team riffing off Stephen Fry's inability to say "on the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is". I'm reminded of it again now. It's 10 minutes of delight. Google it if you want cheering up.

You've put me into a moral dilemma here because I do like your proposition that the site should associate membership with writing by requiring three entries a year. If I wasn't one of the group of researchers trying to save the site, then that is a view I would espouse. I might modify it by extending it to other kinds of contributions, but I do like the idea. However, we are trying to save the site for all, even the tactically ill, (a diagnosis I agree with by the way). The Interim Committee has no choice but to be democratic, and Christmas is a difficult thing to sell to turkeys.

And thank you for taking the time to articulate this, and re-articulate it, and atriculate it again. I am a remarkably concrete thinker at times, and I am carp at getting the point when it is alluded to rather than spelled out in simple language suitable for a power-point monkey.

You've finally set my mind thinking on this.

So.... How to enable his box of delights, this wonderland, to be delightful and wonderful again....

Thanks again Pin, you and I needed this conversation, and I think h2g2 redux needed us to have it.

I finally found and read the evolving document.

It's really good, and I owe you (all) an apology because there's far more real scheme than I'd appreciated.

I still don't quite get how you're intending to pitch this though. Is it a passive prospectus for whoever expresses an interest? Or is there a plan to get out and sell using it? Where can I read about that aspect?

Pin(respectful)

I think it should be something that we can show to everyone (including possible bidders) who wants to know about our ideas.

(I also think it's a good way to remind ourselves about what has been discussed. We need a place where everything comes together or we'll lose something.)

Tav's right.

The closing date for expressions of interest was the 17th, so whoever is in the game is in the game, for better or worse.

We will ask Nick Reynolds and the project manager overseeing the disposal of the site who the other players are. I would remind you of what I said before: anyone serious knows who we are and how to get in touch with us and has done so for a long time.

The document has a number of audiences -

members of the site who want to know what the bleep we've been doing with all the Magrathea stuff and the stuff in Ask and elsewhere

members of the site who want to know what the conclusions were for all the discussions they couldn't keep up with

the BBC, it will form part of our bidding document

other bidders, so they can know what we think and where their proposals would run across how the community works - for example if a bidder decided to pull all of the editorial decisions in-house and shut down discussions in PR so it just became somewhere you dumped an entry in the vague hope it would turn up in an entirely different format on the Front Page in 6 months time

At this point we've not started thinking about pitching for funding, but it would be a source of material for that pitch too.

Ben