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

I've been here for close to six years now. I've changed jobs (three times), moved house, lost two family members and several friends, and watched my daughter grow up from a baby into a beautiful little girl. I've watched myself age: many more grey hairs now than when I started out, but at least I've gained as many grey ones as I have lost brown.

I finally turned in my badge as a Scout, for good, the other day. I've gone walkabout beforehand but this time I couldn't bring myself to make my picks. I found myself looking down through PR and not actually wanting to read anything in it. Here, for example, are some of the current list of items on the first page in PR:
Project Gnome
Pterosaurs
Things to see and do in Vienna, Austria
'Help!' - the Film and Album
Watching England in the Football World Cup
Vampires of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Whaling and Whale Protection
Where True Powers Dwelt: Tolkien's Mystery Element
Ben Folds Five
Rich Hall - Comedian and Author
HomestarRunner.com
Aliens - The Movie
Bacon & Cold Chicken - A Ghoulish Recipe
Parliamentary Generals in the 1640s: Sir John Merrick
Federweisser - a German must
Batallón de San Patricio - The Mexican Irish Battalion
Pop-Tarts
Commuting by Bicycle in British Cities
Street names in South Woodham Ferrers
A Quick Guide to BDSM

There are seven entries in there that actually engage my attention. You guess which ones. And, if you can guess which ones and guess correctly, then you're probably on the way to realising that I've become so throughly jaded with marginalia and pop-cultural-ephemera that any sight of them now acts like a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water. It immediately triggers the gag reflex.

Tell me: *what* is the point of this project now? I came here because I've always wanted to write and to communicate in a stimulating and informative fashion, but some subjects just don't bear writing about. If the purpose of h2g2 is, as it increasingly seems to be, to cover those topics that everybody else has deemed to mundane or uninteresting to write about then perhaps it's time it was just put out of our misery and left to die.

FM (ex-Scout)

WEll, you know how I stand (sort of wobbly if I have too much Guiness )

Sseroiusly though, if we CAN make the mundabe and uniteresting..well, a bit fun and unique, haven't we succeeded along the lines somewhere

Granted though, I do agree. There is an awful lot of writing for writings sake, not for th elove of it. I know, I'll do an Entry on blah, that'll be easy and while I'm not particularly passionate about it it makes me get an Entry on the Front Page...

Jaded and cynical? Yeah. So what. Start writing for the fun of it again, PR and the EG can go hang. I still like reading about the strange and bizarre, and how chemicals make thing strange and bizarre

Like us

Yeah, I've written mundane, and those 'How to' entries that you dislike so much. But I've peppered those entries with the spicy, the saucy, the fun, and the kinky (some of which are in disguise). I can do both!

I'm waiting for school to start in September before I make any real efforts to write anything more for h2g2.

In the meantime, I keep getting letters with the word (Editor) after my name, and that's a thrill I stopped getting from having a Front Page entry a long time ago.

I'm very much a newbie to h2g2, but I'm not a newbie to life, which can have its pros and its cons. I just stumbled across your entry on S-OB a couple of days ago and was extremely well impressed by it, followed the lead from there to your personal space, which also impressed me as being very interesting, whereupon I took the opportunity to recommended the Legrand Jazz CD for your listening pleasure, so I'm not sure at all how I happened to be linked in on this conversation forum, but I'm glad I was.

My first impressions tell me clearly that you have much to offer the h2g2 community. Jaded with marginalia? Yes, I can understand and sympathize with that. Being so new to the community, I'm reluctant to pretend to offer advice, but from what I've seen here so far my tentative plan is to jump in and out of things rather selectively; when I see something wonderful, such as your S-OB, entry, I'll jump in and perhaps try to strike up a dialogue with the author. If things don't interst me I'll just let them slide on past and hope that they will interest someone else.

It sounds to me as though perhaps you're suffering from "burnout" from perhaps having become a bit too deeply involved. The fix for that may be, as you appear to be doing, to just step back away from it a bit. But that shouldn't necessarily mean totally walking away and never looking back. Perhaps try just dabbling in the things here and there that really interest you. Clearly, there are some good things going on here.

If you want to try on something "deep" try reading my piece on the nature of time; you'll find a copy at http://smithjcn.googlepages.com/time. You may decide you've found deeper pieces at your local stable, but then again, who knows? I've submitted the piece to the Alternative Writing Workshop, because it clearly doesn't seem suitable as an edited entry or for peer review. I'd love to get your reaction to it.

And you never did tell me who the devil Bill Stickers is or why anyone would want to prosecute him. Surely you're not so inhumane as to just walk away and leave me waiting here in suspense for the rest of my life! And I hope for my own sake that you and others like you will stick around, at least on the edges of things. I've already seen enough to know that the community would be poorer without your inputs, at least from time to time on topics of interest to you.
JCNSmith

First he takes the pianos - now he's taking the stock !

I've been here 4 years (15/08/02) and I both agree and disagree with you. I was recently asked to become a scout and said no. That's because I agree with you.

But I also disagree, I'm currently doing entries on Victorian moralists, Stead and Barnardo are in, Booth on the way, probably Gordon after that, and I'm writing them so that if somebody puts their name into h2g2 they get more than trivia. (Though having written an entry on Tellytubbie gambling I can't really take the moral high ground.)

Still - at least you'll be able to say what you think in Peer Review now.

Did I ever say I don't like the 'How To' kind of entry? I don't recall having said that. There's only one kind of entry I *really* don't like, and that's the formulaic writing-by-numbers badge fodder that only seems to benefit the author.

I think my lament says more about me than anything else, ultimately. I can't be bothered to let loose one of my notorious broadsides in PR anymore. The only thing keeping me here is the friends I have made, most of whom I have never met. As for hootoo, if it is going to stand any chance of survival in the face of stiff competition, I think it has to adapt or die. I was thinking sorething along the lines of a magazine format, perhaps - topic entries mixed up with more in-depth investigations. But one things is for certain: the status quo is not an option.

Okay then, never mind! Intuiting that a person could easily perish from starvation before anyone at this address would be spoon feeding them information, I finally mustered the strength to google your friend Bill Sticker. Being a yank, I'd somehow missed this bit of characteristically droll British humor. As with other nuggets I've stumbled upon by browsing your various links, however, it was worth the bit of effort. I do hope you won't totally drop out of sight on us, FM; we need more like you, not fewer.
js

"Did I ever say I don't like the 'How To' kind of entry? I don't recall having said that."

I thought I'd seen you say somewhere (some time ago) that if you saw another 'How to' entry in PR you'd scream, or something more manly perhaps. I could be wrong, but I thought it was you.

No, it weren't me. Besides, could you imagine *me* making such a hollow threat?

Hmmm, wonder who that was then? Sorry about that.

Are you sure you're not thinking about my protracted whinge about song-analysis entries?

"Tell me: *what* is the point of this project now? I came here because I've always wanted to write and to communicate in a stimulating and informative fashion, but some subjects just don't bear writing about. If the purpose of h2g2 is, as it increasingly seems to be, to cover those topics that everybody else has deemed to mundane or uninteresting to write about then perhaps it's time it was just put out of our misery and left to die."

This sounds extremely negative.
I don't understand what you are talking about.
I've been listening to Sir Paul's Standing Stone again, I like that (it doesn't have any words...but you probably already knew that)

Are you writing something for Peer Review?

Yes, I suppose it does sound rather negative. This is reassuring because it is *intended* to sound negative. I have given many, many hours of my time over to building this community but recently it's been like watching an old friend succumb to dementia.

I have written loads for PR and I have never had anything turned down that I have submitted. So, I suppose I must have my finger on the pulse to some degree. My prognosis for h2g2 is that it won't survive in this form for too much longer: two thirds of stuff in PR is written purely for the sake of getting an EG entry to one's name.

I'm coming around to the view of Pinniped: if one is going to base this site on the flimsy basis of writing about ephemera, then the writing itself needs to be more diverse, not less, in order to breathe some life into it. As a reference source, it's been totally adumbrated by Wikipedia anyhow.

"My prognosis for h2g2 is that it won't survive in this form for too much longer" Having recently booked what may be one of the last few available staterooms aboard the RMS Titanic, I'm beginning to feel a bit of seasickness coming on. Dramamine, anyone?

I think, to be brutally honest, the people who run this place were rather glad to see me go in the end. I've been asking some difficult questions along the way, such as: 'what are we trying to achieve here?', 'is it really better to be seen to be inclusive rather than factually accurate?' and 'who does this writing benefit: the reader or the author?'

I'm the perennial malcontent, the guy who disrupts cosy committee meetings. I don't do it because it get a kick out of it. But my main reason for staying - the fact that I enjoyed writing - isn't there any more.

I suppose I could just do what so many others do and join in conversations. However, I don't do , and . Smileys are cheap, and at the end it's just a disembodied voice at the end of a telephone line that I'm talking to. Far better to be honest if sometimes brusque, than indulging in cheap sentimentality.

Here, indulge in some cheap sediment instead...

It's a nasty little Merlot.

Not everyone can write as well as you do.
That's why they use smileys

FM, long time no speak, since i check h2g2 about every 2 months nowadays. h2g2 is definitely on a downtrend at the moment. i remember when i used to be on a lot and had lots and lots of fun. the good old times...

At the risk of continuing to make myself an uninvited and unwanted intruder into what appears to be the ongoing funeral for the dearly (or at least nearly) departed h2g2, I'd like to interject an outsider's point of view.

Although I'm far too new to remember "the good old days" of even a month ago, much less years ago, I find myself wondering whether we're all looking at the same h2g2. In the past week or two, the time I've been scanning these hallowed pages, I've found much to recommend them. I wish were were some way to recapture exact front pages (perhaps there is and I simply have't discovered it yet), because I've found many interesting and enlightening entries there, items on a diverse array of topics such as Jelly Roll Morton, B-70 bombers, Volcanoes, and Switched-On Bach, to name but a few.

I've also discovered an active and engaging community of volunteer researchers laboring behind the scenes of this facade. The interests of this community appear to be incredibly diverse. By reading the "threads" of their conversations I've looked over the shoulders of several of these researchers as they've engaged one another in heated debates about people's rights to hold unpopular opinions without being bullied for doing so. I've read threads containing a spectrum of chatter ranging from the wildly frivolous to what easily could pass for profound.

As for h2g2 being adumbrated by Wikipedia, I see them as being somewhat different sorts of animals. Although Wikipedia is a useful reference source, unless I've overlooked it Wikipedia lacks the sort of freewheeling "Underguide" mentality that gives h2g2 much of its charm, for this observer at any rate. I don't see Wikipedia being the sort of outlet for the more "creative" sorts of pieces that seem to find a place somewhere at h2g2. Perhaps not all of these pieces will turn out to be everybody's cup of tea, but I think it's good that they can find some sort of home here, nevertheless.

Being new here, I will not presume to counsel those who have far more experience and knowledge. Perhaps it's true that h2g2 is in some sort of slump; that's not for me to say. It would be my hope, however, that those discouraged by this perceived turn of events would not totally lose sight of the remaining positive aspects of h2g2, which appear on the surface at least to be considerable. It would be a shame to throw out the baby along with the bath water.

With my apologies for this interruption, let the conferring of last rites continue.

Hi there Felonius,
I've just popped in on this conversation because Ladye S and I are great friends.
We are both quite new to having conversations with distinguished people like yourself
a) because we spent quite a long time lurking on yahoo and h2g2 to pluck up the courage to say anything, and
b) not very many people understand our sense of humour

Be that as it may, I personally want to explain why in one of your earlier posts to Seraphina (who ironically I do
not know at all ) I told you to "shadduppa your face".
I was of course referring to a song, which if you knew the song at all you would know that it was sung by a great
comedian and the first two lines go:

"What's the matter you?
Got no respect?"

For the sake of our children, in this vicious world we now live in, it is important to hold values of
Respect/Trust/Inclusion/Reliability/Fairness

Sorry if I upset you. Have a nice day (and may your death me a quiet and peaceful one)