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

I seem to have lost all interest in h2g2 I'm even having trouble working up the motivation to go into PR and find my last pick for this month, which is already a week overdue.

When I signed up, and for a year or two afterwards, there was something different about this place - something really special, but now it feels like just another web community. Crammed with meaningless chat and little originality. It's content has been dumbed down by the masses and it's almost impossible to find any good new stuff of the same calibre as before

Hmmm.... Looking back to the entries I dealt with in the days before Peer Review (not to mention my own entries that were accepted back then), I definitely don't feel like things have been "dumbed down" over time. And when I do my update work, which is in reverse order of EG entry creation, this is even more obvious -- a decent chunk of the early entries were considerably less than stellar.

Looking at the EG entries I've picked, edited, or wrote since the advent of PR, I don't see any definite trend in terms of "dumbness", although there are definitely some peaks and valleys.

What I *do* notice, is that I have found the average entries in PR to be less *interesting* over time. If anything, this seems to be coming from the opposite of dumbing down. There are a lot more entries that are on the academic and technical side of things, a lot more entries that cover specific pieces of history or science, etc. -- but rather less of the entries that were just simply fun.

I see 2 major reasons for this:

1) While there are a potentially infinite number of topics to write entries about, the number of topics about which can be written fun entries that meet EG requirements and that don't take massive amounts of work is relatively more limited. There are only so many entries that can be written about the joy that is fake cheese.

2) The standards and expectations, both in PR and among the editorial staff, have changed in ways that favor entries that are "just the facts" over those that are "just fun". While entries can be written that are both factually substantial/accurate as well as fun/entertaining, this requires a) the right topic, and b) the right author. Many of the people who wrote such entries in the past have moved on -- some because they felt like PR was becoming too academic, others because they simply had exhausted their interest and attention span. Oh, and others because they liked the drama of saying "I'm leaving PR forever!" even though they would later come back, sometimes under different names.


Mikey

A550955 DNAs vision of the future for h2g2 04 April 2000
For a bit of review
When I first saw this place I thought the whole idea was to write about all kinds of ideas and information. Not just encyclopedia info.

I was hoping some left because they became busy paid writers

I can understand Gosho and I feel the same. I see several reasons (for me):

1. An ordinary decline of initial enthusiasm. You always have that.

2. The impression that this community stagnates rather than grows. Not only in terms of user number, but because nothing is really improved: The search engine is still pathetic, no alternative skin for Goo friends, no nice bits like email addresses for researchers, no picture upload scheme, no fast correcting facility, ancient open bugs.

Additionally, some things even get smaller: The number of paid participants and the number of new entries. Five per day was ridiculous enough.

3. BBC restrictions. I'm not one of those who need to rant regularly, so it didn't hit me directly. However this moderation took away all the people who like to use a, well, bold language with equal content. I've seen many people with witty discussion style leaving the site due to this. The effect was that the whole community drifted towards a more polite and more boring political behaviour. The Iraq house rule was superfluous and discouraging. h2g2 seems to have become a mere eye catcher for the BBC.

Take as an example the constellation project A743591: Tango and I found some people, we wrote a couple of entries, but such a thing doesn't make sense without stellar maps. So a program was written last Christmas to draw them. But h2g2 didn't want to guarantee inclusion, although they were drawn according to their colour scheme, with professional quality, and free of any copyright. Now Wikipedia has the maps. I was very disappointed, because it was sheer bullishness.


As an encyclopaedia, Wikipedia has won the race for good. So h2g2 should focus on funny (not silly) and original entries. I loved this place three years ago because of A219061 or A447338 because such entries were funny without being vulgar. And possibly travelogues; wasn't that the original HHGTTG after all? And a picture scheme, finally.

I feel much the same way as you, Gosho. I only found one pick for my last round (it was a brilliant one, on Mexico) - it was during the fortnight when the site had shut down which meant there was very little in PR - but even once we were open for business again, I couldn't find another decent enough entry. And I couldn't be bothered to really dig deep and hunt for something vaguely passable, either.

I reckon that h2g2 has changed over the last year... maybe hasn't, and it's just because I've just explored more and found all the other bits I didn't know about, but I used to think the main purpose of everyone on h2g2 was to contribute to the Guide in some way.

But looking around, it seems huge numbers people of just use h2g2 as a chatroom - what Montague Trout once called the 'smiley-conga' people. Researchers finding something to talk about and ways to amuse themselves among all the other stuff they do for the Guide is one thing, but it feels like they're in a minority.

When people submit utter tripe to PR, I often go over to their personal space to see what they're about - and often find that all the ACE has done is given them some advice about how to settle themselves in the 'community' and shown them some 'cool smileys' - and not a word about how to contribute to the Guide. To my mind, if a new Researcher isn't here to contribute to the Guide, or at least read it and comment on it, then they can b*gger off. Now, I know there are some excellent ACEs out there, and probably at least two or three of them will be subscribed to this conversation. But the MO of some of the others worries me.

Moving on to the paucity of remaining subjects on which to write Guide entries about, that's why I'm in the process of setting up A1286886... the Royal h2g2 Geographical Entry Society - you're all very welcome - Gosho's already signed up, and I should have asked Mikey ages ago!

My feeling is that the Guide seems to have veered heavily in the direction of being a guide to the Things in the Galaxy, ignoring any commitment to tell us about the Places in the Galaxy. It should be both, of course - but I'm a lot more interested in finding out about the places, and to paraphrase something Jimi X said, if I see another entry in PR about pencils or doorstops I think I'll go mad.

I'm hoping it's not going to be just another club or society. What I really want to do is make this the Next Big Thing to happen in h2g2, and change the way researchers approach writing for the EG.

A laudable sentiment. Youll notice that I've suggested one of my own entries as a pump-primer for this exercise. Surely, people must be able to drum up some of their own? There ought to be loads of entries on, say for example, Pennsylvania.....


Just another : Mightn't it be a good idea for one of the criteria for an EG article to be *truly* informative, in that it is actually likely to *add* to the reader's knowledge? Everyone knows about pencils and doorstops and what they do, and 'witty' but essentially pointless articles about them are just a waste of time. Whereas it's pretty likely that I could write something about my home town, Swansea, that would be news to another native (such as devil worship, for example).

The Guide ought to be about *exploration*, not sitting on one's arse in front of a computer, trying to think of something quirky to say about bloody toenail clippers. If there's one thing for which I'll curse the memory of DNA, it's that loads of also-rans want to write like him and think that this is the ideal place to do it. Can't we encourage the italics to say up front what *sort* of entry we'd like to see written?


FM

I don't mind so much the ones that are genuinely witty... although of course for each one of those there are several failures - but it's the dull-as-ditchwater encyclopaedia-type ones that do my head in.

I too have lost a certain amount of enthusiasm with the site. It reached its nadir during the two week absence of the italics when, to be honest, I just couldn't be bothered with visiting PR let alone picking anything.

My mood has lifted a little since going to the meet in Bradford, where I talked to some of the more senior researchers around here. And discovered that everyone is feeling a bit down at the moment. For me, I'm going to give it until the beginning of next year when the site is down to only two members of staff to see whether I continue as a researcher.

Picking up on your point, abbi, I'm also quite worried about how on the Front Page we're now branded as an Online Encyclopaedia rather than the Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything (it's still there only in the Brunel skin, but in very small letters).

I started an askh2g2 conversation about it, but it seems to have gone a bit quiet - if anyone feels like weighing in, it's over at F19585?thread=326892

You're right, Felonious Monk. However 'truely informative' is difficult to define. I'd love to see more entries about real experiences of our researchers. But how could we promote them?

Gosho's other complaint was that the place was becoming nothing but "meaningless chat and little originality".

I'm the first to admit that I participate in loads of conversations which are essentially pointless blatherings... but even then, a spark of wittiness will come through occasionally, and the intrigueing bit of information will pop up in conversation, sometimes even eventually leading to an interesting guide entry. Even something like Pandora's Pun-a-Thon requires a good bit of thought from the participants, even though many people despise puns, so that admittedly is not a conversation that most people would enjoy.

I've only been here a little more than 1-1/2 years, but even I've seen a great influx of people over the past year or so who seem to think of this as nothing more than chat, and far too many conversations show that trend. I'm not sure why that is - perhaps we're attracting an increasingly younger crowd (but if you think it's bad now... just wait until the Hitchiker's movie is finally completed, and the fast food restaurants start offering h2g2 figurines in their kids meals). Even the previously silly conversations that had the redeeming quality of a certain element of wittiness about them have now often been reduced to pages of entirely pointless one word postings.

Problem is, it's the way so many conversations on serious topics are handled which drive me away from them, and back to the silly conversations. Community *is* important here - which is why we put a great deal of planning into meet-ups, and some researchers have been known to travel thousands of miles, just to attend one. I've developed personal relationships with various people here, and journal entries or even the ridiculous fan clubs are a way of keeping in touch. This may not have been *exactly* what DNA envisioned for the online version of h2g2, but the conversations related to those relationships are a part of "life... and everything".

But back to the dumbing down of the place in general...

I've tried participating in serious conversations, and still do from time to time; however once I've spoken my mind once or twice on a topic, there usually isn't much point in arguing it to death. There are certain controversial serious conversations which seem to drag on and on, going around and around in circles with the same arguments repeated... repeatedly! They never come to any definable conclusion, with no meeting of the minds, not even an agreement to disagree. It's times like that I'd just as soon unsubscribe from a conversation - I don't need the stress of reading the same arguments over and over when the participants obviously are not truly considering anything but their own narrow point of view.

I don't know what the solution is. The points which have been made about no way to include adequate artwork to illustrate things like an entry about constellations shows that the place really needs some improvement. On the other hand, the way that the paid staff has so recently been reduced to 2 leads me to believe that they think we are a capable group of people and trust us to do much more of the work ourselves. Then they reduce the number of edited entries to two per day (along with the other things that were dropped from the front page)... go figure.

I just remembered SEF has been running a project on the nature of the conversations over at <./>Askh2g2</.> and has come up with some stats here - <./>T313587</.> - read what you will into them

I was thinking about the community more than the EG and PR when I posted that, but I do feel that PR has also stagnated somewhat recently. There are some excellent new Scouts like Number Six and Cyzaki (to name just two) who are helping to make PR a worthwhile place, and it looks as if Bossel has returned. I was very sad to see you go FM. Dang, if you and one or two others were to do the same thing Mikey...

The community seems to be turning into just another chat site - full of people talking about absolutely nothing. Talking simply for the sake of taking up memory space. Just look at Ask h2g2, the declining quality of which I've been more than vocal about for some time. Since the Editors are happy to let it 'evolve', I see no way back for it. I've tried to get them to give Misc Chat a higher profile but to no avail.

My 'More postings' page recently seems to be full of PR threads, and vapid Ask conversations - 90% of which I unsubscribe from. I don't want to unsubscribe from Ask because it *is* the place where people still go to ask relevant questions or to make an announcement, but I'm getting closer and closer to doing just that. There are very few other conversations there now, even though I'm subscribed to many Researchers journals and other forums.

I dunno... it's early, I've just got up, I haven't had brekkers yet... maybe I'll be more compos afterwards.

I must admit, I rarely go to askh2g2 for the reasons that you mention, and have never subscribed to it. I was a little disappointed with the response my question received initially, but then I thought, well, if I don't come here unless I've got something important to say or ask, then presumably many other people don't either.

Right, go to go and get some packing done now!

I've contributed to a lot of community-written entries,
but I don't have any solo entries, except for two that I
wrote for the University Project but didn't get edited.
Now the University Project is being discontinued. And,
the community-written entries are apparently not going to
be done either. That leaves me with just the conversations.
Gosho, do you suppose the powers that be have a death-wish for
H2G2?

Also, there are a lot of researchers (Ex-Rambling ,
for example) who use H2G2 for getting feedback on the
original fiction that they write. This site isn't just
nonfiction, you know.

(I've written a few stories here myself)

You're subscribed to Askh2g2? Blimey! You're a braver man than I

I would say I visit the place about three times a week. I switch skin to one with frames, and go through about three to four blobs worth of conversations in the left hand frame looking for titles that appeal. I guess I read, or at least open 10 of those convos and subscribe/post to say four.

In recent weeks I have found Misc Chat, The Forum and Lil's Atelier to be new parts of the site for me. They're filled with intelligent conversation and away from the madding hoards

BTW I must have missed the bit that said that collaborative topics are not going to be written up as Guide Entries. That's a shame, they were fun sometimes