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

It's crying out for more people here.

I'd thought of getting the students moved in next door interested in new h2g2...or even helping to publicise it at the college.

but I want to keep them as friends and neighbours for now...I don't confident enough in the new thing yet to invite them.

But I've this funny feeling things are now on the up...

And if I start to feel genuinely good and confident about this place I will invite them.

New Year sounds good.

(yes I know I'm an irrational optimist).

Okay I'm a realistic pessimist now.

We'll eventually end up just like that Noesis morgue.

(I'm not letting Hope kill me any longer).

anhaga how is it going 01 - 05 GMT?

I pop in periodically as I wake up in the night here. It always seems pretty quiet on ASK.

Just got home. I don't know if it's been busy here or not, but I've been busy.

Yeah but it hasn't reached 01 GMT yet?

I just wondered who you Canadians talk to in the night here aside from me.

There's a whole continent of North America awake for most of that time...not to mention South America...or Asia, Australasia etc

And there are now 7 billion on earth.

A fair few with internet access I'd have thought.

Well, not many of us come to hootoo, do we? I expect most use Twitter and Facebook and the amateur writers contribute to wikipedia. I expect the vast majority of people in North America have never heard of Douglas Adams or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and only a statistically insignificant number have heard of h2g2.

It's certainly a rare person I meet who has any inkling of the Hitchkiker's guide. In fact, if memory serves, the only people I know to have any familiarity are members of my family (who probably only have a familiarity because a cousin who married an Englishman introduced me to the first book in 1983 when I visited them in Watford) and the guy who's doing my renos -- he's British. And the only reason I found h2g2 is because it was mentioned in The Salmon of Doubt, and I've never met anyone else in real life who has ever heard of that book.

Those who say we need to do the marketing ourselves don't realize what an uphill battle it is here:

"you should try hootoo."

"what's that"

"well, it's sort of like facebook, but without `pictures or `private messages, so, it's sort of like twitter, but without a limit on the length of messages and without any notification that a message has come unless you're logged in and always checking, and it's sort of like wiki`pedia, but it's not instantly u`pdated and doesn't have anywhere near as many entries -- it's the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Earth Edition. You know. Douglas Adams. . . "


(blank look then)

"I already use facebook and twitter and wikipedia. Who's Douglas Adams?"

Yes, I discussed this stuff on an ASK thread earlier and made similar points about identity and what you actually say to people.

I was irritated that one of the people I really like here, Mr. D., who has been pushing the idea of spreading the word, suddenly said he *had* to leave the discussion. I didn't know why.

If these things aren't aired properly, full on and honestly we're done for IMO.

My point exactly is what are we now? 3 way ownership..by clueless Noesis, invisible Robbie, and some club that met for some months at Noesis site.

I'll carry on to the bitter end though...well for sometime as I'm addicted.

Tell your friends and acquaintances what you like about h2g2. Presumably you will have some interests in common and, hopefully, h2g2 will resonate with them if those interests include writing and reading about life, the universe, and everything.

Sorry, Witty Moniker, but my real life friends include:

A bunch who are rarely if ever online and have no interest in being on line;

A huge bunch who are rarely online because they are working or enjoying the company of real life friends or sleeping;

at least one who goes online only for gaming;

one who makes his living writing online and has no reason to do it for free;

and, as I mentioned above, none of them would recognize the phrase "life, the universe, and everything" as anything particularly significant or allusive.

I don't have real life friends who are my real life friends *because* they spend time online or because they have read Douglas Adams or because they have any interest in writing for no pay. I would probably have *more* real life friends if I spent less time online, if I wasn't so interested in the writings of Douglas Adams, and if I had less interest in writing for no pay (actually, I've pretty much lost interest in writing for no pay.)


Let me turn your suggestion around, if I may:

If you were a big fan of Canadian Football, do you think you could manage to make Canadian Football into something global simply by getting together with the three other people in Britain who enjoy Canadian Football and asking them to explain to their friends what they like about Canadian Football? Presumably they'll have some interests in common, and hopefully the CFL will resonate with them if their interests include three downs, 110 yard fields and backfield motion.

As I'm not a fan of Canadian football and not a resident of Britain, this is a poor analogy for me personally. I don't care about Canadian football, but I do care about h2g2.

I am but a single snowflake. But who knows where and when a comment I make about h2g2 may pique someone's interest? And who knows what effect some other snowflakes may make? And sometimes the result is a flurry and other times it becomes a blizzard. But if that off hand comment I make about something that matters to me results in the rolling of eyes, then that just means we don't have that common interest and that conversation will move on.

Hi Witty Moniker,

welcome to my space.

> but I do care about h2g2.<

Please could you define what it as it is presently. If I'm going to do any sort of evangelising...I need to know what I'm selling; that's honest.

It was easy when the Beeb had us under their umbrella. We could take it for granted because Douglas became DNA through Aunty..

But what are we now?

Should I contact Robbie Stamp? he's part of the new umbrella to do with DNA isn't he?

" s I'm not a fan of Canadian football and not a resident of Britain, this is a poor analogy for me personally. I don't care about Canadian football ..."
Most of the world is not British, doesn't care about h2g2 (or Canadian Football), or about Douglas Adams. The analogy may be poor for you personally, bit it fits the globe and the challenge facing hootoo -- why should a person in Edmonton, Canada, Sydney, Australia, or Darjeeling, India feel passionate about -- or even interested in -- hootoo? If you can't answer that, no amount of personal passion will make hootoo anything other than a little club for a certain type of anglophile.

Just off to Yelp to discuss a Canadian's memoir about her time as a teenager in an Iranian prison after the Revolution. The book is a part of a continent-wide book club sponsored by the CBC, an annual event which has an extremely significant impact on lives, book sales, and the culture of an entire nation. I've tried in previous years to bring the discussion to hootoo but it has always been an echo chamber.

Don't even suggest I mention hootoo on yelp: i'm pretty sure yelp has more contributors in this one city than hootoo has in the whole world.

*That* is what noohootoo is up against if it wants to enbiggen itself.

Effers and Anhaga, what you're selling is what h2g2 means to you. I can't tell you what that is. It is unique for each of us. If your description of the Guide doesn't sell in your RL market, well at least you can say you tried.

Thank you for the warm welcome, Effers.

I don't have any grand expectations of this place.

If it survives at all, I expect it to be a niche thing for reasonably well educated people with an ethnic European background.

The most I'd hope for is for people to maybe think a fractionally differently.

Maybe we could go on a journey together of some kind?

(I won't be expecting it to break the mould in any huge way. I hope the guide could be something interesting.

I will expect to meet far more people from African, Carribean, Muslim and Eastern European countries/backgrounds in Peckham, London than I ever will on h2g2.

I'd like a bit of warm bonding with people that interest me here...or even being able to just pass the time of day/night with some..

Girls just wanna have fun.

That's a lie..

WM it doesn't work when you say to people that there is this thing you simply must join which is unique for you.

Our identity is draining away along with the people...

The foxes outside seem to be very lively..pairing up season I think...or edge of..lots of loud screams and barks.

Where was I? To bed... perchance to dream.....

WM:

Well, I guess I can say I've tried.

And, what Effers days about her situation in Peckam goes for Edmonton as well.





But I seem to remember someone editorial saying something about hootoo becoming global, indeed, superseding Wikipedia as the prime online encyclopedia.