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

I keep meaning to find a few minutes in the day to read and comment on some of the 'newbies' that may be taking part in this. The ones that I am not subscribed to.

I've come across some really good bits of writing, cliff hangers, puzzlers, amazing insights into the slightest bits of personal daily musings.

I'm loving it. But, I do unsub once I feel I have nothing more to add, or that the journal in question has 'finished'.

Way back when the blogsphere was young, I remember debating whether or not I should set up blog, or contribute to more h2g2 journals. I was worried that if I journalled more I would 'annoy' the people who had me on their friends list. So I set up a blog, and as a result I wrote less on h2g2, and more elsewhere.

As a site we need to attract more user generated content, but do so in a way that means that people can contribute journals without annoying other users if they contribute a lot.

I suspect a technological solution springs to mind. Perhaps your space could have a separate 'feed' for new journal entries, so they don't get lost among the conversations.

Yes, that is a good idea. I like it. But people who are subbed to a half-dozen journals could still find their feed clogged every day in November...

But it's an option worth putting on the table.

I'm a bit of a luddite really and can't see the difference between having the journals fed into your PS and just having them in your convo list. At the end of the day, you've still got to read what's written. (Or decide with a heavy heart not to)

I think that the good thing would be that you could keep the conversations separate, so that you could choose to just read the conversations and not the journals.

To be honest, and colour me lazy, but it's easier for me to skip reading posts in my convo list than

See, golly gosh, that someone's done what they'd said they'd do and updated their journal with a cross-post

Then to read it I have to click through and read their new conversation thread

And subcribe to it if I want to follow it.

If I want to read their stuff, I'll subscribe to their A Page and get the postings on their APage AND their journal ending up more swamped than I am now.


And as a participant I must apparently

Create an A Page
Create my journal that now isn't actually a journal there
Crosspost it to my actual journal

The 900 posts will die down rapidly as the conversations fade. You don't have to subscribe to all patricipants anyway. If we say who we are and that it's a NaJo entry in the title, then they are easy for other people to skip. Quiker and easier all round, I'd have thought.

okay I sorta got it

create the A page
do your journal on the A page

>>>Crosspost it to my actual journal<<<

doesn't this still create a convo and will still swamp peeps?

I am just a bit confused here

I'm certainly in favour of continuing as we are now - but at the end of this month, we can feed this thread into any post-exercise review that's undertaken...

Oh, I'm such a bureaucrat. Kill me now.

Ivan

you're perfect for this job

Helly, it would only create one thread in the Journal - a thread where you let people know you've made an entry on the A-page.

But we might be over-thinking this. I also think we need a smiley, but 'smiley' would be an odd name for it. 'Shruggy'?

Ben's got what I was trying to say.

I'm doing it how she says, too... Name and NaJoPoMo in the title. Simple.

I now just have to get used to unsubscribing - something I usually never do!

There already is a < shrug > smiley - would that do?

To me, it's an interesting question because regardless of NaJoPoMo, if or rather as we become busier and busier there are going to be more and more interesting convos going on that we want to read/ be involved in and keeping up with everything is going to be difficult.

In fact, even before November started, I was logging on in the morning, seeing something that caught my eye (probably from Ask) and by the evening finding it on the third page of my convos list even though it had been replied to quite frequently.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I am definitely up for changing how we do things next year if it seems like a good idea. What works for blogging, doesn't necessarily work for a community.

But I think the JoPo thing has just highlighted something we will have to face sooner or later anyway. Hopefully!

Becoming more used to unsubbing is one tactic.

I like Z's idea of having different 'feeds' or windows for different types of threads in different places. Peer review/ ask/ journals/ the post. You could use them like widgets perhaps and only enable the ones you are interested in.

Ben had a good idea somewhere I thought: to label each thread where it came from (automatically I mean). So on your convo list you'd get '[name of thread] [Ask/ journal/ peer review/ etc] [Most recent posting] [last post]'.

Anyway.

>>Ben had a good idea somewhere I thought: to label each thread where it came from (automatically I mean). So on your convo list you'd get '[name of thread] [Ask/ journal/ peer review/ etc] [Most recent posting] [last post]'.<<

or even a way to divide the 'My Convos' pop up into sections, so one could look through each section, for the convos they most wanted to reply to.

One thing I have always loved about this site, and has made it unique,(as far as I know) is that convo pop up, it makes it much easier to track threads, especially with the huge time diffs that can be had here

I mentioned fairly early on in this event how it suddenly highlighted for me just what teachers do, probably on a daily basis. Imagine having a class of say 30 kids, writing an essay. The teacher has to read, mark and comment on every one, without exception. The workload is at best, mentally tiring.
I think we're seeing just how difficult that task is. I don't have any answers or suggestions as some of what has been said already covers things pretty well.
I think the easiest one is for Journal titles to display clearly its for the challenge and that leaves it upto reader discretion as to whether they read them or not.
If a reader doesn't want to leave a comment after reading then, as some of us are already doing, leave a calling card, ie a smiley or whatever.
At the end of the day, we shouldn't lose the overall aim of this, its to 1)get people writing and 2)equally important, be fun.
If it becomes a chore, the fun goes out of it and thats not good as people will drop out.
Just going back to the first point I made here, having realised that there is a prize on offer for this challenge, how will that be determined? Has someone, like it or not, got to read every journal from every participant in order to to determine who wins said prize? Now that is one hell of a workload for someone if thats the case.

Sorry I sounded so teenagerish in my last post.

NaJoPoMo's coincided with me changing how I use h2g2 anyway; in a period of a month or so I've gone from not subscribing to anyone to subscribing to as many people as possible and using the Info page (http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/info?cmd=conv&show=200 ). Those two changes, plus the busyness of the re-launched site and the fact that I am using my iThing, mean that I am lurking far more and posting far less.

I do like the idea of being able to sort my conversation list by the page the conversation is attached to though.

I'm finding it rather nice, actually. I decided very early on that I was going to have to either un-sub, or not reply unless I had something to say. In return, I've been able to read through a wide variety of interesting posts but not feel guilt about not replying.
I like the idea of leaving a calling card though, that's civilised and also gives the authors a sense that they are being read and appreciated even if there isn't much comment.

Heck, that might be something to do when reading the Post. I so often read something but don't have anything to say, but I want to at least show the author that they are being read.

That's a very good idea, Vip. Or we need a smiley. Not necessarily a button, but a smiley would be nice.

is as good as 'like', methinks.

I am not going to unsub from anybody.
But there are days when I wish there was an easy way for removing posts from my convo-list. Opening a post/journal for unsubbing is a slippery way. I end up reading and there's no way out then.

Ah, but even in goo you have an unsubscribe link beneath each post, so you don't 'need' to open them to unsubscribe.