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Hope For H2G2
TDScott writes "Woohoo! After a bit of uncertainty, Douglas Adams' H2G2 community site is being integrated into BBC Online! Here's the BBC press release. Nice to know that it's going to survive." I like H2G2 - it reminds me a lot E2, which has a somewhat similar concept.
I am mightily relieved that the H2G2 site is not going to be controlled by a commercial organisation os corporation. The BBC is fundamentally a socialist organisation, and so we can be sure that H2G2 will not be exploited for money. In addition, the BBC and Adams have a long relationship - HGTTG was first thought of by Adams for BBC Radio 4, as a drama for that station. It was later turned into a television series. We owe the existence of the HHGTTG to the BBC, and the fact that they are willing to give unknowns a chance, regardless of commercial consequences.
H2G2 is going home to its rightful place. If Adam's is its father, the BBC is its kindly grandfather, and we can be assured that they will run it according to the fundamental ideals of the book and site, rather than to make a fast buck. God bless the BBC.
--
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/* in its mouth... */
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I'd rather the BBC put its money into developing new and worthwhile television and radio programming, rather than bailing out some failed dot-com that was only ever somewhere else on the internet where people can talk bollocks. As if there weren't already enough of those! Bad move BBC, you don't need a financial black hole like h2g2! As a Hitch-Hiker fan, I'd like to see Douglas Adams WRITE A NOVEL!!! Maybe he's forgotten how or something, but for the last almost ten years all he's done is generate clouds of hot air. Oi! Adams! Nooo!!! Stop generating enormous piles of bullshit and do what made you famous enough to generate those piles in the first place!
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"Information wants to be paid"
it's fantastic for the people working at H2G2 that they have financial stability, and now can actually be paid etc. I'm happy for them :)
but... and I'm probably being needlesly cynical, doesn't this remind anyone of AOL-Time-Warner?
at least this time it's the Old Media company acquiring the New Media one. I wouldn't be surprised to find the BBC trying to "integrate" other communities to try and build up a strong user base. I wonder if one reason a huge content/media company like the BBC (which resembles Time-Warner more than CNN) is interested in "online communities" is to create "captive audiences" for its content produced in-house.
The BBC may not be a traditional profit-oriented corp but it has had problems with censorship. For example, will they allow any articles on "BBC Sucks!" on H2G2 ? Will they demand that user comments be edited?
I'm just expressing the hope that the BBC will give H2G2 the creative, artistic, and administrative freedoms that they promised. A public pledge/statement by BBC Online reps would be more binding than a press release.
For the BBC, acquiring H2G2 is quite a coup. I hope they have the wisdom to see that it's value stems directly from its independence. I think there are reasons to be critical of the BBC (for example, 1, 2, 3)
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At the risk of not sounding like a geek what is H2G2? I know that Douglas Adam created the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, but I have never heard of this. Someone please tell me.
Really? I thought H2G2 was written in the '70s. Seems to me the concept of it is just a little bit older than e2.
My other sig is extremely clever...
For those of you who are asking what H2G2 is, and don't have time to explore the site in detail, this is a basic breakdown:
H2G2 is meant to be a "real" Hitchhiker's Guide. While it can be used on your computer (as well as palmtops, naturally), it can be accessed with internet-friendly cell phones as well.
The ultimate goal is to not only have a large database with useful/humerous/unique information available, but to have each member of a community also be a contributor.
For example. You're in France, you want to go to the Louvre, but you're not sure where it is. H2G2 can tell you where to find it. Now you go in, start looking at some paintings, and are moved by one in particular. You can then send a review or recomendation to the site for that particular art work, which others can then access.
Now you leave the art museum and get a bite to eat. There is a cafe right next door, you pay twice as much for a simple sandwhich and coffee as you're supposed to, and the quality of each is poor. If you had checked on H2G2 before, you would have found this cafe already had several warnings from previous unfortunate tourists caught in the same trap, and could have avoided it.
Needless to say, there are "official" reports and a slush pile which is "believe at your own risk". Everyone's reports would go to the slush pile until confirmed (however that would be done), and made "official".
That's my understanding of H2G2, hope it helps.
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Douglas Adams has been a favorite author of mine for some time, and I have always enjoyed the programs put out by BBC. Their interview sessions with many major musicians always asks the right questions. Their television is some of the pioneering work for free public expression, such as the infamous Monty Pythin's Flying Circus. They covered much of Douglas Adams' previou works, so it's also only fitting that H2G2 fit in there. Anyone who has not yet seen the website should visit it upon its reopen. Whether or not you wish to contribute to it, there is some very humorous as well as helpful information available there. Being true to the novel series, many of the reviews you can't help but chuckle at. A few examples would be critical analysis of the proper way to bury yourself in the sand, how to play air guitar, office wars with rubber bands, and the most strategic way to remove your genitalia from between the zipper of your pants (my personal favorite). I suggest you all make a trip over there. There is definitely something there for everybody.
Anyway, E2 sucks. They posture to be a dictionary, or encyclopedia, but look at what they celebrate. It'll be Dem Bones ate my Hamster, or some other unfunny injoke for The Community.
E2's about as much an encyclopedia as a chewing gum wrapper chronicle on the 1932 olympics, or something.
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
Uh...dude.../no/ one works on E2. E2 is a bandwidth bill. So, if you are trying to work a conspiracy of financial reimbursment, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pop your dreams.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Yeah, I flog it. Just like I flog all the sites I link.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
They should be spending their money creating a new Doctor Who television series, not wasting it on this crap.
When the BBC stopped Dr. Who, they became just a caricature of their selves.
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-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
Currently E2 is a fair mix of facts, rants, GTKY (Getting-To-Know-You) polls and inside jokes -- but thinking of it, it represents us much better than just plain facts. And those future generations wouldn't wanna read a dry encyclopedia either. Thus, a pile of dry facts can be as useless as a pile of GTKY polls.
For anyone who needs evidence for this, simply read anything written by Adams after the eary eighties. Conclusive evidence comes in the form of Adams' return to his bread-and-butter, H2G2.
This is his way of trying to stir up interest among a community he thinks he started. In interviews and speeches, he pretends as though he invented the idea of smarmy sci fi. He did not.
We've moved on. He, it seems, has not.
But I wonder if he is not just a shadow of things to come- for us. We all like to slap ourselves on our backs and talk about this wonderful information revolution we're helping to foster. But after we're all obsolete in ten years, will we all be talking that same way?
"Where's the gratitude?" we will whine. "Why don't kids understand my considerable contributions to the art?"
"Why, at some point in 2001, my karma was up to about forty!"
The BBC is not a government, or government controlled organisation. The BBC is legally bound to offer TV and radio broadcasts to the UK public and is not meant to show a political bias.
DON'T PANIC
Anyway, E2 does posture to be a reference for many things. This may be the bitter rantings of an unloved member (rather these are the bitter rantings of an unloved member) but after writing factual nodes for a week or two I was always irritated to see how non-sensical nodes floated to the top while detailed nodes based in reality (not some wet dream) don't.
It does posture to be a reference and Slashdot uses it as such, that's why I dislike E2.
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
However, there are many slaves of E2. Damn its evil silicon heart!
-j
And you posted this when? Not very bright are you? Attacking somebody for doing exactly what you're doing. You must be a "Lunix Luzer" posting on Saturday.
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