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BBC To Dispose of Douglas Adams Website

Posted by Soulskill on from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has announced their intention to dispose of the H2G2 website, originally founded by Douglas Adams. This comes as part of an initiative by the BBC to cut their online spending by 25%. 'BBC Online will be reorganised into five portfolios of "products." All parts of BBC Online have to fit with these. Over the past year all areas of the site have been reviewed to see where, and if, they fit. Sadly ... H2G2 does not fit in the new shape of BBC Online. However, H2G2 is unusual. It is a pre-existing community that the BBC brought into its fold, not a community that the BBC set up from scratch. So rather than closing it, we've decided to explore another option. This process has been referred to elsewhere as the "disposal" of H2G2. I'll admit this is not a great choice of words, but what is means is that we'll be looking for proposals from others to take on the running of H2G2.' One option under discussion is a community buyout."

2 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Re:First I heard of it by Seumas · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not particularly. It was a flash in the pan that everyone thought was cool and you never heard about, again. It was sort of an early Wikipedia; more like Everything (which in itself was a concept that was exciting and fun for about 48hrs and then you never thought about, again).

    1999: http://slashdot.org/story/99/04/28/1821246/Web-Based-Hitchhikers-Guide-to-the-Galaxy

  2. Re:It must have been expensive. by bipbop · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's two years older than Wikipedia, so if by "a take on Wikipedia" you meant they decided to do their own version of Wikipedia, then that's false. If you meant that they're quite similar, then I have no argument, so carry on :-)