The View at h2g2
Created | Updated Jun 22, 2003
This week, the View polls you and the other readers. How do you feel about h2g2 these days? It's time to give your opinion.
The State of h2g2
The Peer Review system settled down a little over the past week. The Coming Up page that was full with 60 entries is down to a manageable 9 now. And the Peer Review page has barely budged from 248 entries last week to 255 this week.
This week's mystery is the Sin Bin. It jumped up to 227 entries last week, but is back down to 185 entries now. How did that happen? It's probably a fair assumption that h2g2's Moderation process is somehow involved.
Outside the Peer Review system, things have been comparatively quiet. Discussions are still going on in the wake of a Researcher's departure about whether h2g2 could be a little friendlier. Lucinda has started an interesting thread on what s/he terms Synchronized Jumping Sessions in the Community Soapbox. Anyone with useful ideas or thoughts is welcome to join in.
Will the Post's new contest, Big Bandwagon, cause any controversy? It might. Personally, I'm shocked that the Post would run such a low-class cheese off. We already get far too much of this stuff from reality TV. But then, h2g2 has always excelled at pseudo-reality and sarcastic spoofs. It could turn out to be quite interesting.
Let's just hope there's no virtual nudity, eh?
The After Rupert Survey
Things have been a little different since we've returned to h2g2. For those who are newer here, h2g2 was originally an independent site. It went offline for several weeks earlier this year, and then returned as part of BBC Online. The merger with Auntie Beeb prompted a few changes, like the added step of Moderation where BBC employees check over all new content to make sure it complies with h2g2's rules. Previously, content was only checked or removed if someone complained about it.
Also, the outage caused timing issues with our Peer Review process for getting new Edited Guide Entries to h2g2's main page. There was a brief slowdown where writers weren't contributing at the same rate they used to. While this was a temporary problem, it caused a few ripples in the system and arguably Peer Review remains somewhat changed.
Since there have been changes and some have received a lot of debate, I thought it would be nice to have a general poll on what people think so far. I think h2g2 is fairly settled into its role as part of BBC Online. That means that now is a good time to take stock.
Please fill out my short After Rupert Survey. Also, feel free to start a conversation below if you want to talk about pre-Rupert versus post-Rupert differences in more detail.
The Next View
Of course, I'll report on the results of my survey next week. It will be interesting to see how the opinions average out.
We'll also take a trip through the University of Life. The original theory was that the University would foster collaborations between numerous Researchers with a common interest. But so far, most projects have been completed mostly or entirely by a single person.
The problem seems to be that nobody is prowling the University looking to help. This means the folks with project ideas get stuck with all the work, and many projects can't be completed in a timely manner. Next week, I'll look at what projects are in motion right now. Perhaps you'll find something that appeals to you.
Written by Fragilis the Melodical.
Feel free to check out my past columns.
