By Jessica N. Bowles-Martinez
The site is hosted by the BBC and is meant to function as a reference
guide
for hundreds of topics on earth. The Douglas Adam's book "Hitchhikers
Guide
to the Universe" was named after a reference manual which served
the Universe.
This site expands upon the book by allowing the site viewers a chance
to
create the equivalent on Earth, by submitting information on topics
of their
choice.
The site takes a while to load and while that is its only major fault
its one
that would likely deter most people. I went to site, nothing came
up, went to
get a soda, talked a friend, came back and it wasn't loaded yet. I
repeated
this experiment in my room with the same results, perhaps its the
result of
the servers being in England, but either way it destroys the sense
that this
is a dynamic site filled with the energy or its readers, as it claims.
The way its set up is pretty interesting because there is a more formal
process than I would have expected of a site that lets people freely
post on
any topic. People have accounts on the site after providing basic
information
and selecting a password and they write about their favorite topics
and then
submit them to be part of the "guide." I, personally, can
`t really see
myself going to the site for information as its too random and the
quality of
writing varies too greatly. Yet, I don't think that its really so
much a place
for people to really go for information, rather its function seems
to be as an
outlet for writers. It provides a forum for people to submit a lot
of
information about a topic they are interested in, and there are some
people
who really do go on in great depth. Some of that articles are interesting,
and imaginative and some are just more information on an obscure topic
than I
ever cared to hear about.
In addition to the traditional "guide" there are also areas
where the viewers
are able to communicate directly with one another with topics that
come up
through normal conversation as well as a response to a daily question
on the
site. The questions are often silly and the replies I read to it seemed
to
be mocking the questions themselves, which just led to people replying
to the
mocking. The posts died quickly though as the amusement decayed rapidly,
but
I thought it was a good way to get an idea of the sense of humor and
personality of many of the "guide" contributors.
There are also "Community Activities" beyond just writing
back and forth that
are on the site. There is a quiz where researches can test their reasoning
skills, an area to analyze user names, a newsletter with information,
and
virtual Inn, Pub and cafe, all the way back to the reason the site
exists;
books, and places to discuss them. Its also possible to see who else
is
logged in incase you had gained friends or wanted to talk directly
with a
particular person about a post. I found it impressive how many outlets
are
available for the people who frequent the site to interact and make
themselves
known.
The entire site seems to be the product of enthusiastic viewers as
they
created all the content. Without the book I doubt that the kind of
enthusiasm
shown here would be present though, for the page is not particularly
flashy on
its own. The "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" is on a science
fiction comedy
book that has been enormously popular with its readers, and probably
attracts
a good deal of technologically oriented people. This coupled with
the cult
following and constant references to the book in popular culture means
that
the site has a fairly large audience base. When taking this into
consideration its almost surprising that many sections have no had
new
messages written to them in a day or so.