Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: The successful crowdsourced encyclopedia BEFORE Wikipedia
As millions of Douglas Adams fans carried a towel to celebrate ‘Towel Day’ and the work of their favorite author, it’s worth noting that the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy website (h2g2.com) is a wildly successful crowdsourced encyclopedia that predates Wikipedia.org by nearly two years.
H2G2 stands for ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘ – an unconventional guide to Life, The Universe, and Everything. This website is a longstanding user-generated encyclopedia project founded in April, 1999. h2g2’s inspiration comes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the best-selling book by Douglas Adams, one of the original founders of the site. Back in 1971, Douglas lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, thinking about the galaxy and how you might find your way around it. His solution, the ‘Guide’, was an ingenious device that offered advice about almost any place, object, entity or event you might care to name – all at the convenience of your fingertips. This vision is now approaching reality, both on the Internet and on mobile phones, in the form of h2g2.
A major difference between Wikipedia and h2g2 is that with Wikipedia there is no central control. Wikipedia does not have Editors and Sub-editors. H2G2 does. Wikipedia contributors can edit and rewrite anything they see on the site for immediate viewing. On the H2G2 site, submissions are peer-reviewed and published by volunteer editors.
“It is not entirely clear to me how a H2G2 entry would differ from the same topic in Wikipedia based on the Writing Guide,” says one H2G2 user. “I vaguely recall a critical passage in the hitchhiker guide where the guide explained that a hitchhiker guide entry was far superior to one in the encyclopedia because an encyclopedia might tell you that a towel is made of cotten whereas the Guide would tell you can defeat a Bugblaster by wrapping the towel around your eyes. Or that the encyclopedia would tell you the contents of an alcoholic drink whereas the Guide might tell you where to get one, how much to pay, how many to give a local girl so as to get her drunk enough but not so drunk as to pass out, etc.”
Run by the BBC since 2001, the H2G2 website in both informative and quirky. It does so by providing two volumes of the guide: the Edited Guide, which contains thousands of factual articles that have been carefully peer reviewed and edited by volunteers and staff; and, the Alternative Guide which contains poetry, prose, fiction and everything else. H2G2 also has a robust online community for asking questions, discussing topics, playing games and chatting.
Even if you’re not a Douglas Adams fan (yet), take the opportunity to visit h2g2.com to learn about Life (Biology, Families, Food & Drink, Health, Human Behaviour, The Natural World, Sex) The Universe (The Earth, Astronomy, The Solar System, Stars & Galaxies, Travel & Transport) and Everything (Archaeology, Architecture, Arts & Entertainment , Business & Economics, Communications, Current Affairs, Deep Thought, Events and Celebrations, History & Politics, Holidays & Observances, Languages & Linguistics, Law & Crime, Leisure & Lifestyle, Mythology & Folklore, Science & Technology , Society and Cultures, Sports, Work). And, when you do: Don’t panic.
Credits: H2G2 facts courtesy of H2G2.com.
An Overview of The Hitchhikers Guide
Don’t judge a book by its movie. The long-anticipated cinema debut of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a flop. Read the book instead. However, enjoy this brief clip from the movie that describes the guide.