H2g2

The h2g2 website is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project. It describes itself as "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' from the science fiction comedy series of the same name by Douglas Adams. It was founded by Adams in 1999 and was run by the BBC between 2001 and 2011.

The intent is to create an Earth-focused guide that allows members to share information about their geographic area and the local sites, activities and businesses, to help people decide where they want to go and what they may find when they get there. It has grown to contain subjects from restaurants and recipes, to quantum theory and history. Explicit advertising of businesses was forbidden when the site was run by the BBC, but customer reviews were permitted. – ''No Spitting. The lawyers wanted to know what rules we needed, and we said 'The usual ones, plus "No spitting" please.' So there you go: no spitting. Many thanks. Oh, and beware of the Leopard.''

The content of the project is written by registered "Researchers" on its website. Articles written by Researchers form the "Guide" as a whole, with an "Edited Guide" being steadily created out of factual articles that have been peer reviewed via the "Peer Review" system. The Edited Guide includes both traditional encyclopaedic subjects and more idiosyncratic offerings, and articles in the Edited Guide sometimes aim for a slightly humorous style. – ''Another site, created by Douglas Adams, comes at the encyclopedia idea from a different, funnier angle.''

History

The Digital Village (TDV) was a digital media company based in Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1992. The science fiction/comedy writer Douglas Adams was one of the founding members, along with Robbie Stamp, executive producer of the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' movie (2005). TDV produced the video game '' Starship Titanic''. The h2g2 website was founded on 28 April 1999 as a community-site dedicated to producing the "Earth edition" of '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by the author of the series, Douglas Adams, and his friends and colleagues at The Digital Village.

Digital Village was renamed in 2000 to "h2g2", an abbreviation for the title as well as part of the url. The site was a runner-up for Best Community Site in the Yell.com awards in 2000. At its highest point (October 2000) the company had over 40 employees. Like other dot-com companies, Adams' company ran into financial difficulties towards the end of 2000 and eventually ceased operations. In January 2001, the management of the site was taken over by the BBC, and moved to bbc.co.uk (then known as BBCi). While many h2g2 staff continued to work without pay until the h2g2 site, brand and several staff moved to the British Broadcasting Corporation
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