Some people say that the proliferation of personal home pages on the internet is bad, since so many people have nothing interesting to say. It seems these lines are another example for this; however, h2g2 demands I edit the main "Introduction" page so people can leave messages and comments. Which is another thing I'm not too sure about: Why would people want to do this? Maybe someone can send a message or post a comment and answer that question...

Time permitting, and ideas forthcoming, I plan to write about coffee, food, Germany, security and defense affairs, statistics, and politics. What is not clear yet whether publishing on h2g2 is a good idea at all -- I like to keep the rights to my work, and I will have to let my team of trained law weasels take a fine-tooth comb to the legal agreements in force on this site.

Update: The weasels are gone now (and believe me, having them in the house is always a frightening experience).

The BBCi Terms & Conditions demand that I "grant the BBC a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicenseable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, play, and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to any such work worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any media now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content". Whoa! In other words, should I make my still-nascent incisive investigative journalism available online over one of the BBCi sites, like h2g2, and become an overnight success, winning Pulitzers, Oscars, Emmys, and other large cash awards, then BBCi could make a book out of my content and I would get nothing in return. Right?

Another point states that I "[a]gree to waive any moral rights in your contribution for the purposes of its submission to and publication on the BBC site and the other purposes specified above" -- I did not even know I had any moral rights! Good thing too, since in the past I always worried a lot about my morals.

On the other hand, users of the BBCi site's content are "not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any of the material contained in this site or use it for any other purpose other than for your personal non-commercial use". So it seems as if I am protected against others ripping off my work from the BBCi sites. Only BBCi can rip off, eh, "create derivative works" from my scribbing.

So, in short: As long as I write content that I do not expect to generate all kinds of huge material benefits for myself, I would do well to put it on h2g2. Since that expectation is somewhat far-fetched at this time, I will just go ahead and publish.