Old Announcements: 2002
Created | Updated Dec 1, 2011
This is where you can find h2g2 announcements from 2002. For the latest developments, check out the Announcements Page.
Announcements Index
17 December 2002: The h2g2 Smileys - Winter Collection 2002
With many, many thanks to the Community Artists for designing and providing the graphics, we are pleased to announce the release of this season's smiley collection.
Think of them as a Christmas present from the Editors. You can find the codes on the Smiley page. Share and enjoy!
27 November 2002: Server Downtime Planned for 28 November 2002
The DNA servers are due to be moved tomorrow and this will result in h2g2 being unavailable from 9 am GMT. We hope to keep the downtime to a minimum and hope that the process should be completed by 11:30 am GMT. However, we have been warned that there's a very low risk that it might take longer should the move not go smoothly.
We apologise for the lack of notice, but the downtime has only recently been confirmed as going ahead. We had hoped to announce this yesterday, but unfortunately we lost email and internet connectivity within our section of the BBC for the whole afternoon, which made it a bit tricky.
14 November 2002: DNA 1.2 Released
Version 1.2 of DNA has now been released. It's not a massive upgrade, but there are a few changes that you can read about by clicking here.
As ever, if you spot any bugs in the new release, please post them to the Bugs Feedback Forum and we'll see what we can do.
7 November 2002: DNA 1.2 Scheduled for Release on Thursday, 14th November
We're pleased to announce the planned release of DNA 1.2 on Thursday, 14th November.
Most of the changes resulting from this release will be 'under the hood' alterations, but you'll notice a few changes, such as the addition of a 'friends list,' which will enable you to more easily keep track of your online friends' journals. We'll give you more details nearer the time.
h2g2 (along with the other DNA sites) will be unavailable during this upgrade, which takes place at 10am (UK time). The process might take up to two hours, but will probably be completed much more quickly. (The last similar upgrade was completed in less than 30 minutes).
Remember, this is a Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays...
1 November, 2002: Peer Moderation Pilot Project
We are no longer going to be post-moderating on h2g2.
BBC Editorial Policy are allowing us to switch to a system of reactive moderation. This system will be implemented within the next couple of weeks when the new version of DNA goes live.
Reactive moderation means that the Moderators will not read all of the content on h2g2. We've always trusted the Community to alert us to any content that breaks the House Rules via the complaints system and we'll be continuing with this informal arrangement.
The Moderators will read the complaints and will act accordingly. This differs from the current post-moderation system, where everything is read within one hour of posting.
This is the first time that BBCi have allowed this to happen on any of their community services, so this is a real tribute to you, the h2g2 Researchers.
If you'd like to give us your thoughts on the Peer Moderation Pilot project please visit entry A864236, which has been set up on the Hub specifically to deal with your questions. Your feedback will be welcomed.
30 October, 2002: Commercial Links on h2g2
We're pleased to announce that there is a slight change to the way that all DNA sites moderate commercial links. It's not a big enough change to mean that the House Rules need any alteration, it's more of a 'tweak'.
Some sites, which were previously considered to be commercial and therefore removed, will now be allowed.
Sites that offer useful editorial information about products, companies and organisations and are not purely commercial will be allowed to remain. For example, reviews, sound clips and track listings which we feel are valid information sources and not simply a form of advertising.
Sites that are purely commercial (if the only information a site offers is regarding purchasing their product) will still be removed.
19 September, 2002: Amendment to the House Rules
We've just made a small amendment to the House Rules on h2g2. We've always included 'No spamming' in the House Rules, but due to the recent increase in the number of Researchers spamming the same conversation - sometimes called 'flooding' - we've updated this rule to include this.
The amended houserule for h2g2 now reads:
***
No spamming or flooding. On h2g2, spamming is the posting of the same (or very similar) messages to lots of forums. Flooding is when the same (or very similar) message is posted over and over again to the same conversation. It's especially antisocial if it's off-topic for those forums. So please don't deliberately send the same message, or very similar messages, to loads of different Conversation Forums, or post the same message to one Conversation multiple times. We'll simply remove your Postings, and possibly your account.
18 September, 2002: Launch of new DNA community - Collective.
We're pleased to announce the launch of a new DNA community - Collective.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/
If you're interested in new albums, films, events, books and would like to make a recommendation of your own, or join in the discussions, they will be more than happy to see you. The Collective community is focussed on new stuff rather than retro sounds, so if you're a big fan of Wham!, keep it on h2g2!
You can find out more about the Collective by reading this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/aboutPlease do try to stay on topic if you're posting on Collective because it'll help newcomers to understand the aim of the site - topic drift is so much more confusing and obvious in a new community. We'd also like to ask you not to refer to h2g2 or h2g2 clubs when posting, as we'd like the Collective to be given the opportunity to develop its own distinct community and identity, rather than become an annexe of h2g2. So if you do go over there, pretend you've never heard of h2g2 and act Collective!
You'll see that the look, style and even the functionality of collective isn't the same as the other DNA communities (for instance, they've chosen not to have a Who's Online tool). That's totally deliberate, as they're hoping to set a different vibe within their community. So please don't point out to them that it isn't the same as h2g2 - vive la difference!
The Collective Editors are enthusiastic about taking care of all things Collective themselves, so we've asked the Aces and Gurus *not* to Ace or Guru on their site. In time they might set up some volunteer schemes of their own, although they'll almost certainly have different jobs and different names. Right now though, the Editors are looking forward to the opportunity of interacting with their own members, so they get a feel for how their own site is developing.
The collective team have set up a feedback forum at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/feedback so if you have any questions about the site post them there and the Editors will get back to you with a response.
16 September, 2002: New volunteer scheme launched
After months of hard work the Community Art scheme has been launched! The scheme will enable you, the Community, to produce artwork for h2g2. Ultimately we'd like the Community Artists to provide art for Community-run clubs and societies, but to start with we're concentrating on Edited Entries, the Talking Point as well as Topic of the Week - and even smileys! 
A small band of wonderful Community Artists have already contributed some great pieces of art for the Guide as a trial, but we need more artists to cope with demand as the Guide grows.
If you'd like to be one of them, or if you've got any questions about the scheme, head over to the Community Artists home page to find out more.
The whole team worked together to get the scheme running, but without Abi and Jimster it wouldn't have happened, so many thanks to them.
2 September, 2002 - Revision of Peer Review
After taking on-board suggestions and advice from members of the Community - and in particular some substantial input from Hoovooloo - we have revised the Peer Review page to offer clearer advice to all prospective Researchers and hopefully make things easier for our volunteer groups such as the Scouts, Gurus and Aces.
21 August, 2002: New Smileys
We're delighted to announce the release of a new collection of Smileys. What makes this collection so exciting is that they have all come from our wonderful Community Artists.
To see exactly what's new and how to use these Smileys in Forum postings, head on over to the Smiley page...
20 August 2002: Amendment to House Rules
We've just made a small amendment to the House Rules of all DNA communities. In the past we asked anyone under the age of 18 to ask their parents' permission before taking part in a DNA community.
Following discussions with the BBC editorial policy team we've now lowered this age to 16 years.
The amended house rule for h2g2 now reads:
If you're Under Age 16
Please get your parents' or guardians' permission before taking part in h2g2 or any other BBC Discussion Message Board.
Never reveal any personal information about yourself (for example, your telephone number, home address or email address) without getting your parents' or guardians' permission first.
19 August 2002: DNA 1.10 Released
We're delighted to announce the release of version 1.10 of DNA. The most important new feature for h2g2 is the addition of a new skin, Brunel. You can try out the new skin by changing the Skin setting in your h2g2 preferences; we hope you like it.
Brunel will become the default skin for h2g2, but we're going to leave it for a while before switching it over from Alabaster... just to make sure it all works OK.
If you spot any bugs in the new release, please post them to the Bugs Feedback Forum and we'll see what we can do.
12 August 2002: DNA 1.10 Scheduled for Release on Monday, 19th August
We're delighted to announce the planned release of DNA 1.10 on Monday, 19th August. The bulk of the upgrade consists of a completely new skin for h2g2, which will sit alongside Alabaster and Classic Goo (so if you don't like the new one, you don't have to use it). The new skin is called Brunel... because that's its name.
The upgrade does not require the servers to be switched off, but it's entirely possible that things might go a little weird as the new skin is uploaded on Monday morning (UK time). Nothing new round here, then, but we thought you might like to know. 
6 August 2002: Revision to the 'Have You Missed...' Page
After requests for clarification, the 'Have You Missed...?' page has been updated.
6 August 2002: 'Have You Missed...' Feature Opened Up to Community
After an initial test period, the 'Have You Missed...?' selection on the Front Page has now been rolled out to include nominations from the Community. Each week, five existing entries in the Edited Guide will be selected, based on the nominations of the Community, and repromoted on the Front Page. Full details can be found on the 'Have You Missed...?' page. Not so much a 'Last Chance to See' as 'Classics Revisited'...
5 August 2002: DNA Hub Opens, Editor Disappears on Lunch Break
I'm delighted to announce the launch of the DNA Hub, a new DNA-powered site that's dedicated to all things DNA. The Hub, which is run by the DNA team of Peta, Jim and Mark, contains lots of information about the DNA project, from community theory to technical specifications, and we invite anyone who has an interest in DNA to pop over for a look. It's where you can find out about DNA development, and can contribute to the future of the project.
We've moved some documentation pages from h2g2 to the Hub - notably the features and bug lists, GuideML documentation (except h2g2's GuideML Clinic), and DNA's version history - but most support will still be done on h2g2 via the various feedback forums. However, if you have questions or comments specifically about DNA, then feel free to ask your questions on the Hub. Most of the Hub's content is brand new, and we hope you enjoy perusing it.
Please note that the Hub does not currently allow non-Editors to create pages, as it's more of an information resource and feedback site, rather than a new community.
With the launch of the Hub, Peta and I are moving off h2g2 to work full-time on DNA, so with this announcement I'm handing over the reins of h2g2 to Natalie and her team. In deciding how to hand over the editorship, we've decided to follow the instructions laid down in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
In fact, [Mark] never formally resigned his editorship - he merely left his office late one morning and has never since returned. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has simply popped out for a ham croissant, and will yet return to put in a solid afternoon's work.
So Natalie is now Acting Editor, and Peta and I leave the site in the very safe hands of her and her team. Share and Enjoy!
1 August 2002: URLs in Nicknames
We have updated the House Rules to state that we do not allow URLs in Nicknames.
This is not a new policy, it has been in place for sometime but it was not specifically mentioned in the House Rules. This caused confusion for many Researchers whose names were failed on this basis. Following a request from the Community, we have rectified this and it can now be found under the sections entitled 'Please don't impersonate others' and 'Only include suitable URLs in your contributions'.
5 July 2002: Apologies for the Speed of Conversations
In the last few days the SQL query that pulls Conversation Postings out of the database has developed a bit of an attitude problem, with the result that Conversations are taking a lot longer to display than before. Another side effect is that you may sometimes come across Conversations that have suddenly gone blank; this isn't because any Postings have disappeared, it's just that the SQL query failed to return any results.
We've tracked the problem down to this specific area of the DNA application, and we're working hard on resolving the problem (good luck Jim!). In the meantime, we're sorry for the slowdown, but there doesn't appear to be any data being lost, and if you do experience problems with disappearing Conversations, please try again later, and nine times out of ten they will have reappeared.
Watch this space for updates, and if things get too slow, have a cup of 
.
28 June 2002: Editor Leaves for Intergalactic Cruise
We're very sad to announce that Mark Moxon has decided that he can no longer resist the call of the open road, and as a result he's resigned from his position as Editor of h2g2 and DNA, and is going travelling for a year.
His last day in the office will be 20 September 2002, and you can find his message of thanks in his Journal if you want to say goodbye.
28 June 2002: Non-English Language Postings (Again)
The policy change announcement '21 June 2002: Non-English Language Postings' has now been reversed, and we are changing the policy on non-English languages back to what it was before, with immediate effect.
This means that if a Moderator comes across some content that's not in English, or a link to a website that isn't in English and doesn't have an English translation available, then they will refer it (thus hiding it) until such time as we have a scheme in place to enable non-English content to be moderated. If the Moderator is fluent in the revelant language and they can translate the content or website, then assuming the content is otherwise acceptable, it will be passed. However, our Moderators are not expected to be fluent in anything other than English, so this will lead to apparent inconsistencies in moderation of non-English content, and we ask you to bear with us, as the only consistent solution would be to remove all non-English content, full stop, and we'd rather not do that.
If you have a piece of content referred or edited because of non-English content, and you would like to take issue with that decision (perhaps you have linked to a non-English site with a translation available, but the Moderator has missed it), then please use the complaints button (or 'yikes' button) to send a polite message to the Moderators. We'll take a look and get back to you as quickly as we can.
Finally, please remember that we're trying to solve the problem of non-English languages on h2g2, but the issue is one of resource. If this service causes us too much grief, we will have to revert back to the BBC's standard policy of only allowing English content, so please help us to help you. Many thanks.
21 June 2002: Non-English Language Postings
We have taken the decision to remove all non-English language Postings from the site from now on. This follows an escalation in the number of Postings of this type and is also in line with BBC Editorial Policy.
It is still our intention to eventually restore all non-English language legacy Postings - however, new ones will be failed.
18 June 2002: Official Summer Meet-up
We're pleased to announce the date of this year's Summer meet-up
We're holding our 3rd birthday party on 20 July, 2002. We can't confirm a venue (although it will be in London, UK) or activities at this stage, but it will be our usual blend of afternoon activities, followed by a trip to some form of indoor establishment 
We've given you as much notice of the date as we can, so sign up at A733079. See you there!
29 May 2002: DNA 1.01 Deployed At Last
DNA 1.01 was deployed onto the servers this morning, and all the relevant documentation should be available now. Many thanks to Paul at BBC Technology for performing the upgrade, and the h2g2 Technical Team for creating it in the first place.
Please report any bugs to the Bug Reports page, or we may miss them. Many thanks!
27 May 2002: DNA Upgrade Scheduled for 1030 BST on Wednesday, 29 May
At the risk of sounding like an airport announcer during a cyclone, we're pleased to announce that the delayed DNA 1.01 upgrade will now take place at 10.30am BST (9.30am GMT) on Wednesday, 29 May. As always, this may be subject to change, but keep your fingers crossed and your lucky gonks handy, and we could be in business.
This means that h2g2 and all other DNA sites will be unavailable for three hours from 10.30am to 1.30pm BST, but the upside is that when the site comes back, it will be running DNA 1.01. Will it be worth the wait? Of course it will!
25 May 2002: Monday's Upgrade Possibly Delayed
Hi everyone.
I just had a phone call from Paul, our man who looks after the h2g2 servers and who's responsible for actually performing the upgrade, and I'm afraid there's a problem. The development server, on which DNA 1.01 currently resides, stopped talking to the database late Friday afternoon, and because it's the weekend and the h2g2 technical team is either still recuperating or enjoying the sunshine, we won't be able to track down the problem until Monday. This leaves us with two options:
1. Deploy the code anyway on Monday, and hope that the problem with the dev server is just a strange glitch that won't affect the live service if DNA 1.01 is deployed.
2. Wait until we've done a diagnostic on the dev server to find out what caused database communication problem, and if we find it's nothing to do with DNA 1.01, to go ahead with deployment... and if not, to fix the bug.
As Jim is still incommunicado, I've opted for the latter, because I'd rather delay the upgrade slightly than risk the whole site going down after the upgrade. I'm hopeful that this is just one of those things and isn't related to DNA 1.01, but I'm erring on the side of caution.
So I'm sorry, but the upgrade is going to be delayed again, but next week is pretty uncluttered for everyone involved, so as soon as we identify the dev problem, we'll get the upgrade rolling again. Humblest apologies, but it's better than risking an outage on the live service, I reckon.
(BTW, if Jim was around, then he'd have no doubt investigated it by now; however, unscheduled hospital ops are rather hard to plan around!)
23 May 2002: Updating Scheme Ideas Collated
There's been a lot of discussion about the possibility of introducing an updating scheme for Edited Entries. You'll find details of the proposed scheme at A754021: 'Updating on h2g2'. Let us know what you think.
22 May 2002: In-house Team's Favourite Five
The Editorial and Community teams are taking turns to choose their favourite five entries. These will appear in the right-hand margin on the front page and will change each Wednesday.
21 May 2002: Volunteers' Email Groups
The Editorial team are challenging the Community to come up with an alternative to the current method of communicating with our Volunteers. At present we use Yahoo Groups, but we would like to find a better service provider. Any suggestions should be free and include features such as a calendar with the ability to send out reminders, unlimited members and no limits on the size and number of file uploads.
If you think you know of a better service, let us know all about it. Or try it out other people's suggestions and let us know what you think of them. Once the Community has come to a consensus on the best alternative to Yahoo Groups, we will implement the change.
21 May 2002: DNA Upgrade Scheduled for 1030 BST on Monday, 27 May
We're pleased to announce that the delayed DNA 1.01 upgrade will now take place at 10.30am BST (9.30am GMT) on Monday, 27 May. As always, this may be subject to change, but we're hopeful that it will now go ahead.
This means that h2g2 and all other DNA sites will be unavailable for three hours from 10.30am to 1.30pm BST, but the upside is that when the site comes back, it will be running DNA 1.01, which will be nice.
17 May 2002: Latest News on Server Downtime
Further to the announcement '14 May 2002: Server Downtime Planned for DNA 1.01 Upgrade', we're pleased to announce no announcement at all. The planned upgrade, which we hoped would take place either Monday, 20 May or Thursday, 23 May, has been postponed until the tentative date of Monday, 27 May.
We tried to announce this earlier today, but unfortunately we lost email and internet connectivity within our section of the BBC for the whole afternoon, which made it a bit tricky. You'll be glad to know the team marked this sad state of affairs by repairing to the pub.
Some things never change.
16 May 2002: Changes to the h2g2 Team Structure
You're probably aware of the recent launch of the DNA project within the BBC... but if not, DNA is the new name for the system that runs h2g2, and it's now available to anyone in the BBC who wants to set up a community/content website like h2g2.
As part of the development of this new project, we've made some changes to the structure of the team behind DNA and h2g2, which you can find reflected on the Team page.
Basically Mark, Peta and Jim now form the all-new DNA Team, which is responsible for the editorial, community and technical aspects of the DNA project. This means that they're going to be spending a fair amount of time talking to potential and existing DNA clients, providing consultancy to new DNA sites, and ensuring that h2g2 maintains its place at the forefront of DNA development.
However it also means that, for Mark and Peta in particular, they won't be able to spend quite as much time on h2g2 as before. Fear not, though, because the new recruits on the h2g2 team are going to make sure that customer support is as top-notch as ever. Mark remains as Editor of h2g2, but you'll see Natalie and her team taking on much more responsibility for keeping the wonderful h2g2 Community as happy as happy can be, and for driving forward the future of h2g2.
Meanwhile, the DNA Team will make sure that development of DNA and h2g2 continues on apace. There's no shortage of plans!
15 May 2002: Legacy Queue News
We're pleased to announce that there are no more legacy Entries in the Moderation queue. All entries are now back on site.
Legacy Postings from August 28, 2000 are now visible, and more are being processed every day.
15 May 2002: Community Art Library
We're delighted to announce the launch of the Community Art Library, which collects loads of Community-generated artwork together in one place. Feel free to use any of these pictures in your own entries - share and enjoy!
14 May 2002: Server Downtime Planned for DNA 1.01 Upgrade
We're hoping to upgrade the site to DNA 1.01 in the next couple of weeks, which will require a few hours downtime. However the date hasn't yet been set in stone. We are currently looking at two possible days - Monday, 20 May or Thursday, 23 May - and we will confirm the actual date and time as soon as we can.
You can find out what's going to be in DNA 1.01 in the release notes.
3 May 2002: We've Broken the 4,000 Edited Entries Barrier
Today we reached another fabulous landmark - there are now 4004 entries in the Edited Guide. Thank you all for your continued inspirational efforts. 
25 April 2002: h2g2's Third Birthday Party Starts on Friday
h2g2 is celebrating its third birthday this Sunday, 28 April, 2002. To kick things off in style, we'd like to invite everyone to the h2g2 Garden from 3pm BST (2pm GMT) on Friday, 26 April for a virtual celebration that will no doubt go on all weekend...
We hope to see you there! 
17 April 2002: Community Job Vacancies!
Your h2g2 Community needs you! There are a number of job vacancies available within the h2g2 Community, none of which pay cash, but all of which pay dividends. If you're wondering how you can help h2g2 grow, then check out the new Community Job Slot page and see if your dream job is there.
Go on. Give a little back!
15 April 2002: h2g2 in Main BBC Search Engine
We're delighted to announce that h2g2 content is now included in the main BBCi search. You can try this by typing a search term into the search box in the BBCi toolbar above. It's not quite as h2g2-specific as the h2g2 search system (it doesn't care about the type of Guide Entry, for example) but it's a great step forward.
4 April 2002: We Need Your Feedback on GuideML 1.0
We've just published the Proposed GuideML 1.0 Specification, and we need your help in moving this from a proposal to a published specification. We've listed the tags and attributes we think that GuideML should contain, but we'd like to hear from you - after all, this is your Guide, and GuideML is the language of the Guide.
Please post your comments to the proposal page itself - see you there!
27 March 2002: Sense of Place Pilot Sites Launched
The eagle-eyed among you may already have spotted three new DNA-based sites, but today sees the official opening of the pilots for A Sense of Place, here:
All three sites run on the DNA system, the same system that runs h2g2 - you can find out more about DNA in the Introduction to DNA. The clever thing is that if you head on over to any of these sites, your normal h2g2 account will work, as if by magic, and you'll be able to track all your Sense of Place contributions through your normal Personal Space.
If anyone wants to pop over and contribute, then please do, especially if you know anything about the three areas mentioned. If the pilots are a success, then we're hoping DNA will be rolled out for a lot of other UK regions, which can only be good news for h2g2.
As they say round these parts, share and enjoy!
21 March 2002: URL Trial is a Success
You'll be glad to know that the trial in which we allowed URLs to be included in Postings has caused us no problems at all, so the change to the House Rules is now permanent (in other words you can include suitable URLs in any content).
Many thanks for helping to make it work.
11 March 2002: Another New Member of the h2g2 Editorial Team
We're thrilled to announce another new addition to the h2g2 team. Natalie Johnson is our new Producer, and she's going to be looking after the day-to-day running of the site, managing the h2g2 team, and generally taking the strain off Mark and Peta so they can concentrate on spreading DNA throughout the BBC.
Welcome to the team, Natalie!
25 February 2002: New Member of the h2g2 Editorial Team
We're delighted to announce a new addition to the h2g2 team. Jim Sangster, or Jimster as he's known on site, will be working alongside the whole h2g2 team, subbing entries and helping to ensure that the Guide maintains the highest editorial standards.
Welcome to the team, Jimster!
20 February 2002: Server Problems
We're really sorry about the current unreliability of h2g2. We're having some major problems with our servers - they're crashing about once a day - but we haven't yet identified what the exact cause is. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern to the problem, so it's very difficult to see what is causing the crashes.
As soon as we can pinpoint a cause we can prevent it from happening again, but until then there's nothing we can do except keep hunting for the cause.
We apologise profusely for this performance problem, and hope you can bear with us while we work into the night on finding a fix.
12 February 2002: House Rules Extended to Cover Identification of Researchers
Following suggestions from the Community, the 'Please don't post for suspended Researchers' section of the House Rules has been extended to include the following:
If the BBC suspects for any reason that an account has been opened and/or is being primarily operated by or on behalf of a banned Researcher, the holder of the suspect account may be asked to prove their identity to the BBC's satisfaction.
For more information check out the discussion in the Community Soapbox.
12 February 2002: Short Downtime Scheduled for 10.30am GMT this Thursday
We need to install a service pack on our database server to fix some problems related to recent unexpected downtime, but to do this we need to switch off the site (ah, the irony). All DNA sites including h2g2 will therefore be unavailable for half an hour from 10.30am GMT this Thursday, 14 February.
8 February 2002: Named Entries Added
Because remembering those pesky A numbers is such a drag, we've given names to most of the popular pages on h2g2 which you can use in Conversations and Guide Entries.
You can find the full list of Named Entries on our new h2g2 Named Entries page, along with an explanation of what it's all about. Go wild!
1 February 2002: URLs Allowed in Postings for a One-month Trial
Today sees the launch of a one-month trial during which we will allow URLs to be included in Postings. The House Rules have been amended to reflect this, and the Moderation FAQ includes updated information in Question 4 to explain how the Moderators will process URLs in Postings.
This is being run as a one-month trial so we can assess the impact on moderation resources and quality of h2g2 content. We will be revisiting the policy at the start of March, and if it is successful then we hope to make it a permanent change to the House Rules. With this in mind, we'd ask that people don't abuse the ability to include URLs in Postings, otherwise it may mean reverting to the restriction on URLs after the month is up. We're sure we can count on the Community to help us prove that including URLs in Postings will not cause any problems!
Happy linking...
1 February 2002: New POPUPCONVERSATIONS Gadget Launched
A new GuideML Gadget called <POPUPCONVERSATIONS> has been added to GuideML. This gives you a link that pops up your Conversation details in a separate window, not unlike Who's Online. We are considering adding a button to every page to pop this window up, but for now it is only available in gadget form.
For information on how to use this new gadget, please check out the <POPUPCONVERSATIONS> documentation.
30 January 2002: House Rules Expanded to Include Individual Pre-Moderation
The House Rules have been slightly expanded to include the following in the 'Transgressions' section:
The BBC may also implement a period of individual pre-moderation1 instead of or in addition to the following, at our discretion.
In other words, we may opt to use individual pre-moderation in cases where we feel it would be a better solution than a ban.
29 January 2002: Login Problem Identified
If you are having problems logging in to h2g2, this might be because you don't have an email address set up for your BBC account (this is different to the email address stored in your h2g2 Preferences).
The best way to fix this is to visit the myBBC page, to login with your h2g2 details, and to click on the 'my profile' link. Here you should enter an email address, and once this is done you should be able to log in to h2g2.
If you still have problems, please email [email protected] and we'll try to help out.
28 January 2002: DNA 1.0 Released
The new version of the site, called DNA 1.0, has now been released. Thanks for your patience while the servers were upgraded!
For information on DNA 1.0 read the DNA 1.0 release notes and the introduction to DNA.
We apologise for the downtime, but it will be worth the wait!
25 January 2002: Site Upgrade Scheduled for Monday, 28 January
The Technical Team have been beavering away for months on the next upgrade to the system that runs h2g2, and they're now ready to unleash it on an unsuspecting public. This momentous event will start with us switching off the h2g2 servers at 10.30am GMT on Monday, 28 January, and we anticipate that the upgrade will take three of your Earth hours (so we should be back up and running by 1.30pm GMT).
We apologise for the downtime, but it will be worth the wait!
22 January 2002: New Member of the Community Team
We'd like to give a very warm welcome to our latest addition to the Community Team, Linda. Linda will he working with Abi and Peta on all sorts of Community-related activites, including the h2g2 party this weekend. Welcome, Linda!
21 January 2002: Downtime Tentatively Scheduled for Monday, 28 January
The next version of the software that runs h2g2 is now ready for deployment, but to do the upgrade we need to close down h2g2 for a short period... though it will definitely be worth it!
Currently the downtime is scheduled for Monday, 28 January at around 10am GMT, and we expect the upgrade to take around two hours. Please note that this is a tentative date which we will confirm as soon as it is definite.
14 January 2002: 'Transgressions Procedure for Lifetime Bans' Updated
The Transgressions Procedure for Lifetime Bans has been tweaked to give Researchers the right to waive the transgressions process.
9 January 2002: Proposed Tweaking of 'Transgressions Procedure for Lifetime Bans'
We're proposing a small tweak to the 'Transgressions Procedure for Lifetime Bans' and we welcome Community comment before making any changes. Have your say in the Community Soapbox.
