h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As are we all, especially Brutus....

I freely admit that the txtspk crowd is as much a part of the *village* as I am, but at times they seem to break some unwritten rules. Let me give you an example. Someone in the village comes from a cultural heritage where it is good manners to belch loudly and pass gas after eating as a compliment to the chef, which is no problem in their home or the home of similar cultural friends. If they did it when I invited them over for dinner I wouldn't invite them over again or else explain that it was offensive to me. If they became abusive over either response, I would have the right to take it up with the rest of the village, no?

I was going to suggest that it was perhaps a more subtle form of insult perhaps like showing the soles of your feet in Arabia, but then thought that on a site devoted to communication perhaps you had a valid point. The bus-stop has become less well frequented of late, following a spate of entries submitted to peer review a few months back, and I assume this latest phase will calm down as well - mind you the user numbers have gone from 200000 to 55000+ in about a year.

"mind you the user numbers have gone from 200000 to 55000+ in about a year."

Isn't that just because of single-sign-on? I think it happened just after the switch and because it meant everyone using BBCi got a user number and user page, even if they've never used, and don't want to use, H2G2.

Does it actually represent much of an increase in the number of people on the guide?--I've never seen a user number in the 30000's or 40000's.

I hav eno idea - there was a spate of West Country users suddenly appeared at one stage, but you could well be right.

~

hello there.

please can i add my ?????

i too am an exLDer who at times still uses a digibox.

when we first subscribe into telewest interactive services, we are only armed with a remote control.
which by magic(dont ask me the real tecnical reason) can get a keyboard up on to the screen and by a laborious method and very very slowly get messages into the system.
so as to save time and energy, we start to shorten our words, enough for people still to understand what we are trying to say.

then then we all invest in an infrared keyboard which helps tremendously.
but we still used textspeak to give our emotions.
for one very good reason........

leisure district was a very basic site that didnt have smileys.

a lot of the smileys on here(h2g2) and other sites are just the next progression as to what we want people to know how we feel and the meaning of any comment we are making.

so if you see someone has put LOL, its now substituted with .
there are many others that have the same meaning whether a smiley or textspeak.

its just that some exLDers have a little trouble transferring from textspeak to smileys.
bad habits die hard.

the majority of us dont mean anyone any harm, but we will get there in the end



helen

I think the numbers went up because of SSO includes many BBC sites.
Many people also tried to start a new page in all the confusion. They can be deleted now though ,unlike before or at least I read that onsite somewhere.

I do not know for sure but it seems like the numbers doubled.
There are many numbers up in the 50000's

Hi serenity
Hopefully you are welcomed here.
Afterall you are easily understood and an asset.

hi abbi.

thank you.

Exactly, serenity is a perfect example of the kind of researcher who is welcome on hootoo (at least by me!). Thoughtful, inquisitive, and most importantly cogent! Please note I didn't include the method of accessing the site in the title of this thread, only a description of some of the people who access it.

thank you very much.

thankfully i am now a proud owner of a second hand computer.
but i still use the digibox at times.

mainly to fit around the sleeping habits if my partner. but thats another story.

once again, thanks for the welcome.

h

I think it may be a moot point now

F19585?thread=379145

I have heard from friends by way of email that digibox cannot get in today Is that a permanent thing now?

It is quite a loss to those disabled researchers that were *enabled* by digibox.

I will follow your link, maybe that will tell....
*sigh*

With the introduction of the SSO thingy, there were very good technical reasons for changing the U-number system. I can't remember what exactly they were, or why they were very good.

Suffice to say they happened. Therefore you will never meet any researcher with a U-number between the low 250000s and 499999, including rather sadly U420000

Thanks for the answer.
No 420000! Too bad!

I have to say, that snobbish as it sounds, I often have a problem with what you describe, anhaga.
<>
It's really frustrating!
That said, something like the way a digibox has been described to be (no back button, no way to see what you type) would send me barking mad.

"Suffice to say they happened. Therefore you will never meet any researcher with a U-number between the low 250000s and 499999, including rather sadly U420000"

I think it's a good thing. Noone deserves such an exulted number, except maybe Douglas Adams, and he's already 42.

Is this true? Are all of the digibox users (those without PCs) unable to get to Hootoo?

Part of me is sad, another wants to know what this will mean....

hi.

the lack of entrance into h2 via a digibox is catastrophic to some people.

i know of one lady , who through ill health relies on her digibox to get into here and stay in contact with her friends.
she does have use of a pc, but because of her health, she cant stay online for more than 10 minutes at a time and even then it leaves her exhausted.

like a lot uf us, its a lifeline(me included).
its our only way of speaking to anyone as we cant get out into the big bad world to interact with 'real peaople'.

if this isnt sorted out satisfactorily, then im afraid that telewest will be losing a few more customers.

it seems to be that the needs of the many are being ignored by the needs of one or two irresponsible thoughtless individuals.

helen

I feel sorry for your friend, but surely an illegal hack is not what she thought she was doing when she used the system. I'm sorry to have to say it but I think lots of ex-digiboxers will find the will and the way to get back online here. And those that do, which I expect to be a large proportion, will find typing and posting both easier and more legible to us old non-txtspch fogeys.

Now that it's done, can't we be positive about it and try and help them?

Well I suppose I must be grateful I can type, write English, and own a computer.