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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/U188050

and then

http://web.archive.org/web/20050223065828/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U188050


just a thought here...
is it possible maybe that if you 'ace' him it all will come back?
it IS here somewhere
heres an example http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/MA188050?type=2

could you try it?
wouldnt it be cool if thats all it took?

That's definitely one for the eds. Bels is dead, so leaving an Ace welcome is not an option (apart from the fact that it says we can't leave a message):
Sorry, but this user must write something about themself before you can leave them a message.

Please check back at a later time.

I guess it is to do with the mystery 'who's online' thing which has been going on for a few days.

okay

but i am not so sure its due to barlesque

i think i will do a survey on ask

I didn't mention barlesque. The 'Who's online' list has been definitely very strange for a few days now, and the BBCiD didn't work at all at times yesterday. I have no idea what's going on there.

okay...

i think that probably most everything odd that we have been experiencing is due
to the changes over the last 3 weeks since the Announcement...

alotta folks are referring to the whole thing as burlesque or barlesque

also, i am not an ace so i dont know how it works
but i do know about that message and i think the aces dont run into that
when they send their first ace message to them...

anyway... we are in ace territory here so they can clear it up

i was just trying to experiment here since most of my dealings with the eds
if at all profitable have at least not resulted in much communication

and i am not a patient person

We Aces get the same messages everybody else gets. We don't have some magical page shown to us enabling us to leave messages on pages which show what I posted above, sorry. We're mere researchers, like everybody else, so we run into the same message like you. Only the Eds can do all sorts of stuff.
I have emailed the eds, that's all I can do.

oops haha

i dint realize youre an ace Bel

sorry


aaaaanyway, yeah

i somehow also thot that newbies couldnt do stuff on their space until they were aced
i dont know where i got that idea, now that i think of it

oh! was it that you all cant ace them until they write something?

aaaaaargh

good on the informing the eds... this really is a scary problem
Bels was a major contributor and who knows who else is getting disappeared too

The message on newbies' PS still says nobody can leave them a message unless the write something about themselves. However, it's an antiquated message. This was abondoned back in 2003, so no matter whether or not a newbie wrote an introduction, everybody can leave them a message (but should wait until an ace has dropped by) - except for cases like the one above, when nobody can leave a message.

"except for cases like the one above, when nobody can leave a message."

ah

so have you, or any of you other aces, ever come across this before
and if so ...how was it done?
by whom? (ed? moderator? ace? jealous wife?)

and why?

was it the result of an automatic thing via some site crawler software
or just operator mistake?

i know nighthoover got 'disappeared' sometime since 2007 because i was around for it
nighthoover had done nothing with his/her/its personal space except start the 'cancel' thread

Seeing the above message usually means (or used to mean, anyway) that the researcher didn't have an account on h2g2. That was before BBCid, though. However, it is still valid for all the older accounts which are now no longer accessible, I guess.
Why this happened to Bels' account I really have no idea. We'll have to wait for the eds' reply.

It might well be that Bels' family have asked the Eds to remove the contents - don't know if that's so, but it's a possible explanation, is it not?

Which would be a pity because of his contributions to the Edited Guide.

And just to clarify to anyone reading this thread, Bels and Bel are two different persons.

Well, I'd not have mentioned he is dead if we were the same person.

Anyway, why would the family do that after so many years?
I guess it's to do with all the bugs.

Hi all. Can we just say that we haven't had a request from Bels' family to remove their content, so this looks like a bug and we will be investigating. Thanks.