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

Hello,
first of let me say your providing a wonderful service here, and its great that its free...But the question is, how long can it remain free? With so many conversations a day, so many messages and archived information that is permanent as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong)

I was just curious if you could disclose the following information:
How many servers does H2G2 make use of
what kind
Who pays for these servers
what is the storage capacity for h2g2

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Can I contribute monetarily for the maintenance of h2g2
I’m interested in volunteering for website maintenance

Hi Michigan Ambassador

h2g2 is owned and run by the British Broadcasting Corporation. More information about how the BBC is run and funded can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/

The BBC is funded by the licence fee. More details can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/ The licence fee is paid by those in the uk who have televisions i.e. most of us but there is no charge for using the website. I think that h2g2 will remain free to use for the foreseeable future.

h2g2 has eight servers. I don't know what kind they are. If that information is in the public domain no doubt someone will come along and enlighten us eventually.

The BBC pays for the servers and maintains them.

You are correct when you say that the information added to h2g2 is stored permanently, although the exact meaning of permanently is open to debate, I suppose. The storage capacity is sufficient and isn't an issue at the moment. Again, if more exact information about the storage capacity is available I'm afraid it hasn't come my way but someone will let us know.

There is a large technical department looking after the servers and a team of programmers working on the dna sites. The team is led by Jim Lynn U6. They are all paid members of BBC staff, not volunteers.

There are various volunteer schemes on h2g2. You can read about these on the <./>volunteers</.> page.

Amy
Guru

Thank you for replying amy!

There was a thread somewhere a few weeks ago which discussed how much storage space would be required for all of h2g2's conversations, entries, and images, and it's surprisingly small - I think the conclusion was that you could comfortably fit it on a home PC, which surprised me.

I can't recall exactly where that conversation was. Maybe someone will come along who can

Some sketchy server details can be found here: A787034