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

Traveller in Time on the front
"Not as far as I see.

The page comes down in some three stages, first the BBCi part, then the dayly content, and as final part the conversations, have you missed, most recent and the legal disclaimer at the bottom.

Probably your browser says timeout before the last part is completed at the server side (the conversations refresh every some minutes).


Reply to 'Marjin' and 'Dark Master': the Masthead entry has dissapeared since the recent update for sure, I had some User Spaces updated just before and right after, seeing the entries disappear!"

Traveller in Time on his head
"Jim Lynn, what have you done to the search engine, it even fails to find edited entries. And lots and lots of entires that used to give a hit are completely gone."

you appear to be right: surely there should be more results than this for <./>Search?searchstring=thingite</.> and <./>Search?searchstring=thingites</.>, for instance?

*reads Hub convo*
Well, looks like you were expecting something of this sort *temporarily*, but it ought to be working by now, surely?



Meanwhile, now that the "X New Posts" feature actually works, I've got to decide whether to put up with being constantly logged in in order to take advantage of it - I am right in thinking that the Conversation List refreshing itself counts as being active on site, am I? As in, if I leave it open, my "eyes" will carry on showing up, even if I go off and do nothing else on h2g2 for several hours?

I used to just use a proxy to load it, so it didn't know I was me, but now I have a dilemma...

Traveller in Time on his keyboards
"Well, I must go searching for faster updates .
As some fast threads require appropriate answers, the timing is jumping over a ten minute range again. Now I reload a threaad right before hitting the [post] button just to avoid simpostings"

The search engine is still rebuilding its index. It's not the most reliable piece of software I've ever used...

Traveller in Time on his head
"Did you not write it yourself?"

Nope. It's the one that comes with SQL Server.

Traveller in Time on his head
"Fells like it indeed.

Can you not use BBCi Search engine, as it looks multi range already, it could be adapted for message board/ entry search?

was
< <./>/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=&tab=www&go=homepage&x=36&y=10</.> >

could be
< /cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=&tab=h2g2E >
< /cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=&tab=h2g2ER >
< /cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=&tab=h2g2e >
< /cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=&tab=h2g2C >
< /cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=&tab=h2g2F >
"

Cryptic Worm crawling by
"
Freud or
Gates
"

It might surprise you to know that there are cost issues involved in using the main BBC search engine, but it would be nice to use it as it would take an enormous strain off our servers. I live in hope.

An "internal market" within BBCi?

The search feature could certainly do with an overhaul of some sort, however - the conversation search, especially, is very time-consuming to use, and probably means a lot of useful information has become rather buried...

Traveller in Time in a golden cage (just paint)
"Well, you could give them internal money < A2482689 > "

I think it was just me - they weren't there, but the next time I went to the front page they were back again! I guess the page just didn't load properly the first time. Phew.

Traveller in Time on his head
"No wonder, if it takes nineteen hours to refresh a page I would think it timed out too!"

Traveller in Time on his head
"Search engine producing, as far as known, reliable results again."