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

OK, I'll turn the page then...

...now that we are approaching the anniversary of the disappearance.

I get the impression that no one is in any hurry to do the software update that would make it visible again. At least I still have my copy of the book.

Traveller in Times reading < A51277773 >
"< <./>/dna/onthefuture/</.> > BotF has ed I am afraid.

Not only the book but perhaps even more will happen. Just a few more updates and HooToo will go mulitemporal multidimensional "

Two years and counting...

...and now another year and more has gone by and the book has disappeared for good presumably. It hasn't been transferred with rest of h2g2 and it looks as if the BBC has deleted it from their computers.

The BBC was always, historically good at deleting stuff though... old TV shows, radio performances, recordings of music and suchlike a pity they still seem to have done it, espeically when storage in the digital era hasn't seemingly ever been quite so inexpensive

You can't keep stuff forever...??

Oh, and it wouldn't be transferred with h2g2, because it was a completely different site.

Mina, is that an official explanation or a personal opinion?

On the first point - would you advocate burning Shakespeare first folios because you can't keep things forever? OK, there weren't any Shakespeares in BotF but there was a lot of good writing there.

As for the second point; you will find at least one BotF thread on my list of conversations that became an h2g2 thread when my space defaulted to h2g2 on the archiving of BotF. One of the main points of BotF was that it was Douglas Adams's idea and, when I signed up, there was a strong impression of a close relationship between h2g2 and BotF.

Official? Official for who? Official for me? Yes.

I can't pretend to understand that reply and I would prefer not to get entangled in an argument over this.
However, I would like to quote Ashley Highfield from his introduction to the printed version of the book: "This book was Douglas Adams' idea...(his) company began gathering ideas from the public on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy website. He and I also began to discuss how best to bring his ideas to life. After his untimely death in 2001, the BBC decided to keep the site going and rehoused it on BBCi. The Book of the Future sister site was created in October 2002..."