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

absolutely - being offensive is breaking the terms and conditions and we take it very seriously.

Is there an alarming mechanism active to scour for rudeness? Doesn't seem like it..

The community itself acts like a scouring mechanism. We all read forums and if we see something that's not right, we do something about it.

In general though there really isn't any rudeness on h2g2. Every really is helpful and friendly. Once or twice there has been something, but in over a year of running, a couple of occasions really isn't bad

Yeah, but what if you have more than one window open, and you use the wrong one, like I just did? There is no seriously graceful way to say "I meant that for another forum".

Posting into a wrong forum isn't really that rude, as long as as soon as you realise you pop in with an apology. We all post into wrong forums occasionally, me probably more than most So we all know what that's like. But a little "sorry, wrong forum." goes a long way

*enters form lost of trees and undergrowth - stage right-*

Deleting forum enteries would surly go against what the Guide is about, it's a continually growing 'organism' things go into it that make it grow. And it is not perfect, just like people, if you deleeted all the theings some one had done in their life then it wouldn't be real, it wouyld fall apart. I'm lost...

*wonders off in to the long grass and trees from whence he came*

Howabout it only working on forum posts with no replies?

YK... did you forget the magpie doctrine? They want it ALL,
gddammit!

Oh, Zarquondammit!

I think I said all sorts of nice things about the new layout in ripley, so I won't retread old ground. I have belatedly discovered a bug, however. When trying to respond to a new message on my homepage, I clicked the link, but all I received was a homepage (or personal space, if you prefer) refresh. This happened a few times, and the way I worked around it was to check my recent conversations for one that was on my personal space, then click on the link in the left pane from that display. Most annoying.

What browser are you running, Colonel? That sounds like a documented bug in IE5.5 beta - if you're running the Beta, now would be a good time to download the full release. It's noticeably faster, too!

I'm running Netscape 4.74. It's their newest version. Anyway, I don't think it is the browser, because it works when it I click the link somewhere else, just not the one at the foot of my homepage.

I tested it in the slightly older 4.71, and it worked. So I guess Netscape and Microsoft managed to break their browsers in the same way... what are the odds of that?

Why not go wild and try Netscape 6? Installing it doesn't harm any previous installations, the whole thing is a quarter the size of previous versions, and it follows the standards more closely than previous versions! The "Guide" works on it nicely.

It has one "problem" - it shows up occasions when webmasters have been lazy... If it can't find a picture on a server, it inserts the filename instead. I've found many pages which fall apart because words like "spacer.gif" are stuck between graphics in a table, because they forgot to upload the single-pixel transparent GIF...

Must annoy.

Doesn't Time fly?

Just returned from my summer hols and reported for duty and what do I find?
It's Christmas, Easter, birthday and Bastille day - simultaneously.

Thankyou Father Christmas, Easter Bunny and all your wonderful little helpers!
# It's a hap - hap - happy day. Toodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-ay ...#

Well, if its any consolation, I've been having the same problem. Until the next release, might I suggest that we simply click on the "last reply: (insert date here)" link when we come into the forum in the first place, instead of clicking the title and getting the first of a quintillion posts...

Well, since you're *looking* at the 'next release' (the message you replied to was written well before our most recent upgrade) the problems should all have been resolved. The link from the 'Last reply' date was added so that people *always* have the option of starting at the beginning or the end. And the buttons and the little blobs above the current conversation let you go to whichever block you want if you just want to delve into the conversations.

I'd be interested to know what you think could be improved in the next release, in case there still are problems with reading conversations.

The option of showing the "tree" format of postings; we used to be able to see what was a simulpost from this, since they'd both be replying to the same message and therefore have the same "branch" sort of thing. Now it's all one continouos simulpost.

Actually, the tree is there, if you set your preference to 'Advanced'. You get this cute little mini-tree in the post, and I've found it extremely useful for identifying simulposts. It also really helps when my post ends up being the first in a group of 20, to see if there was an intervening post that I should go back and check out.

I really am pleased with the upgrade. There is SO much flexibility in reading threads, finding the place you want to be, and so much more. It really is an inspired set of changes.