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

Hello, dear editors of the H2G2. I have a quite unusual request, but I hope that you may help me out. In the spirit of this year's "Towel Day" (yesterday, to be exact) I wrote what was probably the most creative article that I have ever created. It was, of course, entirely fictitious. For some unbeknownst reason, I feel that for a moment in time, I may have actually channelled the great Mr. Adams himself. Anyway, I submitted it as an article, though I know that each article for the actual H2G2 is to be based on reality. I was caught up in the moment of memories of our late beloved author, and so I did what I considered to be the best tribute I may have made. The post in question is tilted "Towels, a Short History". Would it be at all possible for me tho have that original work back? Could you possibly email it to me? As soon as I "submitted" the entry, it disappeared. I would love to have a copy to keep for myself, as I do not know if I will ever be creative enough to construct such a witty article again. Would that be possible? If so, you can email it to me at [email protected], the mailbox where I get most of my earthly notices. I do hope that you will be able to help me. Otherwise, I may never again see what might have been the most poignant and topic-worthy missive I ever devised.

Thanks for your help,

Terry Woodson

Hi Terry, and welcome to h2g2.

I'll alert the guys at Technical Feedback to your plight.

Icy

Ah, I just realised this *is* technical feedback

They'll be along in a minute...

Hello TeknoKai

I'm terribly sorry to hear that this happened to you. Unfortunately, it appears that your writing has vanished entirely. I'm also sorry to say that I don't know the reason for this at all - but will log this problem with our technical folk. You may get asked for more details from them.

In the meantime - my condolences. It is really sad to lose something creative. The same thing has happened to me when there has been a blip in my connection to the internet.

And - just to mention - if your creativity streak returns - there is always a place for inventive writing in our Alternative Writing Workshop. Good submissions there will often be selected to be published in the Post. So, I do hope we can see more from you in the future.



Lanzababy - h2g2 Guide Editor

Hello,
how terribly annoying! Can I ask you a couple of questions, about how it happened? I assume you wrote an entry, rather than a conversation post?
Did you manage to save the entry at all, and it disappeared when you submitted it to Peer Review? Or did it disappear when you tried to save the first time? The more you can tell me, the better clues tech will have to prevent it from happening again.

One clue we have, is that saving often may help... Waiting more than 10 minutes may cause the whole thing to disappear.
We apologise about the inconvenience, and I'll kick the shins of Tech again, to do something about it...

There are no entries by TeknoKai in the system, not even deleted ones, other than Teknokai's user space itself. So it looks as if the system failed to record the entry when you hit submit. The only other possibility is that the entry is stored in a transaction log somewhere.