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

I tried to sign into h2g2 earlier this afternoon. I got some 500 error, and when I hit the backspace, I suddenly found myself on the settings page with the name field empty. I went back one more step, and my page showed my name and full tag allright, so I hoped it was safe.
Then I read Gnomon's journal and wondered whether there was a connection to what had happened to me this afternoon. I checked again - my full name and tag were shown.

I signed in - and my name was gone. I was just a user number.
Fortunately, I knew about the trick with changing the settings in plain, or else my name would be a lot shorter now.

Like all the other tags which have vanished over the last week or so, my name was not offensive or anything, and I haven't even posted to other BBC sites to prevent myself from losing it.

I hope the exception they promised us for h2g2 will soon be reestablished.

It wasn't just h2g2 down, it appeared to be all the boards. It was up and down like a yo yo all day.

* to check Gnomon's journal*

I'm glad you got back in okay.

It seems to be taking a while to iron out the wrinkles. I've had few problems, but I did get a 500 error this morning when I tried to navigate to a conversation.

Did they do some of their dreadful 'under the bonnet' changes again?

Hi Bel, glad you're getting the pc hassles sorted at last.

Apparently re name issue you don't actually have to post anywhere, if you're already signed into Hootoo and go 'wandering' to other parts of the beeb site that require a sign in then names are either shortened, (as mine was) or modded back to a 'U' number.
I'm not sure how they're going to come up with a site specific fix for this. As far as I can tell the max number characters on hootoo is 50, elsewhere its 30 with no or little punctuation allowed.

I wouldn't be surprised.

On that subject, did you know they save some of the more complex fixes for the Easter weekend, when they are known as 'under the Easter bonnet' changes

It's quite simple.

Although we can use the Plain skin to assign a name that is more than 50 characters, we've been asked not to for the moment. If we do, we are in breach of the house rules, even though this rule isn't written down.

If the moderators spot that our nickname is more than 50 characters, they will reset it to our Unumber.

The funny (or not) thing is, that I didn't even *look* at other BBC pages. I only tried to sign into h2g2.

But where is your Tony reference

I didn't look at non-h2g2 BBC sites either. It's on h2g2 that we're restricted to 50 characters.

I got a 500 error earlier. And I never visit anything but h2g2.

Neither do I. And if I do, I'm not signed in, so they can't know it is me.

Who needs anything but h2g2 anyway?

True. I haven't been on facebook all day.

Um... I feel silly for asking, but could anyone explain to me the Tony Curtis thing? I remember it happening a while back and it seems to be back again, but I don't know *why* it's happening!

probably silly season againthey also do it near Halloween and it used to bug Pheloxi

As far as I remember, 2legs changed his name to "Tony Curtis" and had it removed for 'impersonating a celebrity'.

Then it became a sort of "I'm Spartacus!" protest, with everybody becoming Tony Curtis.

Someone, I can't remember who, changed their nickname to "Tony Curtis" and their name was rejected by the moderators because they were impersonating another person. Out of solidarity, everybody on h2g2 changed their name to Tony Curtis.

This time we've partially changed our names to Tony Curtis, as a sign that we are dissatisfied with the 50-character rule, either because 50 is too short or because the moderators are enforcing a rule that they haven't written down or stated.

It's because names/taglines are being moderated for no apparent reason.