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

I realised why I'd had so little response to my last journal quiz. When I looked through my personal space the other day, the journal entry was missing. Instead, I found it as a linked conversation. Nobody in their right mind would be subscribed to the conversations people start on my PS (unless, of course, they're studying terms of abuse).

I'd actually clicked the wrong button when submitting it. It's easy to do in the Ripley skins. I must have done it several times over the years. Don't get me wrong, I like the Alabaster skin, despite its propensity to make me look a fool on occasions. I can say how many items I want on each page. I can see everything at a glance on my Personal Space. I can type things like , safe in the knowledge that it won't be hidden, like it is in Pliny. (And if you're reading this in Pliny, you'll never know what I was talking about in that last sentence).

At times, however, I will post a journal entry to the wrong place, or submit an entry to Flea Market instead of Peer Review, or accidentally unsubscribe from things. They're minor irritants, I can get by. They may even add 'charm' to the site - a bit of gritty realism in this seemingly perfect cyberworld.

But charm cannot be harvested. Once we attempt to design these things in, they cease to be charming. They immediately lose their legitimacy for being there. You may be aware that Persian carpet makers intentionally weave hundreds of tiny flaws into their geometric designs. This isn't a charm offensive - they do it because only Allah is perfect. They have a proverb: “A Persian rug is perfectly imperfect, and precisely imprecise.” We admire the rug's flaws because of the skilful way in which those imperfections do not detract from the whole.

That, and they hide all the breadcrumbs.

Talking of hiding the breadcrumbs, I think the house-dwarves or the chinchillas, have hidden the remote control again, and the box of channa dal... damn critters...

I think I've spent too* much time using alabaster... started with it, and got used to it, so stuck with it... which makes it hard to change to a differnt skin, where the buttons are all moved, and things are in differnt places Pliney is nice and clean though, not cluttered, and I like that, plus the working headings on the page for me help navigation and some of the other bits, like the search box defaulting to edited guide entrys... though I still can't get used to calling them... err... whatever the strange term is we've stuck with from the BBC... approviated or aproved or somdthing I think it is Mind, still missing big bits of navigation in the conversation lists, that makes it too awkward to use on a daily basis; no unsubscribe, no buttns to get to last unread post etc...
I see pastey hasn't rolled out the nighthoover button yet, either, nor the badger skin...

I was *wondering* why I only saw yesterday's entry via the NaJoPoMo link thread...

I like this description of what we do.

Pliny is attractive but a little over-designed, resulting in not enough per page for me. As soon as I saw Brunel I was hooked. Writing this therein.

A little trick I figured out;

If you accidentally unsubscribe in Alabaster, when the unsubscribe page pops up, instead of being good and hitting the return to my space' link, hit the back button on your browser and you can quickly resubscribe!

Figured it out after many years of cursing

FS

Pheloxi taught me that one, when I was still getting used to using a mouse. I kept hitting the x instead of clicking on the thread

lil x

()