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

I spent much of the day translating the niceties of DNA into words that made sense ( ) to "Mustardlanders"... It was tiring, but rewarding.

Some quirks surfaced that I really couldn't figure out, so I had a word with Jim Lynn. Apparently, they're working on some known cross-site problems with Journals; also, it *should* be possible to enable your Journal even if you originally signed up with PoV or somesuch other site that doesn't itself support a journal. Jim just hasn't told me *how* yet...

I didn't go shopping today; I figured out that if I put it off till tomorrow (Monday) then I can use the same all-day ticket to shop during the day (and perhaps pay a visit to Mike E. to return a DVD he lent me) while still being able to head out in the evening to visit my friends Bisset and Hazel.

All this shepherding of Mustardlanders has been the perfect excuse for prevarication; I haven't done any web design today. I'll see what I can do tomorrow, once the shopping's ordered...

I never really realised how fascinating it can be to watch the details of someone else's life!

dd x

Try randomly going back a year or two...

I just tried it myself; I didn't know they gave you the entries in full! This must be a recent innovation; I'm sure I used to get a page of titles, in two columns, just like the "Show more conversations" page...

Try this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/MJ38364?Journal=15750&show=5&skip=1500

That takes you back to October 2000; play with the "&skip=" number to move around quickly.

Peet's journal is my homepage!!!!! first contact with the outside world each morning at 6am. Then late night Mustard then the news


Sue

Get's very excited and starts waving his arms in the air really? Are they? I'm sure you'll let me know as & when, but this does sound hopeful!

LP

I thought so...

Knowing the BBC though I'm still chasing up a few other options in case this is some way off - don't want to by cynical though!

I now know things I never thought I could, or would want, to know about DNA! Anyway, certainly one solution would be to migrate my account to h2g2, but you need the DNA tools to do it and they don't have them in h2g2 .

So they (Jimster) suggested the POV editors, nice idea but they seem wholly inaccessible and are presumably in part at least, behind going for the limited functionality.

Now you would think that the people with the tools would be on the Hub so I've tried asking there. It would seem sensible too that at the very least they post a warning when you sign on to the POV board that you will only get full functioning on that board. The obvious thing would be to sign on via h2g2 and then use that to access the POV board.

Meantime I'll await in great excitment the outcome of your discussions with the guru.

Thanks again, you are truly the custodian of the ML people. It does seem some are really worried about this and are regarding it as the destruction of the board. It seemed to me that it was being much better planned than that, may be I'm being too optimistic.

LP, I spoke to the guy who *wrote* the tools...

Apparnetly, registering with another site, such as h2g2, *ought* to add their functionality to your account. The fact that it doesn't seem to may be a bug, or it might just be that we don't know how to do it properly... He's going to get back to me.

Cheers Peet.

At the risk of contradicting you, Peet, messageboards don't work the same as full DNA sites, and they're not supposed to. Unlike Talk Buffy and other DNA sites, we can't move Messageboard accounts over to full Site ones because they don't have the full tools. You can fake a Personal Space, but it won't have journals and the like because messageboard accounts don't have them.

It's not the same state of affairs as with some DNA sites that might not have all of the functions visible but generally do have them built in somewhere. Where we'd go to activate an account's journal there's just a big white space.

Jims

Interesting what Jimster had to say, for now then there are two Lè Phantom's, I'll kill the first one off when no hope remains! But at least I have a journal now!

Lè Phantom

Jimster, the problem comes when someone who already has a DNA account with a messageboard tries to sign up to h2g2. From what Jim Lynn says the simple act or registering with h2g2 should enable full PS functionality, including Journals etc., but from what I've heard it doesn't actually give you the option to "register"; as soon as it recognises you Single Sign-On just logs you in to DNA with your existing account.

Can you give me a blow-by-blow account of how to sign up to h2g2, aquiring a PS and Journal etc., when you already have, say, a 1Xtra DNA account, please?

Well, your mate Jim L knows his stuff big time! It appears to be fully working now, due to some piece of programming on his part.

If this can be widely applied then it would help a lot.

Thanks again for your input. I guess I'll keep both handles till I'm sure all is working but it seems okay.

LP