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

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Yes, Effers. it's to do with respect. How about some respect to the people who've been working their butts off in their free time to get this place functioning at all?

We know what the Who's Online bug is: if you visit a person's PS, that person is shown as being online. We've also been told it's a major bug that goes right to the heart of the DNA system and will take a long time and much effort to fix. Pastey and his minions will get there. In the meantime, shouting at him won't help.

TRiG.

I feel I must agree with Effers.

At first I just shrugged and figured it was one more bug, but then when the dead people being shown as online aspect was brought to my attention, I couldn't help but think about the phone hacking thing and the parents of the dead girl being led to believe that she was still alive because her phone messages had been deleted.

I don't think that it is appropriate to dismiss this bug as unimportant anymore. I certainly respect and am extremely grateful for the work that Pastey and the volunteers are doing. I think, however, that there may be legal ramifications which should be considered concerning this particular bug. If I were one of the shareholders of Not Panicking, Inc., I would be asking for legal advice and promptly acting according to that advice and I'd be sweating quite a bit until I learned the legal implications.

Again, I am not faulting any of the volunteers over this and I'm certainly not shouting at them (and I don't think Effers is either).

Yes, *we* know about the bug and we know it's a particularly tough nut to crack. But it has been repeatedly stated that there are a great many new people here (who don't know about the bug) and a great many hits on all sorts of pages by unknown somebodies (who don't know about the bug).

It says on the FRONT PAGE here that we form strong friendships. I certainly have plus all kind of relationships.

I DON'T want to go to 'who's online' and see the name of someone I feel sad about dying. Like in real life I want to slowly accept they died and form a new relationship in my mind.

I haven't really used that widget much so I'm scanning down the names..and seeing the names of dead people jumping out at me.

It really upsets me.

It feels so like the site doesn't give a damn about it. It's ordinary human stuff...that people in real life know that if someone has died, they are accorded special respect.

This is a FUNDAMENTAL of all human societies...but not apparently this one.

For christ sakes it's not about individuals here working for nothing for Not Panicking Limited....it's about the damned company's responsibility.

As I understand the bug, it activates a Homepage
when someone visits. It shows that person as online.

I like to think that it is a good thing that people are
remembered. Or that they are newly discovered by
those who venture to a homepage upon seeing some
part of a legacy in an old thread or entry.

Scorn me if you will but I choose to see it as a form
of immortality in cyberspace and I hope the bug is still
there when I am gone so that my eyes will be opened
when my page is visited, be it by old friends or newbies
I'll never know.



~jwf~

I certainly want people to be remembered...but DEAD...not online.

They are DEAD. Not online.

Keep the space yes....A bit like a grave you could *choose* to visit NOT because their name jumped out on you on a list of people alive.

I CANNOT believe that the company can't prioritise this as something to do.

It seems about as far away as dead people are treated in *real life* as I could imagine.

When you see them represented as 'online' it affects you psychologically. It's a DOWNRIGHT LIE, and the company must know that. It's totally disrespectful.

From the post by Trig it would seem that new H2G2 would have to be closed down while the bug was traced. It would then take an indeterminate amount of time for the bug to be fixed. Presumably this would have to be fixed for each of the different H2G2 "shells".

So in practice it might require H2G2 to be off-line for who knows how long ... maybe 6 months for the re-engineering of the software?

'It would seem'

Trig guesses.

Stone Art guesses.

Who the hell is the CEO of this company?

Can't they tell us?

Everyone guesses....or says don't give poor Pastey a hard time.

(There was a very unpleasant period in the past here to do with a particular researcher. Different people had different views about his horrible illness and how responsible he was..and the way he was treated.

He died.

Other stuff happened that really upset some of us.


Hey ho he was online last night...maybe even now..

The new company don't give a stuff. Zero respect for community.

And it might be ten minutes.

Again, what I think should be the pragmatic concern is ...




Young hootooer goes missing in real life.

Grandma remembers that the young hootooer was fond of this h2g2 thing and goes to look at the young persons PS and finds the eyes open.

She calls the youngster's mom in great excitement ...


And so on.

But all the time the youngster is in a pile of leaves in the woods somewhere.


And then Parliament starts asking whether Murdoch owns this hootoo thing.


And the lawyers line up.


I think a legal opinion should be sought concerning "official" online suggestions that dead people are alive.

That's a good point.

It's totally incredible to me that nobody knows who is in charge of this company. The buck stops there.

That's the person who would be called to the Select Committee.

(For centuries on this site we had discussions connected with superstition and religion...and how people wouldn't face reality.

And yet now when it's a PRACTICAL REALITY about who the hell is in charge and responsible in *reality* of this site, nobody has a clue.

It must be the ing Wizard of OZ

#10 "And it might be ten minutes."

You might be right. But then if the BBC with its "infinitely" greater resources (and outsourcing potential) failed to resolve / correct the issue then maybe it would take the new H2G2 volunteers a considerable longer time period than ten minutes.

The question is how important is this issue right now and would you be prepared to see new H2G2 mothballed until this issue is resolved, or permanently closed if the bug "cannot" be fixed.

I would guess that during the Christmas period the volunteers won't have the time to deal with this - so should H2G2 be closed over the Christmas period etc? It would seem that address your concern for Grandma hootooer that the only solution would be to close down H2G2 until the software is rewritten / fixed.

The bug wasn't there when we were on the BBC servers, Stone Art. It is a result of the move.

Again, I am not asking for an immediate resolution of the bug,rather, I am concerned that the bug's legal implications, whatever they be, be addressed. This is not necessarily a technical issue. It is an issue first for legal counsel.


I'm actually quite surprised and.shocked, now that the issue has been pointed out, that more people aren't feeling concerned.

But, I should get to bed.

Dead but still online occasionally ? Nothing wrong with that, sounds like it should have been designed that way.

Keep the bug.

alec.

#13 "... I'm actually quite surprised and.shocked, now that the issue has been pointed out, that more people aren't feeling concerned."

It's a question of what can be done right now and whether or not H2G2 should be mothballed until something can be done. As far as I can tell from other comments, this bug existed on the BBC server and is associated with code embedded deeply in the software. But since I don't know much about it (I am guessing) I'll stop saying anything further.

For those that would like to be heard beyond the grave this is the solution that a US inventor has come up with http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3876351.stm

The bug is a result of the move. The widget worked properly under the BBC.

Again, the question is not whether hootoo should be mothballed. The question is whether or not legal advice has been sought.


In my opinion.

I've only just discovered this bug. I presume its connected with the Barlesque thing..when the eyes started having no bearing on being online or not.

If we were still with them I'd kick up the same fuss because I think its unacceptable in terms of my concept of community.

But as it is I discovered it since we were bought and sold.

And there'll be a CEO in charge of the company that bought us...who will presumably know the priority the company is giving to sorting out the problem or not. I find it hard to believe there is no computer expert in the world they could bring in to take dead people's spaces offline.

New people will come here and will see dead people online..and possibly leave messages on their ps, thinking them online.

And I don't want to see Lord Wolfden's name come up again as online.

I also don't want to see Empty Space come up again as online.

I find that disgusting.

Yes some people will die here that we don't know about...but if its a well known community thing it means so much.

Are you looking, actively searching, for things to complain about?



Dammit,
>>We've also been told it's a major bug that goes right to the heart of the DNA system and will take a long time and much effort to fix.<<

In my day
(yes, I've been in software design/implementation/maintenance - a Long time ago)
a complaint from a customer, in the terms you are using, would mean immediate closure, all hands to the wheel and fights in boardrooms.
But you few are not, luckily, 'the customer'. You're handsomely outnumbered.


It's easy to knock. Not so easy to build...

ESPECIALLY WITH PEOPLE WHO SEEM TO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN CAUSE DISRUPTION



Where's the ?

The bug is not the result of the move. The who's online feature did not work before we left the BBC.