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

See, this is one of the tricky aspects of h2g2 - it can be hard to find stuff. I know I was reading a whole series of articles about the Create Challenge earlier today, and now can I find them?

Lanza has an ad for it in her name, and I tried on her PS, but that was no good. Where in the hierarchical structure of the site are these challenges?

On the Pliny front page, there is a tab for Create (permanently) behind the Featured entries.
This should be the flea market and photo challenge A87764746

Does this mean that you can't get into Create unless you're in Pliny? I'm in Alabaster, and the Front Page has no direct links to Create. However, there are links to two Flea market entries.

In Alabaster, Brunel or Classic Goo, click on the Create banner, just under the words Community Creations, to get to the Create page.

That's great thanks, I hadn't noticed that banner before!

I used to love Alabaster, but I stay in Pliny now... sorry for forgetting the Create banner in Ripley...

I'd use Pliny except that we can't edit in it yet, and about three quarters of my work on h2g2 is editing.

Bea raises a good point about me putting a link to Create on my personal space. I sort of absorbed Create after Sol found she was too busy to keep it on, and I've not updated since. I did make a link to it from the GEs PS, but never considered adding it from my own.

If people wish to add Create as a friend, they'd get any journals that are written from the account in future. U14992038

In other news, I'd really like to develop the pathways people have to use to navigate towards Create. I realise it is too convoluted the way it stands now. I'd better ask nicely!

I created a named entry pointing to Create, but it doesn't work in Pliny.

This means that in Ripley, you can put < . / > Create < / . > without any spaces in a conversation like this: Create and it will make a link to it. But it doesn't in Pliny.

When you say "add as friend" do you mean "subscribe to user" or is that something different?

I meant 'Add to Friends' - in Alabaster this is near the top in the right hand panel on Create's personal space.

In Pliny, this is lower down, below the big link on the right hand side.

From memory, I think the subscribe/unsubscribe to user may have something to do with actual Entries. I need some coffee first to figure that bit, and remember previous discussions about it.

I keep switching to Brunel, but every time I go to the Front Page it switches me back to Pliny. Is this the same for everyone else? Should I be reporting a bug?

I'm afraid that is something we've had to accept, there is a technical reason for the links going to Pliny FP just now. Ripley really is being held together with bits of string, poor thing. It's done well for such a long time.

The way to see Brunel FP is to use this link:

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/home

Alabaster used to be my preferred skin, but I used to switch between all of the old versions while editing things. Brunel does have the better functions, but I disliked the strong colours.

I must admit I like Pliny best now.

But Pliny's awful for editing in!


So, to sum up: there's a link to Create on the FP in Pliny, but you then need to switch to an old skin to actually DO anything like write an entry. And every time you go to the FP you get stuck in Pliny. I'd post a headhurst smiley but it would only show up in the wrong place.


(Apologies if it sounds like I'm having a moan here, but this must be really confusing to newbies)

It is hard! But our techs are working as hard and fast as they can to improve Pliny. At the moment, it is best to do any writing in the old versions.

If Ripley is only held together with bits of string why is Pastey et al persisting with spending time on it? I don't much like the look of Pliny..but I just don't care really now, it's functionality that matters to me. I used Brunel because its function was good in the past, I didn't like its look. I don't bother with it now and mostly use Pliny. I just expect it to be buggy and live with it..but I don't come here so much now.

But to me the biggest thing the place needs is new members. They won't stay if they arrive and experience Pliny as is. So why can't people just put the past behind them and let Pastey just worry about the nightmare of fixing Pliny...which is something positive for the future.

If I stumbled on this place today for the first time...I wouldn't stay 5minutes because of all the bugs. That should be concerning surely? There are so many places online now that function fine; new people will just go elsewhere..so present people hopefully will accept the change for the good of the site. Shrug.

Thanks effers, it's good to hear your view. We are in fact getting new members joining in the community, and a lot of really early members returning.

1. Beatrice, if you stay in Alabaster, everything works. The Front Page button brings you to the Alabaster front page, and you can edit and everything.

2. Effers, the techie guys (Pastey etc) don't waste their time trying to fix Ripley. They spend it fixing Pliny. But there are a few bugs that really make it difficult to edit entries in Pliny, and there are a number of behind-the-scenes editorial tools which the BBC never put into Pliny so we have to keep using Ripley for the editorial side of things until either Pliny or its replacement, Eddie, is fully working.

"If people wish to add Create as a friend, they'd get any journals that are written from the account in future. U14992038" [Lanzababy]

That's a great suggestion!
Done!