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

I'm trying to find a conversation about favourite words but with no success.This led me to wandering just how many discontinued conversations there are just lost in cyberspace.Oh well!Perhaps my mind is just tripping me up again.Do conversations ever get deleted?

Hi Incognitas I remember that one, its somewhere in here :-) *Rumage* *Rumage* Try this one http://www.h2g2.com/F19585?thread=77483 As for discontinued conversations, well there are nearly 1550 threads in ask h2g2 alone and most of those haven't been updated for a while. When I spoke to Jim Lynn at the summer meetup in London, he said the idea was that none of the threads should ever need to be deleted. Obviously there are exceptions if a thread breaks the site terms and conditions. So once we have written it its here for ever!

I sometimes have fun clicking some red dot and finding a subject that is interesting, but the conversation petered out months ago - then reviving it!

I also love rummaging around and finding old threads for people.

But I don't think it matters if some conversations do die out - IRL you wouldn't keep on about them all the time either, would you. And some topics are just exhausted after a few postings.

However, most threads go off at a tangent by Posting 20, so the headings are often misleading and the conversation has nothing to do with the original title.

I hate people who start every paragraph with "I"

Me too!

Going off at a tangent by Posting 3! LOL!

I'm just bookmarking this to come back & revitalise it in October 2003...

Well, I also think it looks stupid to start everything off with an I. But that happens all the time when I write a CV, anybody got any ideas?

There are almost 70,000 conversations that haven't been posted to in the last three months. But they're still out there.

One?

BTW that was a suggestion to the last but one post.

Thank you Bald Bloke(there I've said it again).You do keep coming up with the goods for me.

Write it in the third person, or just oit the personal pronoun. For example:

Jan 1996 - Feb 2000: Viz Comic; Toilet Humour Editor
=====================================================

As Toilet Humour Editor, responsible for the development of abysmal toilet-related jokes for this estimable publication. Developed new research methodologies, based around going to pubs and telling crap jokes. Achieved growth from 99.4% to 99.71% crap jokes per issue.

Or reorganise your sentences:

To gain some experience in the practical field, I spent three years dissecting ants at the ... Laboratory, with the occasional pause for sweeping the floor.

In my Final Year at university, I revolutionised the Christian Union and led a successful campaign to increase the portions of milk in the cafeteria's coffee.

Trillian's Child, you are so accomplished! I want to be like you when I grow up.

sorry to interrupt by steering us back toward a subject near the thread title, but actually just earlier today as i was browsing through some older threads i was struck by how many researcher spaces hadn't shown updates or postings since the end of 1999. a lot of people that came to check us out and left, and now going to their spaces is like finding yourself in a dead end alleyway.

i wonder how many researchers we've lost?

I have found a lot of these while researching for the GerManiaConnection.

I have listed them as Who's Who and Who was Who, but many of the people who haven't logged in for the last few months (at least, haven't contributed) had lots of interesting stuff to say when they were on line.

There seems to have been a time about Nov 99 when a large number stopped logging in - perhaps there was massive trouble with the server around then and people gave up after two or three unsuccessful attempts.

I myself have been allocated 3 U-numbers by now, so I think the number given in h2g2.com/info is rather misleading, unfortunately. (At present it is: 66887)

i see what you mean, i think i have two #'s.

maybe someone needs to organize a comittee to e-mail defunct users and invite them back?

Talking of massive problems.I've been having an absolute b***h of a time getting into h2g2 today.Every time I log onto any conversation I find myself presented with the old fatal error message and then the dreaded there was an internal error and THIS WINDOW WILL NOW CLOSE.Just like going to the post office really.This only happens at this site.I'm now viewing this through Netscape which I loath and only have so I can check my webpages.The big snag is I now need a magnifying glass to see what I'm typing in this conversation as the font must be 6.I really like this site so I shall persevere however.
70,000 eh!good job that that isn't represented in paper then or the tree denuding of the planet would be really out of control.
By the way I'm thinking of changing my name to exasperated out of my tiny skull.What do you think?

There are some problems using this site with Netscape. The small font you mentioned is one. But there are bonuses as well. Look at the British English conversation, for example. In Netscape, you'll see a little blob for each twenty posts to the conversation. In Internet Explorer, these are stretched out in a long line which doesn't fit on the screen, so you have to start scrolling the screen to get to the last one if you inadvertently went to the first one.

My sister also has failed to look at H2G2 yet, because it disconnects her modem any time she looks at it.

I had stop posting in Nov. 99 due to major health issues, but I am not saying that this is the reason all those others vanished!
I have 2 sign-on IDs myself, because I used the same name but added the ISP designation for the wrong one. How does one undo this, pray tell? (asking very humbly, of course!)