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

As everyone certainly has noticed Pliny has been down for a while now. Behind the scenes everyone is hard at work and we are doing all we can to solve this problem. We are faced with an obscure error message and have already gotten rid of countless spam accounts and Entries in case any of them caused any problems. We go on searching and work on this as much as we can, but as you all know everyone who works on h2g2 does this in their free time

Thank you all for your patience, we are doing all we can to resolve this issue. We want h2g2 to be working normally again just as much as you do.

We really appreciate your patience and encouragement.

Posted on behalf of the Core Team:
Dmitri, Milla, Psychocandy, SashaQ, Super Frenchie, Tavaron, Robbie and Brian

Thanks for the update, Tav

(just for the record I am not a member of the Core Team but I am a Guide Editor and liaise with the Team on Editorial issues)

All I can offer is good thoughts for a speedy resolution and some food for Elton

Since I first logged in to and "joined" hootoo.
All the folk in the hootoo back office (past and present) have always had my 110% respect for what they/you do

But!and I started in brunel and have never moved from itSo if "pliny" was totally removed, I'd not miss it

My hopes are, that you find the cause without too many of course

for the update, Tav. with solving the problem. As always you and the rest of the gang have my full support

You have my full support as well.

The thing is, Ripley was here before Pliny came along, and it still works. I'd be the last person to advocate pulling the plug on Pliny.
Would there be a way to substitute Ripley as the main interface for a while, as you work on restoring Pliny?

Obviously we need as many skins as possible. Hopefully there will plenty of choice in the very near future.

Just my two cents worth.

Hi Prof.

Those of us who write entries, conversations and generally footle around on h2g2 forget that the main users of the system are the thousands of readers who look at the entries every day. The viewer statistics show that there are thousands of people who look at our site, although they are not registered as Researchers.

The Ripley system (which includes Classic Goo, Plain, Brunel and Alabaster skins) is old and creaky - if these thousands of readers were using it, then the system would crash within a day or two. This would require constant monitoring and restarting.

So the readers are directed to the Pliny system. When it was working, it was stable and didn't crash every day or two. Although it has a number of bugs in it which limit its use and is not really suitable for writing complex entries, it is adequate.

Unfortunately the Pliny system stopped working around the time of hte Daylight Saving Time change and hasn't worked since.

This means that the footlers (Researchers) can continue to use Ripley, but the readers who are directed to Pliny just get an error message and presumably move on to some other site. If we direct the readers to Ripley, the Ripley system will crash within a day or two and nobody will be able to use the system.

Thanks to the Core Team for your work, you're doing great and I admire your patience.

I am sorry for all of you that this problem is being so persistent, but hope one that on one fine day the Pliny Peculiarity will resolve and you can all have a well earned drink and rest. Maybe several well earned drinks.

I appreciate your time and effort.

cc

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement.

Gnomon!
Thank you my friend I understand more now about "the background running of things" mate, for the info

Why don't you just get rid of Pliny and make Brunel the go to skin, like it used to be

I think (and I am not in any way a programmer) that Gnomon is quite right when he says the Ripley skins (Brunel, Alabaster, Goo) could not withstand so many visitors and re-directing them all there would probably mean having no h2g2 at all because it would crash.

Others may correct me if I'm wrong.

From a design point of view (and please understand I am not the greatest fan of Pliny) I think that if in general everyone would arrive on Ripley they would probably turn around and leave immediately. Just because it looks old. We really have quite a lot of readers, it's not just us 'few people' here using the site. We live in a world where computer games are considered to be bad just because they don't use HD graphics. Bad / not modern enough visuals scare people away, no matter how good the content is.

Also, Pliny works with iPads and mobile phones - it will fit the text to the size of the screen, allowing entries to be read on these devices. Ripley skins don't. It's very difficult to read an entry using Riply on a mobile phone.

BRUNEL BABY is the only way to go

I know you’re doing all you can to fix this.

As I think I asked on another thread, are you considering what to do if you can’t get Pliny back? Are you able to copy and store the assets (Edited Guide, etc), so that you can use these if and when a new platform emerges in future?

This post has been removed.

brunel is a brilliant set up, don't look aged whatsoever

and yah can alter it's colours

Just checking it ain't 1st April is it ?

(humour and not p taking of course)

Pliny's never resized to fit the screen of my Android phones... Granted, I've only ever tried with Firefox, so maybe it would've with Chrome or the native internet app(No functional mobile at the moment, so I can't see if the FP, parts of my PS, or the tree page work, or if I have to enlarge to see anything.)

I was born too early to grow up being expected to know computer coding. It was a more innocent time, when Howdy Doody and Lucille Ball ruled the airwaves, and Sid Caesar could get laughs by making up ersatz foreign languages on the spot.

My brother-in-law remembers helping with the university computers in the late 1960s. The punch cards for the final exams had to be in exactly the right order, or the system would fail.

Nowadays he has an Apple computer, which he uses for trading stocks and electronically calculating his tax returns.