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

Is there any way to retrieve entries from before the bbc cut-over? I wrote an article years ago about Bat and Trap but I kind of went awol during the switch and the article didn't come over.

I can probably write it again, but it had 3 or 4 nice pictures created by the artworkers at the time. I think I've found one of the images still on the site if that helps locate the article.



My account was also probably called PointyTwist at the time.

All articles written before the BBC took over are still available, unless the author deleted them.

It sounds like it was Edited, if it had artwork created for it, but I've had a good search through and I can't find it, nor an account of that name, sorry.

I'll have another look, but if you can remember any other details, that might help.

Typical! Google knows more about h2g2 than h2g2 does!

U115394 is that you? If so there is only one entry under that account.

That's the cookie! (*Has it really been 8 years? Blimey.*)

Is there any way to recover / reset the password for that account? I'm on a different email address now though.

I definitely had a "bat and trap" article on that account which was 'approved' by someone. I rememeber the graphic for the "trap" had the spot missing off the front of it.

It would be a terrible shame if it's lost to the mists of time as it was my finest entry (by virtue of the fact it was my *only* entry).

Wasn't there some sort of re-approval process for all edited articles before they would be published on the bbc version of the site? I seem to remember that authors had to resubmit their articles or something.

If that's the case I probably didn't resubmit the Bat and Trap article, and I would probably also deleted the pre-submission version from my personal profile when it got approved. It might be sitting on a backup tape somewhere although that's probably a lot more work than simply writing it up again.

I'm dredging up memories from 6-8 years ago so I might be wrong.

Traveller in Time on top
"The dna servers and the password administration have had several major overhauls in these eight years.

Short: no it is not possible to reuse the old account. You can send an email to the Editors and ask for the article and conversations to be transferred. However as it is not Edited you can copy and paste the entry yourself, clicking on 'inform me' on the conversations make them show up on your current account as well. "

Traveller in Time with some experience on entries
"Deleted Entries are just not visible for normal Researchers. Only the creator and the Editors can see and read them.

You can ask the Editors to restore the entry (if this is the case). "

When entries are "deleted", they are not removed from the disk. They are just made invisible, so only the author and the editors can see them. So there's no need to go to backup tapes.

As Traveller said, a polite note to the Editors might be all that is needed.

Hello Pointy,

We've transferred the Wimbledon Entry (the only one on your old account) to your new account. If you'd like us to post a link on your old account directing people to the new one then please let us know.

We'd really have to find an Entry before we 'unhid' it though!

There was no 'reapproval' of Edited Guide Entries after the BBC took over, the vast majority weren't even hidden. I can't think of any reason for it to have vanished completely.

If it was later found to break the House Rules in some way it's possible it was hidden, so it wouldn't show up on any searches, but still there would be evidence of the actual entry itself.

Do you remember if it was an entry that only you contributed to? Sometimes the Eds would put together an entry from a lot of different contributors.

I did pretty much all of the actual content. The Editor who approved the article did a few things like wordsmithing, adding some links to other entries and general cleanup for house style, as well as getting some images made.

In fact, I found some of the other images they made as well by incrementing the BLOB id on the other picture I found. Would it be possible to see what entries are currently using these pictures?

There's a load more information on my new "My Space" page if that helps track this mystery article down. If all else fails I can simply write it again, but I'd obviously rather find the one I already did all those years ago .

There are only two undeleted pages using that bat and trap picture. One is the picture library page, and the other is the personal space of a researcher.

It sounds like it was definitely an Edited Entry (used to be called 'Approved') and under normal circumstances the only way it could completely vanish would be if it was later found to break the house rules, was hidden, and then the Eds deleted the entry.

It doesn't explain what happened to your copy of the entry - but as you can't get into the old account we can't even see if it was deleted. I've tried every method I know to try to find it, but it looks like a lost cause, sorry.

I don't think there is any way to find it from the pictures.

No worries. Thanks for trying anyway.

I'm trying a few of my old passwords to see if I can get in on the old account but I only get 3 goes then it locks for half an hour so it's going to take a while.

I'll let you know if I succeed, but it'll probably be quicker for me to just rewrite the entry to be honest...

Thanks again,

M

I've rewritten the article now and put it up for peer review. It's quite a bit different to the one I remember writing, but hopefully that's for the better .

The new article is A35724044.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this for me.

M

The article has now passed through PR, been recommended and accepted, queued for subbing, been subbed A36213761 and now awaiting its day of glory on the Front Pagewell done Pointy 112

Galaxy Babe
<./>SubEditor</.>