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

Hmmn I'm a student who doesn't own his own computer and so I'm wondering how I'm going to use the various machines that are dotted around the campus to come back to my part of this admittidly fantastic site. Would a log in passworded thing be possible and you could have an option so that it could remember all that stuff if you were only ever using one computer. This is basically me wining about being able to easily use your website since I REALLY WANT TOO! I'm sure I'm not the only person that this applies to as well. Also a log out thing would be useful so that I don't have hundreds of students putting stuff up in my name!

Passwords are not only possible - the database stores them already. In fact, on our development site, I've already written a login page which lets you type in your researcher number and a password.

But it'll take a little while to put in all the logic to handle this - where to set the password, a logout page, extra security so that if you forget to logout and don't use the site for a few hours it will require you to log back in...

All these are scheduled, but it's just a matter of time. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, if you know how to do it you can delete the h2g2.com cookie from your browser to remove your identity, and keep a note of the key=xxx URL you were sent and use that to log in - you don't need to request a new key every time.

yeah ...

Or even No! Are we all experiencing long teadious waits while the h2g2 site down loads. It is without doubt the slowest I've found and what could be a great site is made frustratingly slow somewhere. I am tempted not to log on again and the fact that so many questions have not had replies for months/years makes me think this site will get abandoned if its not speeded up somehow.

Most other sites are up and running in a few seconds and if it takes 20 seconds I begin to get figity. h2g2 takes at least a minute and today took nearly two before any readable text appeared.

Am I the only one with this problem? I'll log on again next year to see if there have been any replies!!

Yes we're all suffering download problems, but that is down to the sheer traffic coming to the site. Not only can there be upwards of 100 people registered as being online at once but most of these will be making forum postings, writing guide entries and reading pages.

A lot of the regulars use several windows open at once, allowing them to respond in one window while others download but this is likely to slow down the severs even more. And remember the entire site is being updated constantly, the majority of the other pages on the web get updated a couple of times a year if they're lucky or a couple of times a day at most for some of the major portals. That frequency of update can't help the download speed.

As for responses taking months or years (unlikely as the site has only been active for 13 months), that is less down to speed problems as problems with people losing interest in threads, having them answered elsewhere or having left the site(usually for reasons other than speed of access).

Most questions to the feedback pages and those directed at the staff get dealt with in a matter of days. The above post shows a year because someone resurrected a thread from over a year ago. The problem has been dealt with as you would be aware from having to give a password to log onto the site. The reason no comment has been made since is partly to do with the fact that it wouldn't appear necessary and partly down to the fact that we've just had a bank holiday weekend in the UK (where the H2G2 staff are based) so none of them were about to answer these additional postings.

If you want definite replies, try posting to someone's homepage or a community forum, even if it is just to make them aware that you have raised a point in their article. A lot of us have written several articles (I've had seven accepted and a similar amount in the queue, I know of researchers with 75-odd articles in various stages of the approval process) and don't often have the time or inclination to check them every time we log on, particularly when you have a backlog of 25 forums to check since the previous day.

If you really are impressed with the site I would encourage you to do what a lot of the regulars do and use several windows for moving about the site, doing a few things at once, even have something not h2g2 related up so if it takes an especially long time you can still be productive.

After being here for 32 weeks you can tell I like this site so I forgive the slow download times because I think that they are worth it for what I get out of the site, a small price to pay IMHO.

Many thanks for your reply. I will take up your suggestion for using several windows but I also notice that the powers that be are updating the servers on June 7th so maybe there will be some improvement there as well.

Thanks

Again? They only changed them a couple of months ago.

I wonder if they'll transfer the data by bike again?

I survived the upgrade without the time travel experienced by some visitors. There is some improvement and the navigation is now tolerable but that banner advert across the top for eyestorm seems to be the thorn in the side. Every time eye, sorry "I", move from page to page, forum to forum etc. the first thing to appear is the white search box followed by bits of the banner until it is complete, then all the text flashes on screen, eager to be of help. If the ad at the top of every page why should I have to wait while it appears to reload every time I move? At least the site is not filled with unwanted ads etc but why such a link with a photographic gallery? I've clicked on the link, seen it once, I'm not interested in their goods and left. Yet it remains only to slow up every move. Once the advert is in place with its irritating erratic animation, it just sits there as a distraction. At least with a thorn you can get the tweezers to it and get rid of it. I've not tried the new skin yet but I bet the advert is still there waiting to haunt me!