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

*farts*

You're a fart rev.

...>> just put all your usual details in and then you'll already be on the new system when it does eventually bleed over to us.

I know it's a bit scary for people, but it's not complicated and you dont *have* to do anything right now, and when you do, it'll tell you!...<<<

thank you br Robyn Hoode

Oi RJR, watch your language "Ok hows about the work "winkers""

That's w**k, if you don't mind!

okay... looks like the project managers are addressing our concerns... and thank you!!

i have another question:
somewhere in this thread, in the digibox thread or in the comment thread on that link from the first posting on this thread i read a remark from the project managers that referred to out-of-use accounts that clog up the system that... once this new system is in place... can be eliminated... ??!! did i read that right??!!

because if i did... who decides which accounts are to go and by what criteria?

i mean... Douglas Adam's account is pretty much kinda out of use...
and many more that as far as i am concerned... whether they have passed away or just moved on... have left some fun and amazing stuff on here...
and have actually MADE this place...

i mean... are you guys going to delete The Ancestors?

and there are lots of out-of-use accounts that dont APPEAR to be all that earth shaking but who is to say they are not important?

i certainly wouldnt presume

There are lots of accounts that have no entries and no conversations. I'd say at least half the accounts are of that sort.

I would say there must be tens of thousands of unused accounts- when I first joined hootoo, I wanted to find someone and looked in the search engine for a 'Friend' Its an eye opener to see all those abandoned names.

if you type any name in there you will get literally hundreds of results. Just now I typed 'cat' and gave up after 20+ pages. Most of these are completely unused. I am sure if there was a move to delete these unwanted or forgotten accounts, they would not be including anyone who had been a member, had friends here, had written stuff for the guide the underguide, or been part of the community by taking part in conversations.

*parp* & *wheeeep*

???

It's been done before, deleting used but inactive accounts that is.

Just look at nighthoover's Uspace: U183456

He left it with a nickname for one thing, and he had posted here twice. And he's ing holy for Zarq's sake! And now all that's left are his two posts but absolutely no way to find them if you didn't know where they were.

What will happen with accounts like LeKZ? I don't care what people think of her (them), hir posts were a fascinating read. Even if the posts remain, as does nighthoover's, without that userspace they'd be impossible to track down.

If we're just talking about deleting truly unused accounts, then fine, but I don't think that's it because they don't take up much space anyway.
And besides, memory space is ever-increasingly-astoundingly cheap!

I can't believe that a user who sets himself up and then never comes back uses much space. I'd guess that you could store a million such users on a disk that costs 100 euros.

Just popping in to say that I done did it (updated that is) - it was easy and painless ..... so far ..... now to wait for what happens when we change over

Done, no probs.

I'd guess it's not so much space issues as database optimisation issues.

We can store several thousand users without difficulty. The tricky bit is in pulling out one user's details from that list. The longer the list is, the longer it takes to find any one member of it. As the database grows, everything gets slower.

But I'd be sorry to lose anything.

TRiG.

Probs for me.

It won't accept Effers as my name...looks like I'll have to change identity in the new year then for fear of offending the new regime.

Effers, you should still be able to use your name on h2g2. It's only on the registration that the name is static. I have a different login name (not kea).

Weird it wouldn't accept Effers though. Is that the profanity filter?

Yes I think its to do with the profanity thing. I really can't be bothered doing any more with it until the time comes when we have to change. The BBC is getting so ridiculously pc that it doesn't surprise me.

Actually rather than pc I should say puritan and prudish.

But like I say I'll just wait until the new year and deal with it then. I really don't have the patience to deal with the lack of humour of a filter mechanism.

So does 'effers' have a specifically rude meaning in the UK? Here it doesn't have any meaning really.

effers could be construde as Fkers

as Fk off was "polite-ed" into eff off in the 70s