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

... and welcome to h2g2.

I'm one of the <./>ACEs</.> (Assistant Community Editors). We are a team of volunteers who try to help new researchers for the guide find their way around. You can click on the link I made with that acronym in order to find out more. To find out more about anyone, click on the link made by their nickname (eg at the top of any conversation postings) to go to their personal space. Lurking is quite acceptable on h2g2.

One thing h2g2 has a lot of, as well as researchers, is these <./>Smileys</.>. You can use them in your personal space and other articles, conversations and journal entries. You just type the shortcut text and they appear as if by magic on preview or posting. For example, if you like a lot of jokes you might need this one: < laugh > without the spaces becomes

You said you were on Leisure District. If you are still using a digibox to access h2g2, you may find the site works better in plain skin. Otherwise the box tends to run out of memory displaying all the graphics. Here is a link to let you select plain skin in your Preferences: <./>/dna/h2g2/plain/UserDetails</.>. Here is a link to get back to your personal space in plain mode if some unhelpful page link forces you into a different skin: <./>/dna/h2g2/plain/U219033</.>. You might want to put that one on your personal space page since you can quickly get back there by clicking on "My Space".

There are some places on h2g2 which are especially for LDers. U201567 "The Friends Of LeisureDistrict" has a lot of links. There are more instructions on A948602 "Plain Skin For Digibox Users". A814303 is a list of LDers to look at or join. You might find some old friends. A913150 "The FoLDers Arms" is a virtual bar where LDers go to socialise when they are online. A909010 is the LDers' quotes section. I couldn't possibly comment but you might want to.

Here are a few more links you might like to try. "I'm New - What Do I Do Now?" is at A868098. A660340 is a list of "Clubs and Societies" on h2g2. See the guide entries too important to be merely a number at <./>NamedEntries</.>.

Above all, have fun and don't panic. If you do find yourself tempted to panic, click the "h2g2 Help" link on the left. It may help.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there are probably other things I should be doing, but I'll be back if you call for help (ie reply to this message or post on my space).

thanks very much for the info,altho realy helpful im still a bit lost but am realy enjoying reading stuff,one thing i would realy like to be able to do is chat with,in a chat room other leisure disrtict users,when i clicked on th "the pub"it said my digi box was out of memory,i have changed the skin...can you help lol am a bit thick when it comes to technology..thanks again for your help fern x

If you've managed to change your skin successfully then you should see the h2g2 logo at the top of your page (mostly white) with some little valentine's hearts today.

If that's all set, it should be safe to try the LD links I gave you before, including the pub. It may be that your digibox is storing up some stuff from pages to run out of memory. In which case it may be necessary to turn it off and back on before trying again.

h2g2 doesn't have chat rooms as such. Researchers aren't online all the time and people just leave messages on other people's spaces for them to read and reply to when they get back. These individual message postings can build up into very long threads - which can also be a problem for digiboxes. Most of the pages run by LD users will warn people to start a new thread when the post number gets to 14.

There are also no private areas on h2g2. Anyone can reply to any thread if they find it. If you want to see some really active discussions have a look at <./>Askh2g2</.> for the threads which keep rising to the top of the list. Note that you won't be able to see all of them if your digibox is still acting up though. Statistics are shown on the <./>Info</.> page. You'll soon see who the busiest and most verbose posters are.

help lol thankx for that info,could you tell me..you said i should put one of the links in my personal space,how do i do that ? x

It's not something you have to do at all - just a suggestion.

The idea is that if someone else's link puts you into the wrong skin (not everyone is careful to create neutral links) then you just find the "My Space" button or link to get back home and from there press on your own special link back to plain without having to go through the Preferences setup again.

The way to make a link in plain text mode (for conversation postings and the current version of your personal space) is to put special delimiter tags around the required address or piece of address. This tells the BBC computer you want the address made into a link. Note that it will do this even if you get the address wrong. So be very careful. The one I created for you before looked like this but without the spaces:

<. />/dna/h2g2/plain/U219033</ .>

I had to put the spaces in to stop the computer from turning it into a link. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to see the special text which goes outside. So if you copy that text (without the extra spaces) into your page when you edit it, you should get the link when you update it.

thanks for that will try it all out when am sober lol xxxx