"Notification of BBC H2G2 move" email - any clue, anyone?

[french frank]

My problem is that if I cancel I don't know what I will be cancelling. Is it important? if I cancel do I have to re-register with something or other? If I don't cancel, what happens? I'm baffled, along with many others, it seems.

Logically, if you don't use the h2g2 facility, it shouldn't matter. All they mentioned was passing on your email address to the outside company which is taking over h2g2. That doesn't mean they'll delete all your details from the BBC database. I expect to be able to post to the R3 blog without re-registering .....

[Mary Chambers]

I've cancelled. Hoping for the best

[Mary Chambers]

Well, I don't know whether it's connected, but I had to sign in this morning, and I haven't had to do that for ages. I kept getting the password wrong - right on the fifth attempt, luckily.

[french frank]

Well, I don't know whether it's connected, but I had to sign in this morning, and I haven't had to do that for ages. I kept getting the password wrong - right on the fifth attempt, luckily.

Sign it to what? I had to sign in to the blog yesterday too (was just testing).

[Mary Chambers]

Sign it to what? I had to sign in to the blog yesterday too (was just testing).

This site! And almost every other site I visit regularly. Youtube was very temperamental about it, but I think I've sorted things out now.

[Petrushka]

I had this e-mail as well and junked it pdq along with the other illegitimate garbage from Paypal, Lloyds Bank TSB (sic), Abbey National (also sic) and so on.

[french frank]

This site! And almost every other site I visit regularly. Youtube was very temperamental about it, but I think I've sorted things out now.

Well, there's no connection between this site and your h2h2 membership. Did you purge your cookies? I realise now that's what I did, and that's why I had to sign it to the blog.

[agingjb]

I'm surprised that the BBC has taken this long to stop supporting h2g2. Most of their forums, as we know, went ages ago. I'd dropped out of h2g2 some time back. The email was probably genuine enough, but unnecessary. Although what should the protocol be when a forum changes ownership?

[Mary Chambers]

Well, there's no connection between this site and your h2h2 membership. Did you purge your cookies? I realise now that's what I did, and that's why I had to sign it to the blog.

I don't think I purged my cookies. (How bizarre computer-speak is!) The problem was probably caused by something else entirely. It has happened before, though very rarely. Suddenly no-one seems to know who I am - most unnerving!

[salymap]

Small consolation Mary but I had that with the old BBC boards. Every time I typed my pass-word they wouldn't accept it and I had no end of bother to convince them that I was me.

[Flosshilde]

JUst back from a week away & I too have had the email, & have no idea what H2D2 is or was. It says "Our analysis tells us that less than ten percent of those contacted have so far opened the email, perhaps because they do not trust that it came from the BBC. " I wonder why? & this - "This suggests that many of our users will not be able to make an informed decision and we have therefore decided to modify our approach. Where a user tells us not to, their details will not be passed on. " - makes no sense at all. If people haven't ben opening emails, how can they tell "them" not to pass details on?

I do wish people would actually read their emails befoire they send them, or better still, get a non-techy to read it to make sure it's understandable.

(all praise to the forum - when I read the email I thought that someone was bound to have started a thread about it, either clarifying it or reassuring me that I'm not alkone in not undestanding it! - or, preferably, both)

[Pastey]

It was legitimate

Hi All,

I'm sorry this took so long for me to post here, but we've been going around the Internet trying to find all the places where people were discussing that email, usually with the phrases "Is this for real" and "What's h2g2"

The email was legitimate. The BBC sold h2g2 to a company formed with a previous owner, a nice company offering hosting, and a collection of people from the community itself. And now we're free from all the restrictions that the BBC put on the site.

h2g2, short for the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, from those times when acronyms were considered cool, if ever a time existed, was originally to be a Earth based version of the Guide from the books. An on-line reference site, and this was 2 years before Wikipedia started.

When the dot com bubble burst, the company that owned it originally had to sell it, and the BBC bought it. I believe that they were mostly interested in the community aspect of it. The underlying code, and the staff that came with it, was exactly what they were looking for to power the new BBC message boards they were trying to bring in. The code was then re-written to power all the BBC message boards, and it still does.

During the recent round of cuts though, the BBC finally decided that h2g2 didn't fit into its brand image and decided to sell.

What they sold was the content of the database within h2g2 itself, and the software to power it. It did not sell any user details whatsoever. However, because we were creating a new user account/login system, we needed some way of tying together all the old accounts with the users who wanted to transfer and continue using h2g2. What we got were encrypted email addresses associated with the user accounts. Unless you come over to h2g2 and go through the transfer process, these email addresses will not be able to be unencrypted and therefore are safe.

Because the site had been moved onto the BBC single sign on, and then the BBCiD it meant that it shared the user accounts with other message boards. When h2g2 was split off, a check was done against the main site for all users who had visited h2g2 at any point. Even through clicking a link to an article while logged in. This did mean that we've had a lot of people asking "What on earth is h2g2?"

I hope that (rather belatedly) answers your questions, and yes, the emails weren't great were they.

Steve Dunkley
Digital Lead - h2g2

[french frank]

Thanks for the explanation, Steve, except the bit: "The code was then re-written to power all the BBC message boards, and it still does." Or doesn't in the case of all the Radio 3 messageboards which the BBC axed a year ago . (hence dna, of course - Douglas Noel Adams).

[Chris Newman]

Talking of dubious happenings I have received two emails in two days from BBC.co.uk (no forward slashes etc) telling me that I have won a million pound on their lottery. I presume this is all part of the cuts..... and treat it with a long barge-pole.