...to whom these Presents shall come, send Greeting!

As a refugee from the BBC History boards, I've been missing being able to discuss... well, history! I was instructed by ferval on the Beeb's 'Points of View' MB to "boogle over" to here, so here I have boogled!

Looking forward to it.

Ave AN.

Aside from lots of history discussions I also look forward to seeing you boogle! Is it some sort of fancy dance move?

Hi AN, and welcome aboard!

Islanddawn wrote:

Aside from lots of history discussions I also look forward to seeing you boogle! Is it some sort of fancy dance move?

I dread to think! I await instruction.

Thanks, Nordmann.

Hi AN, glad you made it. I watched 'Pub Dig' there as well but as I'm just about to watch the Romans with Mary Beard, discussion thereof will have to wait.

Anglo-Norman wrote:

As a refugee from the BBC History boards, I've been missing being able to discuss... well, history!  I was instructed by ferval on the Beeb's 'Points of View' MB to "boogle over" to here, so here I have boogled!

All the BBC message boards have now been archived. Although the last message board (Points of View) closed a couple of years ago, most of the boards (including the History board) were still perusable up until last month. When they were operational one could never actually locate them or their content using internet search engines as a rather paranoid BBC hid them. Now, however, even using a link such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/ one is redirected to the BBC home page. This was the link to the last of the History Hub bars (nordmann's Bloated Fun Palace) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbhistory/NF2233809?thread=8286652 and that too is redirected.

One wonders how much internet content, from popular message boards and other defunct websites etc, is liable to be lost to posterity either by accident or by design in this way. It seems that as we move from an age of paper records to an age of electronic data and as search engines and logarithms become ever more sophisticated, somewhat perversely the electronic data itself becomes ever more fragile and transitory.

I suppose it depends whether the data has been saved so as to be searchable on archive.org's "wayback machine".  I never participated in the history discussions on the BBC site but it's a shame if there is one less place for intelligent (I hope) discussion on the internet.

Vizzer wrote:

Anglo-Norman wrote:

As a refugee from the BBC History boards, I've been missing being able to discuss... well, history!  I was instructed by ferval on the Beeb's 'Points of View' MB to "boogle over" to here, so here I have boogled!

All the BBC message boards have now been archived. Although the last message board (Points of View) closed a couple of years ago, most of the boards (including the History board) were still perusable up until last month. When they were operational one could never actually locate them or their content using internet search engines as a rather paranoid BBC hid them. Now, however, even using a link such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/ one is redirected to the BBC home page. This was the link to the last of the History Hub bars (nordmann's Bloated Fun Palace) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbhistory/NF2233809?thread=8286652 and that too is redirected.

One wonders how much internet content, from popular message boards and other defunct websites etc, is liable to be lost to posterity either by accident or by design in this way. It seems that as we move from an age of paper records to an age of electronic data and as search engines and logarithms become ever more sophisticated, somewhat perversely the electronic data itself becomes ever more fragile and transitory.

Vizzer,

yes I checked some two hours ago with the normal address and it redirect indeed to the home page of the BBC (although Lisa just before 2012 had promised to me to keep the board available). I was able in the last years to use messages from me on other fora and I guess on these fora the links will not be available anymore. The last two hours I used to seek on my computer for my threads that I saved and didn't found them. (in the meantime I have cleaned my documents). And then seeking in old discs and finally found one: back up from BBC messageboard. Will see what that gives tomorrow and if I can transfer messages to this board.

"One wonders how much internet content, from popular message boards and other defunct websites etc, is liable to be lost to posterity either by accident or by design in this way. It seems that as we move from an age of paper records to an age of electronic data and as search engines and logarithms become ever more sophisticated, somewhat perversely the electronic data itself becomes ever more fragile and transitory."

Yes you are completely right, one has to save all his work, in my case sometimes from hours and hours, on a disc or a memory stick.

BTW. As it is so quiet on this front for the moment, not seeing Temperance and Islanddawn moving, which is quite some work I know from experience, don't think I will ever leave. Just that I am next week to Holland on journey for nearly a week. And yes where are Ferval and Gilgamesh?

Kind regards from Paul.

LiR - the thing about sites such as archive.org is that they need pages to be captured while still live. Once archived (as the BBC message boards are now) then, of course, it's too late.

Paul - the BBC actually has quite a poor record regarding the storage of former content. And that doesn't just apply to its website but also to its back catalogue of programs. This is compounded by an unnecessarily ham-fisted approach to the concept of copyright. In other words the corporation seems to prefer that radio and television programs are never heard or seen again rather than risk the theoretical possibility that some technical legal infringement might take place. Blanket archiving is, therefore, considered 'safer'.

P.S. I've just noted that I typed 'logarithm' rather than its anagram algorithm. Why the Greek-based word is sometimes confused with the Persian-based word is perhaps a question for another thread.

Vizzer,

I just explored my disk about the BBC. Sadly I have just copied till 2008 and only my own messages...and more sadly the last update in 2008 I have done via "kladblok" and that seems to be a bad method, because I can't them see anymore....but I read some nostalgic matter as a conversation with Caro...   and the German Thomas...and even the friendly Dirk Marinus...

Topic: Talking Point

you are replying to this message:
Message Title: re: To the German Thomas
Message By: Caro 
Message:
Hi Paul,
I am beginning to think you are trying to drive me crazy. And at this rate you'll succeed. I had an atlas with datelines on it but that didn't help much. All these easts and wests are very confusing. I have to turn maps up and around to understand them properly (woman's brain!)
But just last night I was reading a book about a boat that went missing in 1955. It was laster found with no people on board (shades of Marie Celeste) a long way off course. The author says at one point: "The Joyita had apparently made its way unobserved to a point about 600 miles west of its original track from Apia to Fakaofa, crossing the international date line (and so losing one calendar day) in the process."
Every time NZers travel (which they do a lot) they have to lose and gain days. It's all very difficult.
Cheers, Caro.
re: To the German Thomas
Caro,
I feel with you. Not to say that it was any better with me, looking to the international date line, being on the East and on the West of my map:-).
Caro, I fully support the friendly words which my friend Dirk Marinus said to you about your messages on these boards...
Kind Regards,
Paul

[size=13]I have even a message from Tas Khan from 2002, where he changes his nom de plume on the BBC board.

But it is not that worthwhile anymore to do research for nowadays history boards...as it was when the full BBC board was available

Vizzer, I have recently saved some threads from several fora, but it is still in my documents at the computer, would you say if I have understood you well, that when the fora are closed my content is lost too? And thank you for your informing reply.[/size]

Kind regards from Paul.

Messageboards and forums are in IT-architectural terms designed for transient data and not long-term retention. In other words they accommodate an exchange of views and information between people submitting data, but are not designed to be a repository for either. With the introduction of GDPR next month I imagine that any retention will, in fact, be even more restricted than now.

PS: Have a good break in the Dutch Mountains.

nordmann wrote:

...  With the introduction of GDPR next month I imagine that any retention will, in fact, be even more restricted than now.

PS: Have a good break in the Dutch Mountains.

Blimey Nordmann, do you want us to keep repeating the same old research and discussions?

Perhaps even resend old jokes, as I do on another forum like the sad old prat that I am.

My best wishes to you, Paul, into exploring your northern wilderness.

Paul, 

 what part of  Holland are you visiting?



Dirk Marinus

Dirk Marinus wrote:

Paul, 

 what part of  Holland are you visiting?



Dirk Marinus

Den Haag, Dirk. And we were in a "vacation lodge?" near Scheveningen. As usual with the wife city centre, buying new clothes for the stockpile...But beautiful city centre...a bit as Newcastle, when I visited your Yorkshire Newcastle centre...at least the shops ...In Newcastle we had the start or the end of the Hadrianus wall...we saw more than half of the wall...not that exciting but nevertheless, at The Hague we saw in an Imax rotonde (covering the whole size of the vision, a kind of "Circorama"), a fifty minutes film from Nasa with footage from within the international spacecentre in orbit with exciting views on the earth and good comments. For me an event to not forget.

I don't know Dirk if you have still contact nowadays with your Dutch birth country, but something, what I noticed, was in the wide neighbourhoods there were at both sides of the streets on every square meter cars, I suppose because the place of an own garage is too expensif...on first sight I have the impression that it is overhere not in the same degree...or perhaps it is because I am not aware, what  a big city is, as I only have the experience of Ostend, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, although Antwerp is now also not a little village....

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Den Haag, Dirk. ... a bit as Newcastle, when I visited your Yorkshire Newcastle centre...

Newcastle is in Northumberland not Yorkshire ... and there's a certain degree of rivalry/animosity between the two counties, that goes back ... oh, just a mere  thousand years or so ... back at least to the times of the independent kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, the Danelaw, and indeed when Edinburgh - now of course the capital of Scotland - was  Edwin (King of Northumbria)'s Burgh. Meanwhile, "God's Own Country", the "People's Free State of Yorkshire", with its capital in the ancient Roman city of Ebocorum, Jorvik to the Vikings, or nowadays York (which is the only other archbishopric in Britain outside St Augustine's Canterbury), is also, post-brexit, starting to flex its independence muscles.

So you are casually paddling, Paul, in very deep and dangerous waters.

Mind you, my grandmother, born and raised in Newcastle, was even more parochial in her views. She reckoned that anyone from south of the river Tyne (that's the river running through Newcastle) was an "idle, fun-loving southerner", and so not to be trusted. And she included in that hugely sweeping classification - as well as nearly the whole population of England and Wales - all the inhabitants of Gateshead, which is the town on the opposite/southern bank of the river, just the other end of the Tyne bridge.

Meles meles wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Den Haag, Dirk. ... a bit as Newcastle, when I visited your Yorkshire Newcastle centre...

Newcastle is in Northumberland not Yorkshire ... and there's a certain degree of rivalry/animosity between the two counties, that goes back ... oh, just a mere  thousand years or so ... back at least to the times of the independent kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, the Danelaw, and indeed when Edinburgh - now of course the capital of Scotland - was  Edwin (King of Northumbria)'s Burgh. Meanwhile, "God's Own Country", the "People's Free State of Yorkshire", with its capital in the ancient Roman city of Ebocorum, Jorvik to the Vikings, or nowadays York (which is the only other archbishopric in Britain outside St Augustine's Canterbury), is also, post-brexit, starting to flex its independence muscles.

So you are casually paddling, Paul, in very deep and dangerous waters.

Mind you, my grandmother, born and raised in Newcastle, was even more parochial in her views. She reckoned that anyone from south of the river Tyne (that's the river running through Newcastle) was an "idle, fun-loving southerner", and so not to be trusted. And she included in that hugely sweeping classification - as well as nearly the whole population of England and Wales - all the inhabitants of Gateshead, which is the town on the opposite/southern bank of the river, just the other end of the Tyne bridge.

Meles meles,

when I visited Newcastle, it can be that Dirk is from Yorkshire and that he mentioned Newcastle as near to where he lived. As a former Dutchman, not being aware of all those "subtilities" of the "locals". Although when you live there it is always useful to be aware of the local "affinities"
It is everywhere the same: the kinship of "we and the others", the regional feelings, which tend to "nation" feelings and can at the end be very jingoistic...not only nationalism is a demon from the past but also religion can be at the origin of faction forming of we and the others, which can end in nasty discussions to not say more...we have the same overhere with the "nationalistic myth" of "Vlaanderen de Leeuw" (Flanders, the Lion) from 1302, a myth constructed in the last half of the 19th century.

Dirk, what have you to say about Yorkshire and Newcastle?

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul and Melesmeles,

I actually live in Durham City and believe it or not will be in York for a few days this coming Monday till Thursday.

Paul , I don't know if you visited York or even some parts in Yorkshire when you were here in the North East some years ago but Yorkshire is a great country to visit and actually so is York itself.
The city York does go back to Viking times and has a fantastic museum (Jorvik) and many old buildings. The Shambles, as an example, is famous for its overhanging buildings.

But as you have experienced yourself even Newcastle is a great city with some beautiful Georgian buildings.

Btw when you mentioned about the streets and cars parked on both sides of the street remember that the streets and its planning of streets all took place many, many years ago and at that time no one would have given any thought that in the years to come nearly every household would have one or even more cars.
In other words houses were build without garages and Paul I am convinced that that particular problem is world wide , it is even her in the UK.

In many villages ,towns and cities cars are parked on both sides of the streets and causes a lot of inconvenience resulting in disputes with neighbours etc.


Dirk 



I

Dirk,

about that cars parked at both sides I agree it is an international "city problem".
About Newcastle then. It is Durham now I remember and Yorkshire I have seen on the map now lies underneeth it. But in the time I spoke about the Newcastle dialect, as said to me by someone working in a dress shop (and who had done history at university and said that he didn't find work in the branche), as Geordie...Is that then Durham or Yorkshire dialect ?

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul,

 there is a Yorkshire dialect and ...they are very proud of it.
Yes , I believe there always was some reluctance especially towards the South of England to employ people with a Geordie dialect/accent.
There is actually not a Durham dialect as such.

Dirk Marinus wrote:

Paul,

 there is a Yorkshire dialect and ...they are very proud of it.
Yes , I believe there always was some reluctance especially towards the South of England to employ people with a Geordie dialect/accent.
There is actually not a Durham dialect as such.

Thanks Dirk for the immediate reply...yes dialects...as overhere, every ten miles a new nuance of a dialect and even dialect continuums between for instance West-Flemish and East-Flemish...in Deinze a kind of East-Flemish and in Tielt ten kilometers further yet a kind of West-Flemish, with in Waregem and Zulte a kind of mixture of both...the same I have heard in Germany...

Kind regards from Paul.

Best that there are subtitles Triceratops and even with that....

Your friend Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

I have recently saved some threads from several fora, but it is still in my documents at the computer, would you say if I have understood you well, that when the fora are closed my content is lost too?

I wouldn’t hold out much hope of ever seeing that content again Paul. I don’t have much faith in the way that the BBC stores material. Its record on archiving even its own programs is shocking. The Corporation regularly manages to ‘lose’ large chunks of its output. For example over 600 episodes of the long-running series Letter from America (which ran from 1946 to 2004) were lost. They were only recovered when members of the public (who had ‘illegally’ recorded the episodes on cassette tape) came forward to spare the Beeb’s blushes. Similarly thousands (yes thousands) of musical performances from the iconic television series Top of the Pops (which ran from 1964 to 2006) were also lost. And those 2 are just among the most famous (infamous) examples. The fate of much of the rest of the back catalogue of the BBC’s output just doesn’t bear thinking about.
   
The BBC website is no better. Apparently large amounts of the news pages from the 1990s and 2000s have simply gone missing. The long, slow demise of the BBC website is a sorry tale indeed. For example on the Secret Side of Wars thread I linked to an excerpt from Radio 4’s Today program regarding the 75th anniversary of D-Day. That program was broadcast on 31 May, and as the whole Today program is 3 hours long, the 30-minute excerpt was very helpful. Quite incredibly, however, that excerpt was only made available until 7 June – i.e. only one day after the anniversary. Yet it can still be listened to on the recording of the whole Today program for 31 May which is still available. So copyright (or whatever) can not be the reason for the excerpt being deleted. Consequently the link I initially gave on the Secret Side of Wars thread broke and so I’ve have to fix it. I don’t think that there is a word in the English language to describe such illogicality but on the other side of the British Channel I think that the French might use the word ‘dingue’.

Thank you very much for your reply Vizzer and yes as nordmann warned me, I have since put all my discussions on the several fora on my computer storage and now when working next to explorer with google chrome, put it on an outside store of 500 gigabites, as it are only words, but a lot of words... but with their little storing need I have still some capacity for the future . But now I have to be cautious that I don't lose "that" store...

Vizzer, I reread the whole thread and it is as if I sat at the "toog", the "comptoir", they translate it in my dictionary: at "the bar" (have you a bar in a bar?)
And among old acquintances of the BBC history board...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.