A Conversation for The Politics of Internet Discussion

h2g2

Post 1

Researcher 177704

so what is H2G2?


h2g2

Post 2

Martin Harper

What do you think it is? smiley - smiley


h2g2

Post 3

Researcher 177704

it's a thing. smiley - smiley


h2g2

Post 4

Tashalls, Muse of Flights of Fancy (Losing Weight at A858170)

I'd say it was a dictatorship.

However, I would say it was a benign one (or at least I have not felt considerably oppressed yet, despite my gripes about moderators!)

smiley - smiley


h2g2

Post 5

Jim Lynn

h2g2 *should* have been a theocracy, but Douglas didn't like that idea. smiley - smiley

I still wish we had left in the 'Smite' button.

http://www.h2g2.com/h2g2/skins/Classic/images/f_smite.gif

smiley - winkeye


h2g2

Post 6

Martin Harper

what did it do? smiley - bigeyes


h2g2

Post 7

Jim Lynn

It would add people to a 'bozo list' and you'd never see any of their posts in conversations again. When we had to start caching, we couldn't then implement that feature (which required a custom SQL database call for each view on the forum).

It was basically a simple 'killfile' feature. We didn't put it in initially because we ran out of time to sort out UI for it, and the forum displays were already quite complicated. But before Ripley 1.0 it was actually possible (if you know the right URL) to add someone to your 'bozo list'. But since nobody but me knew this feature existed it was never used. Well, it was actually used once, but I can't tell you how, or by whom, or against whom. smiley - smiley


h2g2

Post 8

Tashalls, Muse of Flights of Fancy (Losing Weight at A858170)

smiley - biggrin

it sounds so cool! would do away with the need for moderators for ever (yay!) as if anyone got offended by anything, they could smite anyone...

...hmmm, now i start to realise why they did away with it!

...but it would have been cool!

smiley - smiley


h2g2

Post 9

Martin Harper

Let us know when you've written a java applet or similar so that all the 'smite' filtering can be done on the client side... smiley - smiley


h2g2

Post 10

TRiG (Ireland) A dog, so bade in office

Could be done fairly easily with javascript these days.

TRiG.smiley - geek


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