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

I see that despite me asking the author to remove it, he has left in the insulting anagram which ridicules the BBC, the company which hosts this website and provides us with a place to play as well as the best television channel in the world.



I won't be talking to or reading anything by Jordan again.

Actually, I think I will yikes the Entry.

Actually, Gnomon, you've told me at least once before that you wouldn't ever read or review anything else of mine ever again, though I don't remember why. So forgive me if I'm not much bothered by your renewal of this boycott.

It's an anagram, Gnomon. It was even put under the 'antigram' section, suggesting that the BBC is the opposite of those things. But really, if you don't agree with the inclusion of one anagram (which I think just about anyone else would recognize is just a bit of humor and not an actual statement about the British Broadcasting Corporation) you're going to throw a fit and yikes my entry and claim you'll never speak to me again?

You know, I respect you as a writer and as a huge contributor to h2g2 over the years, but I can't say my respect is so deep that I won't say that I think you're acting silly, maybe even a bit childish. Feel free to not reply though, or simply unsubscribe, I suppose, if you're not talking to me

Insults are insults, even if you couch them in terms of "this is a joke". If they were funny, they might be excusable.

And I just looked at the PR thread, and I can't figure out where you asked me to remove the anagram. Someone else complained about it, and the Editors seemed to joke about it (you can ask them if they were actually upset about it, but I don't figure so because they approved the entry and they had certainly seen the anagram, having mentioned it in the PR thread). So unless you're secretly "Éowyn" or an italic, I can't recall your having asked me to remove it. Maybe I've forgotten a thread somewhere.

It's really not so much that it's couched in joking terms, or that it's funny. There are lots of anagrams which are funnier than the BBC one. It's the fact that it's a rearrangement of letters. Maybe if "British Broadcasting Corporation" were spelled with an 'f' and a few more vowels, a rearrangement would turn up something complimentary. I personally like the BBC very much. I use their news site regularly, I've bought some DVDs of their programs and of course I use h2g2. If there was a known anagram for the BBC which was complimentary as good as the insulting one, I may have used that one. I'm not expressing an opinion here, I'm repeating a rearrangement of letters.

But hell, maybe there is someone who thinks that the BBC consists of "Horrid, patrician, bigot, snob actors". Just because I personally disagree with that opinion, should we refuse to use that anagram? Am I being insulting to the memory of Alexander the Great by using the anagram "Extra-hated general"? And if not, should h2g2 give special treatment to the BBC based on the fact that it hosts us, and that as a rule hootooers like the BBC? I don't think so. In fact, to show that I wasn't being malicious towards the BBC, I did put it in the 'antigrams' section, suggesting that the BBC is the antithesis of "Horrid, patrician, bigot, snob actors". Of course, I do admit that I only justified this based on the fact that I thought it would be funnier that way anyhow.

This is quite a full response to your succinct posts, I realize, so I'll just say - let's not make mountains out of molehills.

It was a while back. Perhaps I intended to complain and noticed someone else had already complained.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Well, it's been referred to the Editors. Are you happy now that you've had an entire Edited entry hidden because you didn't like a single anagram? I hope so.

This is really just bordering on immaturity, on your part, and on the part of the moderators.

"I won't be talking to or reading anything by Jordan again."

Gnomon, seriously, does this not strike you as just a teensy over-reaction?

B

Gnomon, I'm sorry to say I really think you've made a mistake here my friend. The British Broadcasting Corporation anagram is, as Jordan says, in the Antigram table and is clearly stated as meaning the opposite.

IMHO you need to acknowledge that a genuine mistake has been made, and offer an apology to Jordan, which I trust Jordan you will accept.

"Nation shall speak Peace unto Nation"

The entry includes some excellent examples of the various types of anagram.

Although it would be great to list a witty anagram of the BBC, this one, 'Horrid, patrician, bigot, snob actors', is just not good enough to fill the bill (it's not even grammatically correct) - and certainly not good enough to get upset over.

Further, the best that the Anagrammy people have come up with is 'Bring actors in booth a radio script' which is better grammatically, relevant but hardly amusing - though it does have the advantage of forming a complete sentence.

You might try adding 'the' or 'our' to the mix if you're determined to have something on the Beeb, but is it really worth the effort or the aggravation?

It would have been a simple act to remove the offending anagram when it was pointed out that it was offensive. I thought the Eds specifically asked Jordan to remove it, and other people I spoke to privately agreed with me that it was a hideous thing to put in an Entry. I think Jordan's "solution" of moving it into the antigrams sections doesn't soften the blow.

Yes, I am quite happy that this entry should be hidden until the Eds have a chance to look at it. I'll abide by whatever they decide.

I don't agree that it's offensive. My real life name can be anagrammed into insulting things, but that doesn't mean the the anagramming tool I used is trying to insult me. The Eds made this posting - F9775636?thread=5293874&latest=1#p61953527

"Aw! Surely you can think of something a bit more flattering for the Beeb? Mind you, all the BBC anagrams we've seen don't look massively positive! 'Radio prohibits abstract crooning'?"

The tone didn't seem like a genuine request to me. It seemed like more of a jokey tone, actually. Perhaps I misread it, but I didn't consider it to be a genuine request - especially after they approved the entry later on. I would have used 'Radio prohibits abstract crooning' if it made sense, or if it was any better than the one I had in there.

I'm really sorry that you and people you speak to privately have nothing better to talk about than your offense at this 'hideous' thing. A rearrangement of letters. In an article. On a website. For the record, I didn't come up with that anagram and I don't agree with it (as I've said). But the Edited Guide is not a place for you, Gnomon, or any of the people you speak to privately, to enforce your own personal opinions of what is tasteful and what is distasteful, or what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

But then, I don't think it's an issue of taste. While I would disagree that the BBC is a bunch of "Horrid, patrician, bigot, snob actors" (not only because they're not all actors) I don't believe that I am endorsing that view anyway, any more than I am endorsing the idea that Charles Dickens merely 'darkens cliches'. It might be distasteful if I started an entry on the BBC by saying, 'The British Broadcasting Corporation is a bunch of horrid, patrician, bigot, snob actors.' But that's not what happened. It's a rearrangement of letters, Gnomon. Get a grip.

Now, the people who do get to decide what is inappropriately distasteful are the Editors. If they fail this entry or remove the anagram (which I really don't expect to see, but then I didn't expect your yikesing to be taken seriously) I don't think I could continue to write for h2g2. I wouldn't *want* to write for a site with such an immature sense of censorship and a disregard for their own House Rules - which protect researchers as well as the site itself. Personally, I think you've broken one of the House Rules of abusing the complaints system by using it to try to enforce your ridiculous standards of decorum, though I doubt others would see it that way.

Just because you were so grossly offended by a rearrangement of letters (In an article. On a website.) does not mean that the anagram is actually offensive. I personally can't see how a rearrangement of letters could be actually offensive, short of using curse words. It seems to me that it's not offensive, but that you *disagree* with it strongly. Let's not confuse offensiveness with your own disagreeability.

"But the Edited Guide is not a place for you, Gnomon, or any of the people you speak to privately, to enforce your own personal opinions of what is tasteful and what is distasteful, or what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. "

Not that I'm in a position to mediate, but I would refute that sentence strongly. We should all be allowed to enforce our personal opinions (individually or as a group), as long as we don't foist them on others. The manner of doing so might be questionable, but it is no less valid whether it is Gnomon or a first-time newbie. Otherwise a community would never operate.

B

Well of course we can voice our opinions. And it was done so in the PR thread in a way that was fine by me. But as you say, Gnomon foisting those objections (which seems the same as 'enforcing' by my reading, but maybe 'enforce' was not a clear enough word choice) on the EG is what's currently irking me.
Another thing irking me is how he's assuming the moral high ground, as if I've deliberately insulted the BBC - and I've done nothing of the kind.

A Yikes isn't exactly a permanent enforcement. If it was, I doubt we'd have any Guide left at all.

I don't see why there should be any moral high ground in this issue either. Any Researcher has the right to find something offensive. Yes, their method of reacting to it may be questionable, but that's not reason to go on the offensive.

B

B, I've found things you've said about me insulting before (and I'm not being abstract here) but I saw no need to feign outrage and go on a yikesing jihad. There's quite a difference between finding something offensive and yikesing it when there is no apparent violation of the House Rules - especially when the moderating system is so obviously broken that an Edited Entry would be hidden for several days over something so trivial.

So yikesing something somebody finds offensive is now 'going on a yikesing jihad'?

It is the 'only' official means on h2g2 to complain about something. Whether or not it will be upheld is not for us to decide. Apart from which, Gnomon wasn'7 the only one finding this inappropriate, and it would have been easy to replace it with another anagram, as offered by the eds.

"There's quite a difference between finding something offensive and yikesing it when there is no apparent violation of the House Rules"

Well, therein lies the flaw in your argument, because the House Rules specifically prohibit "Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable." Note the word offensive in both quotes.

Iam not endorsing Gnomon's actions, yours, nor the House Rules, but I, and I suspect several others, are in a triage of three pages that we hold very dear to me and the future of this site...


<./>HouseRules</.> U201497U151503

B

Nope, that was a hypothetical there.

The whole idea of replacing an anagram because it is 'offensive' is frankly ridiculous. And no, I wouldn't have used the one offered by the Eds. It doesn't make sense. I'm not that fond of the one Rudest Elf mentioned in post 10 (though that's the first time I'd seen it). Sure it would have been easier to remove or replace this so that I wouldn't have to deal with this little fit. But that would have made the entry weaker. I wouldn't want to weaken an entry - even marginally - just because someone thought that a rearrangement of letters was insulting. Nope, I could never bring myself to do that.

Now, if Gnomon wants to submit an anagram for the BBC which is *better* (read: more amusing, more relevant, more grammatical, I suppose) than the one currently in the entry, I'd love to see it.

The Entry appears to have been reinstated, btw.

B