We stand at the top of a hill, a rag-tag guerrilla army. Not really a group comparable to The A-Team, but if thinking such things helps steel your nerves for battle, then imagine yourself as Face or B.A. Our uniforms are patchwork, many wearing GOO¹ berets, some in GOO boas, GOO jumpsuits, spacemen and fairy-queens, shrews and pillowcases and pirates identifiable only by their GOO badges or GOO eyepatches.

At the bottom of the hill is a bank of fog. We don't know the strength of the enemy within that fog, or even their uniform colors. I like to think they wear grey, just because I like the British way of spelling it. It seems inappropriately colorful when you spell it "gray."

Waiting down in that fogbank are the BBC decision-makers and their mercenaries, the Italics². I would like to avoid fighting with the h2g2 staff, because they really are only following orders, and they won't be able to make the kinds of changes to the House Rules that we want.

Although the Italics are already weary from skirmishes, we have not heard anything from BBC. If the BBC has noticed our actions at all, they haven't commented on it.

But I fear the first true battle will not come from within the unknowable mists of the field in front of us. One musket shot has sounded, coming from our flank. We are under attack from the Loyalists, subjects of h2g2 who don't mind the tyrranical actions of their lords, fighting in defense of the BBC. You can spot them by the fact that they admittedly prefer alabaster. (*shiver*)

The Loyalists pose a growing danger, not that they have the power to enforce worse restrictions, not that they would petition for restrictions to stay in place. The weapon of the Loyalists is to seduce³ Zaphodistas away from The Cause. They'll play upon your sympathies for the poor staffers who shouldn't have to hear our complaints. Never mind the fact that the staff are victims of BBC restrictions as much as we are. They'll play upon your sympathy for The BBC⁴, who somehow have great legal worries if they allow users of their online community to be as unrestricted as all other online communities already are.

Now I love the fact that we got someone worked up enough to actually oppose our group, ironically putting our name inside her nickname so she can write "Mikey (see A527708 for a constructive alternative to the Zaphodistas) the Humming Mouse". However, I think that anyone who has judged our actions so far as being less than constructive has probably failed to look into the discussion and debate we've encouraged, or the fact that, in spite of having more and more people every day signing on in agreement with our current demands, the debate for Revising the list of Demands is actively underway.

I suspect that what makes Mikey mighty miffed is that we have decided to form a group opposed to the BBC restrictions, even though we may not be in complete agreement on which restrictions are unacceptable and which ones we can live with.

So in order to brainstorm possible solutions to our problem, Mikey feels that she can make more constructive progress in a venue not attached to the Zaphodistas. That's fine by me. Any forum for debate anywhere within h2g2 should be fair game for people to discuss ideas for change. If it makes some people feel more comfortable to debate the same topics where they don't feel the shadow of the Zaphodistas hanging over them, then more power to them.

But don't let any Loyalists tell you that you have to remain quiet just because BBC "rescued" h2g2. We have every right to protest changes to a community that expects us to remain members. If your corner malt shop closed down for 47 days and reopened under new management⁵, you might be thankful to the new owners for carrying on your local tradition. When the new management tells you there will be no more spoons or straws or glasses, and asks you to hold out your hands in a bowl formation to receive your malt, then you have good reason to complain. Especially when there are ten malt shops on the same block with equal or superior service, not serving malts into customers' cupped hands.

Here's the first salvo from the Alabaster Loyalists attempting to flank us. It's called the Brainstorming Board, and it seems like it could be another good place for all hitch-hikers to debate what the BBC has wrought. That is, it seems that way until you read, "I'd be interested in people's comments on the solutions, and I'd be even more interested in other people's ideas for solutions, but I am adamantly not interested in hearing over again why the Zaphodistas are demanding their demands." Evidently no input by Zaphodistas is welcome there. However, I thought everyone should know the solutions or compromises that are being suggested elsewhere in h2g2.

Don't Fire Until You See the Alabasters of Their Eyes

Although I don't see any major problems with the three "solutions" that Mikey puts forward on the Brainstorming Board (in fact, number 3 sounds like something I suggested in post #20 of this forum a week ago), I see a fundamental error in the perspective of Mikey's page. She seems worried about how the BBC can be made to feel safe from legal liability. We've discussed the BBC's legal reasoning repeatedly, but that point is moot. The issue should not be what motivates the BBC, whether it's a "draconian conspiracy" or a justified fear of lawsuits. The issue is how h2g2 can compete with other online communities that don't have these restrictions. No amount of sympathy for the Beeb's legal fears will keep people here, when they know they won't be bleeped or censored as heavily at most other websites.

The Powers That BeBeSee should not be afraid of a few dozen of us or a hundred of us boycotting h2g2, or even permanently leaving the whole community. It might send a message, but it would only do minor, short-term damage to the community. They should instead be concerned about the long-term survival of h2g2.

Ten years from now children will be born who will grow up to use online communities like this one. These people will not be deciding to use h2g2 because they like Douglas Adams or the books or the radio series (maybe even the major motion picture, by then). They will decide to use h2g2 because it offers them everything that the other online communities offer, plus a dose of character or atmosphere. That's what keeps me coming back.

Will these people decide to use h2g2 when they see that it does not offer them everything that other online communities offer (namely freedom of speech, freedom of which language to write in, freedom to write words that they already have access to in books or magazines in the stuffiest and most respectable libraries today)?

No. They'll go elsewhere. Online communities that don't restrict these things are a dime a dozen.

Let's pull back our sights a few years and look at people today, 30 March 2001, who have just heard through word-of-mouth about an interesting place called h2g2. People who haven't read the books, nor heard the radio series, who think Douglas Adams is the guy who draws "Dilbert," and couldn't care less about the industry gossip on the forever-upcoming h2g2 movie. These people come to h2g2 today, see that the House Rules are all out of proportion with any other online community, maybe join in a forum or two. But they leave before too long, because they want to share URLs with people in discussions, want to show off their photography or drawings, want to learn some German vocabulary online, but can't do it here. By Tuesday, they're gone.

Now you have a community that may not outlast its current batch of fans. And some of us are devoted, we'll be here as long as we can maintain equipment that will permit us to log on. But at what point will the BBC pull the plug on their dwindling experiment?

It is not we who need to coddle the BBC and brainstorm ways for them to feel safe joining the rest of us in the Twenty-First Century. It is the BBC who must take action if they wish h2g2 to have any hope for long-term survival. They must bring h2g2 up to speed if they expect it to compete with other successful online communities. If they don't lower their restrictions, there is no action that we fans of h2g2 will be able to take, whether Loyalists or Zaphodistas, to keep it breathing more than a few years.

I've been tossing around that lovable cliche that "Information wants to be free." Opponents think that it really means "CHEAPSKATE PEOPLE want information to be free," and that things like copyright laws are too important to really let information be free. There's a much better quote that applies to our specific situation. In her latest column in the h2g2 Post, Fragilis quoted John Gilmore from the Electronic Freedom Federation: "The Internet considers censorship as damage and routes around it." If BBC's restrictions stay in place for long, this quote could go on h2g2's tombstone.

In the long term, BBC's h2g2 will see that it cannot compete with other online communities. It will either adapt by loosening restrictions, or it will wither away.

Shall we beg the BBC to allow us the same treatment we would receive on any other online community, brainstorming ways that we could appease their fears? Or should we show them why they are squeezing the life out of h2g2, why it will not survive, and demand they end these unrealistic restrictions, for our sake and for their own?

update 2 April 2001: uneasy truce with the Loyalists?

I was hoping that by personally ignoring the message fora beneath the Brainstorm Board, maybe cooler heads would prevail, and some other Zaphodista might do a better job at explaining our position to Mikey than I would be able to do. The cooler head that rose to this occasion was Pastey, who not only defended us adequately to the Brainstormers, but also showed how foolish I was to worry about "attacking" them.

Rats in a cage, deprived of food or water, will turn on each other. At least that's how it always works in the cliche. Instead of fighting each other, we should save our strength to bite the nasty scientists who caged us. And if Mikey can knock up⁶ a reasonable petition or "constructive solution," then we should sign it, even if she does admittedly prefer alabaster (*shiver*).

...Oh, and that's another thing. It was wrong of me to denounce people based on the color of their skin. (Get it? "SKIN?!?!!" Somebody please make sure that a moderator with a sense of humor reads this, not an idiot who thinks I'm being racist. Hello? You guys and gals awake still? We know you're there. We've certainly seen your handiwork often enough.) We must unite with our alabaster brothers and sisters in our common cause, because, as one wise Zaphodista remarked:

"moderation is the chains on the opiate of the means of production. or something."

- Uncle Heavy

RELATED ARTICLES, GUIDE ENTRIES AND FORA

How can an online community with this level of restriction on free expression survive? (forum)

Why moderation is censorship (forum)

Images (forum on the restriction of off-site graphics)

The View at h2g2 (21 March 2001 column from h2g2 Post by Fragilis).

A well-balanced look at Moderation and the new House Rules at h2g2, discussing American and UK internet laws.

Demon settles net libel case

BBC News Sci/Tech article on the Godrey vs. Demon net libel case.