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

I do not understand how the BBC can be held responsible or suffer any ill consequences resulting form anything posted on their site.
If this were the case, why is it not that MSN and other such places are being taken off-line for allowing sites in which criminal acts can be discussed and arranged?

my guess is that its at least in part to do with the fact that the BBC is govt. owned. It may be the govt's own BBC legislation that places more restrictions on BBCi than is on other non-govt sites.

Kea-a very Neugen here it`s 5:38am been up all nite-again! would you mind exchanging e-mail addresses?Then I could include you in my erratic bouts of card sending& now,collage sending.j`z`c/amy_1/ /abbi/jellen have mine... Neug

hi Neugen

i don't have a webmail address or public email.

for me, its best to make posts like this on the eyes thread, or on my personal space. haven't seen you for a while - will catch up soon no doubt

One of the BBC's obligations as the organisation that it is is to ensure that all opinions are given equal exposure. Keeping all the war discussion to one Messageboard is the easiest way to ensure this and so they've had no choice. It's the same as the General Election rules...

Whoami?

The debate on the msg board will soon (if it hasn't already) degrade into anarchy, the system is not designed for such large debates. DNA on the other hand would work brilliantly for such a disscussion.

Tango

"One of the BBC's obligations as the organisation that it is is to ensure that all opinions are given equal exposure. Keeping all the war discussion to one Messageboard is the easiest way to ensure this and so they've had no choice."

That goal seems fundamentally incompatible with a world-wide public message board. Whatever their reasons for doing, it effectively means that this website does not function half the time for anyone who wants to discuss the war.

We can talk about what should happen and how we should act about something like this, but in general the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it. After all the debate over this policy has died down, h2g2 researchers will find other places where they can talk as openly as before. I won't leave because there are enough other fun things to do. A few people will try to make a statement by leaving vocally. But the real concern is average users who may run into these roadblocks where their conversations are hidden or moved or shuffled over to the Great Debate, or people who get into good conversations on the Great Debate thread which is shut off each day when the moderators go home. These people will email or IM each other and propose to continue their conversations by email or other websites, and some of them will get so distracted they won't bother coming back to h2g2.

I'm not predicting that the sky is falling and the site will collapse. But this will be another small and reasonable exodus of users away from the site, as people find that the levels of moderation here prevent the site from functioning as it should.

"One of the BBC's obligations as the organisation that it is is to ensure that all opinions are given equal exposure. Keeping all the war discussion to
one Messageboard is the easiest way to ensure this and so they've had no choice.":
This doesn't however, I pressume* apply to BBC's coverage of events on the radio.
After listening to teh radio all day, as I normally do, the coverege isn't balanced, or covering both sides.
So we are just a special case, like it or lump it.
Cheers.

Other websites don't generally get done for having inappropriate content - but it HAS happened, and the whole moderation thing indicates that BBCi take that possibility extremely seriously. One site of which I was a member some time ago was at one time visited by a new member, who complained very loudly that they'd found their younger sibling, who was about fourteen or so, in our chatroom when 'unsuitable' topics were being discussed. This was very surprising to us, as we didn't think we were being particularly explicit or anything like that, and also because we never, ever pretended to be a site suitable for children. However, apparently nobody is capable of taking responsibility for anything anymore, so we were at fault for not strip-searching everyone who came into the chatroom just in case. Now imagine if someone with some legal clout encountered a similar situation with content hosted by the BBC...

Otto, I agree with your every word and am behind the Italics on this one. It's not their decision, but it is one which while I may not entirely like I can understand and accept.

If you want to complain about it, that's fine. If you want to leave, that's also fine. It will not, however, accomplish anything, except perhaps by demonstrating the fiasco which can result from this kind of decision, and perhaps there might be some glimmer of hope that the BBCi people will make better arrangements 'next time' - for even if there is never another war, there will be another general election. A large part of the problem with people who have tried to go to the Great Debate boards is technical in nature - hopefully this situation will at least convince them that the technology needs improving.

I know I'm finding silver linings in what to some people are clouds of choking black smoke, and I know it's horribly undemocratic of me to say this, but this is here. It's not going away until the conflict is over.

So we can't criticise American imperialism because someone could possibly get hurt?

This post has been removed.

I guess we could all run off to unmoderated newsgroups (although it takes hours to post and web interfaces like Google Groups limit the postings one IP address can do in any few hours).

I think they should get BBC News' talking points and messageboards to be merged into a decent DNA site. That way, it could handle the load and we'd all be happy!

Yup, definitely

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2268778.stm

This is something that the BBC have been looking into.

"A new interactive service, I-Can, using the internet and interactive digital TV will be launched to encourage direct participation in politics. "

Hmm... I await with interest

Shame about losing On The Record though. It is my favourite political show on TV, John Humphrys is a devastatingly good interviewer. Which probably accounts for Tony Blair only ever appearing on the much tamer Frost on Sunday.

Are you suggesting that they might consider DNA for that? Or are we to look forward to more clunky old messageboards?

Whoami?

I more than suspect that if Jim has anything to do with it, DNA will be considered.

As I said, it's something that they are looking into.

That's great - Jim said something about 'internal politics' last time I mentioned it to him...