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

Hello novosibirsk,

My colleague Jimster's post referred to the point in the Discussion Rules that states: 'Please don't discuss individual candidates. What we'd like to hear from you is how you are personally affected by the issues themselves.'

I think the point that Jimster's eyebrows raised was at the comment 'Teflon Tony'. That's absolutely as far as we are willing to go in these discussions (and ideally we'd prefer it if people didn't use any pejorative comments like that at all). We would of course be equally defensive should anyone make similar comments about any of the other party leaders.

As I'm sure you understand, the BBC comes under extensive scrutiny at times of a General Election, and it's absolutely essential that all public forums (such as h2g2) remain free from any possible accusations of impropriety.

Having said that, we've been delighted so far with the quality of debate which we've seen here - it's a testament to the responsibility and maturity of our community here at h2g2. Keep it up, everybody!

Paully
h2g2 Assistant Producer

Oh please Novo, do vote Labour again - i particulary dont want to see the Tory's win this time, as i believe the next 5 years will be absolutely terrible especially for the middle classes....and i dont want the Tory's blamed for this! Come the election in 2010, Labour will be devastated beyond all recognition.....paving the way for a fantastic landslide vicTORY!.............(i think i have been very balanced here, so please refrain from removing my opinion).

Recumbrantman, I would disagree with you about spoiled papers. They are counted and the number of spoiled papers is announced. If a high enough proportion of papers were spoiled it would have an effect (You can't belive that if 90% of the papers were spoiled whoever won the remainder wouldn't think anything was wrong) A vote for a party is announced and a high enough proportion of papers with votes for that party has an effect. The actions are equivalent.

No offence, but "Teflon Tony" is a sobriqet in increasingly common use in the UK. I rather suspect that the man himself may even be slightly flattered.

Far better for "Tone" (I quote Jamie Oliver) to have a relatively benign nickname than to be accused of having "something of the night" about him, such as Michael Howard was described by Ann Widdecombe.

AO (met you in June 03! How's it going?) I don't see 90% spoiled votes ever happening; it's not a realistic scenario. But taking it at face value, by the time it did happen the problem would be blindingly obvious and spoiled votes would be the least painful part of the upheaval. In the meantime, you gain little by being counted as, what? A non-participant?

Vote for the loony party. That's what it's for. Or if you don't like it, the other loony party.

Paully I presume we can talk about the senior figures withing the main parties though? Surely the front bench teams and what they have to say are "national" in scope and thus fair game?

Hi Paully

Re my query on Jimster's post, thanks for the comment I'll try to behave myselffrom now on.

Novo


PS It wasn't an 'original' remark, I think the title was awarded to an American President?

Hi Ferretbadger,

We'd very much prefer it if you stuck to discussing parties' policies and how they would affect people rather than getting involved in any discussions about individual politicans, which can often start off perfectly civil but which can rapidly descend into something completely else! As we say in the Discussion Rules, "Please don't discuss individual candidates" - and as even Kennedy, Blair and Howard are soon going to be standing as individual candidates in their own constituencies, that applies equally to them as it would to any other backbencher.

Many thanks!



Paully

Hi Charley, found your way here then...

Good to have an 'old combatant' around, and you could be right my boy. I must admit to a tinge of apprehension about what the next chancellor may face. Chickens do have that habit of coming home to roost, even 8 year old chickens are not immune.

Just to keep our Mods happy, there were lots of mutterings from the present Goverment about Tory chickens for which they had to provide homes.........in fact I think they still speak of them!

Novo

Greetings Novosibirsk,

Pleased to see you here. I have some sympathy with what you are saying, certainly with regard to Iraq and moreover with regard to the decimation of my profession which has been carried out during the last government as a more distinctly personal issue. What I don't see anywhere is anyone offering a realistic alternative.

Regards, GG.

Afternoon Jimster

May I pose an hypothetical question here please?

In view of interjections by you and by Paully.... let us suppose for the sake of argument that 80% of the posts you receive are anti-New Labour. No matter how well or cogently argued , how do you Moderators intend to keep 'balance'. Would you remove a number of posts in order to achieve roughly numerical balance in favour of each side?

If my hypothesis proved correct [a BIG if I grant you] would such an action by the Moderators be wrong ,in that it would artificially distort the feeling of posters?

With enormous respect

However the election is in its nature "national", and the issues are led primarily by Blair and Howard (and to a lesser extent Kennedy).

In many ways it will be impossible to talk about the issues in isolation of the politicians.

For example provided no ine is braking the house rules or electioneering would it have been wrong to have discussed PM Qs yesterday? I rarther think analysis and discussion will necessarily at times involve the politicians.

For example on the "Lib Dem wasted vote" thread I have spoken of Kennedys position on not forming a coalition, this is integral to the discussion we are having there. Is this really agasinst the rules?

If as surely it shouldn't be. Whilst I can appreciate how looking at individual candidates in say a given borough should be avoided the leaders of the parties are by nature national election issues in themselves...

Well Jimster,

I am pleased that you are generally content with the level of debate appearing, but do youthink that the BBC is being terribly consistent in its approach when its running stories like 'who has the biggest helicopter' of the party leaders?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4417507.stm

There is no better namecalling than that which begins with my dads bigger than your dad, surely.

Regards, GG.

Oh come on GG....

The italics here are in no way responsible for the entire output of the BBC and should not be judged on this basis.

Their job is to ensure that on hootoo the debate is fair and balanced, and I for one am sooooooo greatfull that I am given the chance to debate things here.

In the past we have not had the opportunity and this is a massive step foward. On that no doubt could be taken away.

One that also no doubt the italics probably had to fight hard to give us.

Give them a break.

Feel free to talk about how it is on hootoo but leave the rest of the beed out of it.

Afternoon SGG

I'm glad we are like minded in some fields, My brother shared your noble profession until the Men in White Coats began to beckon him.

Hope you have noticed that Charley H has had a go too. Not sure how long we are going to last here though. We are all too used to speaking our minds and if we have to be reduced to 'coded' references I reckon I'll go back to POV 's even with all their faults.

Hi Novosibirsk

Nope, we wouldn't go around removing a certain percentage of entries just to 'maintain balance' - our job here is just to ensure that the site isn't hijacked by any particular campaign group. We're certainly not in the market for censoring peoples' opinions - provided that what they are saying falls within the Discussion Guidelines that we've already stated.

However, the idea for providing this space was really to allow our regular users on h2g2 the chance to discuss the Election in their own, familiar environment. We're delighted that new users are taking part in the discussions here, but we really should point out that keeping a close eye on these boards is not the primary job of the three BBC staff members who 'run' h2g2 on a daily basis - we're doing this because our community asked us to provide this service for them. We're delighted that so far all of our users are being (largely) responsible and behaving themselves in the discussion!


Stillgoodgrief -

I'm afraid we've got absolutely no input whatsoever into the workings of the BBC News division - we're part of BBC New Media. So I can't really comment on your points there.


Cheers once again, everyone!

Paully

Anything to say about post 32 Paully?

Hi Ferretbadger

I think that it is *possible* to talk about the leaders when you're discussing how they guide the policy of their respective parties. However, we don't want to have any discussion about leaders *in isolation* from their parties, I'm afraid.

Ideally, it's simply best to avoid talking about individuals in any respect, I'm afraid. We really would prefer it if people could shape their discussions around the issues of the campaign rather than on individual politicians, even if they are the party leaders.

Cheers!

Paully

So my example of talking about a hung parliament in light of Charlie boys stated policy is ok then?

If we've not yikesed it then yeah, it's okay. It'd be better if you could try and stay clear of direct mentions in future if possible though.

Paully