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

I just found that one can access my USpace via any Sense of Place (SoP) site. Uh, fine...
While fiddling about for a bit I found that the SoP House Rules don't say anything about spitting. Now, am I allowed to spit there?

On a serious note: There are differences in the House Rules for different DNA sites (I noticed the foreign language URLs not being mentioned on SoP). What happens when I do something on h2g2 that is against the SoP rules, and someone from SoP complains? Or vice versa.

Also, I'm threatened with an 'immediate termination' if I come up with a bit of personal abuse of a SoP staff member. Those people like U185157 don't show up on h2g2 as SoP-Italics... I mean, hey, I have a heated discussion on h2g2 and sunddenly am faced with a count of flaming a SoP-Italic


Tube

Check out the spittle at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/F63189?thread=192716&post=2155398#p2155398 [Jeez! The smilies look *ugly* in that SoP skin! ]

Hmm, do you have a link to these SoP House Rules?

your link doesn't work...

That link works for me

House Rules: see bottom of page http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/ or http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/HouseRules directly.

Interesting.
One danger of these seperate House Rules is that they get out of step. For example, the h2g2 House Rules make clear that links to non-English sites are unsuitable, but the SoP-London House Rules don't have that ruling.
Another issue is that I never agreed to any of these House Rules except the h2g2 ones. I agreed to the BBC T&Cs, and the h2g2 House Rules, and that's all.

Ahh well, I've not really used any of the other DNA sites yet, so I won't worry about it

Exactly!

"Ahh well, I've not really used any of the other DNA sites yet, so I won't worry about it"

Sure about that? Why do you have a SoP home space then?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/u129960
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-nireland/u129960

Are you sure that everything you wrote conforms to all these sites? Seems to me that you offer your page on SoP as well.
I'm sure you get the idea...

Not to mention http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/360/u129960


Good questions Tube

Waz (bookmarking)

To quote
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/360/360/HouseRules
(the page Lucinda's 360-page links to for the 360 House Rules)

Page Not Found


We're sorry, but the page you have requested does not exist. This could be because the URL1 is wrong, or because the page you are looking for has been removed from the Site.

We apologise for this interruption in your surfing, and hope the tide comes back in soon.

1 That's the address of the web page that we can't find - it should begin with http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/360/360/



Great!
No House Rules!

Tube

Only 18 minutes being profane, insulting and sexually explicit???

It's just not so much fun when it's not against the rules hey?

I was just taking a break. It's difficult to be all that after such a long time under the whip of the h2g2 House Rules that no rules at all take some getting used to.

Italic appears!

OK, some things to note, in a random order:

* In theory, DNA sites are clumped together in the database as belonging to specific sets of rules, and it's only when you try to contribute to a DNA site that has different rules to the ones you've agreed to on first registering that you're asked to agree to them again. Sense of Place should have the same rules as h2g2 (though they dropped the 'No spitting' rule, as they didn't feel the joke was appropriate), but the only reason they're slightly different is because I made tweaks to the h2g2 rules, and forgot the SoP ones. Mea culpa, and I'm off to fix that right now.

* I don't know what's happened to 360's rules - they certainly used to be there! I'll investigate and try to resurrect them; they're identical to h2g2's rules, bar the name of the site.

* It might be easier to have one central set of rules, re-formulated to read 'all DNA sites' instead of 'h2g2' etc. The current system isn't perfect, but until we have a central DNA site (which we're going to add for information about the central project itself) there's nowhere to store it; if we published the rules on h2g2 then this would look odd to SoP users, and vice versa, so for now we have local copies of the rules on each site. This isn't perfect, though, as the wording specifies 'h2g2' etc, rather than 'all DNA sites with these rules' - something we need to change, obviously!

* You mentioned that you automatically have a Personal Space on other DNA sites whether you join up or not, but this isn't strictly true internally. When you create your Space and Journal, these are attached to the site in which you created them, so they are bound by the moderation rules of that site. The fact that they are visible in other DNA skins doesn't matter, as any moderation will be done in the skin of the site you signed up with (h2g2 in your cases). OK, it might get confusing if someone complains about a section of your Space that only applies to one site, but we'd look at each moderation issue individually, as always.

* If sites do have different rules from other sites, then those sites can choose whether to display Personal Spaces from outside their site, or whether they allow links to other DNA sites. Therefore, if someone sets up a children's DNA site, for example, then users will never be exposed to content from other DNA sites, if that what's wanted. Currently all sites have the same rules, so it's not an issue, but there is protection for sites with different rules (and therefore protection for users from accusations of publishing adult content on a children's DNA site).

* If you have a heated discussion with someone who is not in italics on h2g2, but they happen to be an italic on another site, then it's very unlikely we'd consider you to have been arguing with a staff member. More likely we'd be asking the BBC employee some tough questions about why they were having an argument with a punter on a DNA site that was outside their remit... but I think it would be unfair to assume you knew you were talking to an employee, unless that was the subject of the Conversation, of course.

Hi Max, I'm registered with 360 too. If I were to logon from 360 would that put me under a different set of moderation rules when posting here? And, to get to the real point ( ) , could I then be as rude as I feel like being to someone headed for Africa when I'm not?

Tube, I hope you didn't get too used to it.

I nearly clicked that road hazard sign in SoP, just to see what it was. Realised in time that it was the yikes button and didn't yikes your last post .

The rule is really simple: if you post to a site, then you must obey the rules for that site. Currently we do not have any DNA sites with different rules (I've now updated the rules on 360 and SoP to be identical to h2g2's rules, bar the 'No spitting' rule on SoP), but if we *did* have sites with different rules, then before you could contribute to those sites, you'd have to agree to their own rules, and your contributions to those sites would be governed by those rules.

So no, using 360 doesn't in any way change your obligations to obey the rules on h2g2, or indeed 360, seeing as the rules are identical. Does that make sense?

OOOOHHH! An Italic!
Errr, Hi Mark!

Ah, you're asked to sign up again. Now, that's good! And the rules are to be the same in the relevant parts... that's even better!



Would it not be sufficient to link all DNA sites to one A###### containing THE Rules (with an extra link for h2g2 banning the spitting)? At least for the time being to save all the bother with having to change a whole bunch of rule pages?

for Space and Journal attached to the site in which one created them.

and thanks for the thorough info!

It would be sufficient, and would mean I wouldn't have to worry about synchronising the rules all the time, but then people who have (say) come to 360 or SoP and want to check the rules would suddenly be flung into a totally different site design, that of the site containing the one, single copy of the House Rules.

However, this is what we'd like to do, so instead we're probably going to wait until we have created a DNA DNA site (!), which describes the DNA project and can contain generic files like GuideML documentation and House Rules. This would also enable us to add a 'Powered by DNA' graphic to every single DNA-generated page, so we can start giving DNA a higher profile. And that would be cool!

Yeah, spam, cool!

uh, I just added http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-nireland/A777486 , and I wasn't asked to sign the N. Ireland House Rules. And AFAIK, that's the first thing I've added to SoP - N. Ireland. (It's not a terribly exciting entry... )

Hi Max/Mark, I do understand and while the rules are all identical, as they'll stay with a central DNA page, there isn't an issue. I rarely want to be rude to anyone anyway .

It would be double if the DNA page could be worded to allow the no spitting rule to be kept! It would be appropriate to a DNA page wouldn't it?

This is slightly off topic, but related, so I'll ask. Are the entry guidelines for h2g2 and 360 the same? It seemed to me that first person and opinion pieces might be more appropriate in 360 than in h2g2 so I was curious.

SoP is confusing, some places allow entries to be added, with all the usual copyright stuff, some seem to allow for comment on existing entries only. (A777486 is going to be such a disappointment to the SoP - NI editors when they find it ).

Lucinda, Northern Ireland has the same rules as h2g2, so as I said above, you wouldn't be asked to sign them.

"Yeah, spam, cool!"

Good job you're not running the project, then Lucinda. Absolutely no idea, have you?