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

Regardless, I'm still waiting for a pointer (and you have the luxury of using a URL) to what the official BBC policy actually is. Since the house rules apparently lie, I'd prefer to get it from the horse's mouth, rather than actually trusting anything that you write.... (any relation to a .com based around the word 'write' is purely coincidental).

I can see the beeb's point. After all, if this is a site they endorse, they'll want to make sure that their users will only see classy BBC-type material.

Quite honestly, however, I think they're being a little paranoid - overthinking the whole issue. I've never encountered a URL on this site that had any objectionable content - doesn't mean they're not out there, just means that I haven't found any. There's a great deal of trust in this community, and we regulate ourselves quite effectively.

What if people are told that if they post offensive URLs (or persist in posting offensive URLs) then their membership will be revoked? This seems to go along with the policy for trolls and other reprehensible creatures - why not apply it to naughty-URL posters?

The only problem I see with this idea is that there'll be a short time period in which an unchecked, possibly naughty URL will be on the site. But the Beeb have already covered their collective behinds with the line that I see at the bottom of the screen: "Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites listed." If we add several more disclaimers denying all responsibility for URLs in forum postings, then I think that should give the BBC some legal padding. I'm no lawyer (obviously) but I think it would work. What do you think?

- Lentilla

I can see the beeb's point. After all, if this is a site they endorse, they'll want to make sure that their users will only see classy BBC-type material.

Quite honestly, however, I think they're being a little paranoid - overthinking the whole issue. I've never encountered a URL on this site that had any objectionable content - doesn't mean they're not out there, just means that I haven't found any. There's a great deal of trust in this community, and we regulate ourselves quite effectively.

What if people are told that if they post offensive URLs (or persist in posting offensive URLs) then their membership will be revoked? This seems to go along with the policy for trolls and other reprehensible creatures - why not apply it to naughty-URL posters?

The only problem I see with this idea is that there'll be a short time period in which an unchecked, possibly naughty URL will be on the site. But the Beeb have already covered their collective behinds with the line that I see at the bottom of the screen: "Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites listed." If we add several more disclaimers denying all responsibility for URLs in forum postings, then I think that should give the BBC some legal padding. I'm no lawyer (obviously) but I think it would work. What do you think?

- Lentilla

On a completely unrelated topic... This is the second time that I've double posted without intending to - this time, it gave me a Netscape message "This document contained no data. Try again later or contact the system administrator." So I posted the message again, and 'bing' it ended up on there twice. Oh, well.

The BBC in its news items constantly refers to companies and commercial names - but this isn't seen as 'advertising' is it? Of course not because it's in the context of news ( Except all publicity is good publicity) so it seems to me if they are going to start removing references in postings on the grounds they MIGHT lead to someone deducing a URL from it and then going there and finding offensive content, this is going a bit far. IS this what is going to happen?
People reckon it 'paranoid' for me to refer to censorship but that is exactly what this URL rule is. Blatant censorship taken to a ludicrous extreme. I reckon one of two things are going to happen:
This rule is going to be breached so often and ingeniously that it will become irrelevant or this fragile thing will die squashed by large and clumsy coporate fear and the BBC will be left with something blue and gooey which gums up its servers a bit and will be looking at the mess saying: Sorry we didn't mean to do that.

Actually, I think neither. It is entirely possible that the BBC will maintain their position and h2g2 will survive. URLs in forum postings are certainly useful, yes, but they're not the be-all and end-all of what we do here. I don't need to speak in URLs to have conversations with people or to write Guide Entries. Yes, I know it will hamper the Peer Review but it won't completely destroy it. Things _have_ changed, but not everything is bad.

What about if I wrote an Entry on advertising and linked to sites which are examples of hard sell advertising to show how a bad commercial site could be, or a site which only plugs its product but does not actually have any use? This would, according to the rules, not be allowed. But I am trying to say in my entry that this is the reason why the rules say that we can't link to this sort of thing.

It's like I once heard that you can't be a literary critic if you don't read Cartland or Blyton or any other bad stuff, or you can't compare. Or, for example, I listen to bad music so that I can argue with someone why it is bad.

Er - do you get my point?

This is a very realistic scenario. It would be a good entry on right wing radicalism for example, could include a link to a neonazi site so that people can see how rife this sort of thing is (this is a particularly strong movement within the internet, so again a realistic example)

What I am trying to say is that, by showing these things and making the appropriate comments, we can make people aware of what the world is like, and how we are constantly being brainwashed. If you shield people from it, younger readers particularly, will look at a site containing propaganda (commercial or political) totally uncritically and maybe believe what it says. Obviously, we are not linking to sites like this because we sympathise with the views expressed on them. Quite the opposite.

The writers and researchers on H2G2 are very streetwise and just the sort of people who should be exposing this kind of brainwashing, which is available to everyone.

Having said that, I would draw the line at explicit child pornography and bloodthirsty sites which show provocative pictures, just as I object to details of finds or details of sex crimes being described on the six o'clock news. These descriptions are just all some perverts need to be aroused, and would possibly send them off to attack the next passing 9-year-old. Again, not an H2G2 researcher, I hope, but in that case it would be enough to state that such things exist. We have all heard of the psychological problems of policemen who have to look through hundreds of photos.

Maybe what I'm saying is that the use of links should not be censored so rigidly. But perhaps that has now been said enough. I only just read this conversation, so I am no doubt repeating a lot of it, and coming a bit late with my arguments.

Oh dear, I intended to read to the end of the thread before posting this but now I've lost it. Closed the window by mistake. Is there any way of showing the title of the thread while you are in the "post to a conversation" box? That's something I've always missed. I get distracted and then forget who I'm talking to.

O right, posting brought me back to the thread and one line of thought has occurred to me on reading the rest of the backlog.

Phone numbers can be published, but URL's can't.

Now, the telephone is an accepted part of everyday life. Not even a 70-year-old suit would say it was "new-fangled" or unexplored territory.

The internet, however, is still relatively new and suspect. As I recounted elsewhere, when e-mails were first used in the company I worked with, we had to print out and file every single one, treating this new medium with great delicacy, care, respect, awe and old-fashioned staidness. People were just being careful and wary of this new thing, and not sure how to treat it, and were applying all the criteria known for conventional means of communication to date.

Nowadays no one would dream of doing that.

This is the way the use of URL's will go. In a few years, it will be as usual to swap URL's as telephone numbers (unless a new medium has rendered the internet redundant or changed the system) and the suits will have moved up a generation and everyone will wonder what all the fuss is about.

And with this discussion here, we are taking a great step in this direction. I cannot see the BBC clamping down more on this point. On the contrary, the trend will be towards more leniency and freedom.

I'm off to the bar or somewhere now, this is getting heavy. See you there.

Lentilla - the alleged difference between offensive URLs and other offensive stuff is that you can easily determine whether other stuff is offensive, but checking whether a URL is offensive requires loading it up in a browser. Furthermore, the contents of a URL may change daily, so it apparently has to be continually checked.

So, as noted, URLs are entirely identical to phone numbers and addresses of companies in this respect. Or indeed, any advocations for people to act in any way. Since comments which "advocate illegal behaviour" are banned, the advocation "dual price your stuff in both metric and imperial measures!" is legal now, but will be illegal (in the UK) in a few years. Yet, bizzarely, I can't see moderators rechecking the entire archive of postings every time the law changes.

Another example: some time in the next UK parliament, hunting is very likely to become illegal. So the entire of the various hunting threads will need every other posting removed (all the pro-hunting ones, in fact...).

Yet we are still allowed to advocate stuff. Lucky us.

Somehow I don't think they'll be re-moderating the whole site whenever the law changes, because everything's time stamped so anyone who cares will clearly be able to see that, say, a pro-hunting post is from back when hunting was legal.
And still, a post about why hunting _should_ be legal would still be legal, because we're still allowed to say things like that, as long as we're not telling people to go and do it in defiance of the law.

And just because Parliament bans hunting, that doesn't mean I can't still shoot animals in the Sierras for fun and profit. I know it's difficult, but try to remember that there is more to the world than Britain.

You could list the number of your optometrist today, but phone numbers change. I've had four personal phone numbers in the last three years. That phone number could be your optometrist's today, but he could move into a bigger office with a new phone number, and that number could be transferred to some "escort service." Will the beeb call periodically, to ensure that any listed phone numbers go to appropriate people? What if a researcher left his personal number, and it had an inappropriate answering machine message? Answering machine messages are easier to change than web pages.

Would it be a Good Idea if h2g2 used redirection and frames to allow moderation of URLs by using a little frame to say 'this URL is not suitable?' So a URL to xyzzy would redirect to bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/redirect?url=xyzzy&camefrom=u96596 (or equivalent for forums) which would make a base frame going to the URL and a top frame linking to an error reporter for U96596...

Just an idea

Dave McKee, guru and edev...

Phone numbers, by the way, get removed...

MaW - a quote from house rules:

> "However, it is acceptable to include general contact details for companies, for example, but you must only include publicly available details, such as the address of a restaurant, or the email address for customer support for a company."

My optician's phone number is publically available, so its apparently OK, even in forums. I hope the moderators enjoy phoning it periodicaly to check that it's still legit....

Of course, my email address might have an obscene auto-respond, just like my answer machine message. Or I could just randomly flame people who send me email. Is the line blurred enough yet?

Try this article, which appears to give an accurate summary of why we have this problem: http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/column/col37.shtml

Like I said asomewhere else - unitl there is sufficient case law in existence the Beeb is going to heavily err on the side of caution. Or until there is legislation to make things clearer.

Thanks for the link, androyd. I think I've noticed that researchers from outside of Britain have been the most vociferous on these issues, and this sheds some light on it. In countries that have real free speech, the libel laws are not so stringent. Perhaps its time that Britain adopted that international bill of rights thing in practice.

Imagine if that sort of thing were more widespread. "The Onion" would be no more.

*sigh* Why didn't we see this before?

I'd like to say that this is all part of a process, what we're discussing here. I don't mean this changing of legislation, but the process of us, researchers, coming to grips with the fact that a large, state-owned, careful corporation has acquired our baby.

I'd also like to point to the fact that this discussion has undoubtedly been part of the marriage between h2g2 and BBC as well, and that the fact that Mark and Co. are apparently so clear on the subject is either the result of that discussion turning out satisfyingly for them (which I hope and trust) or that they are bound by a PR clause forcing them to side with the Beeb contrarily of their personal wishes, (which I hope not and don't really believe).

Remember what Mark said: Baby steps, to be taken by us and the H2g2staff in accordance with the world around us. We are not existing in vacuum.

*pant pant*

What about it, Mark? Everyone?

How was that, in the days before the relaunch? IN the frantic times of moving the servers and negotiating the New Deal?

Tell us?

I guess maybe that's why I don't object to things as much as some people around here, because I'm British. However, what countries do have real freedom of speech, hmm? And do they benefit from it? Britain's not a bad place to live, you know.

watch it MaW, you're riding the ragged edge of disaster with that chauvinist remark...
..and my mouse is riding the ragged edge of the yikes! button!

Whaa-ha-ha-ha-haaa! (maniacal laugh, in case you wonder)