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

This doesnt' require action to fix the situation. I just thought I'd report a case of overzealous moderation. My personal space was removed last night sometime after 7 p.m. Mountain Time. The email I received said:

"It has been removed on the grounds that it contains a URL (a website
address); we don't allow URLs in Conversation Forums, and only allow
suitable URLs in Guide Entries."

My understanding is that my Personal Space is a Guide Entry and can have URLs in it. It certainly is not a Conversation Forum. It has been updated numerous times in the past without being moderated, and URLs (that were previously cleared) have been included each time. Furthermore, my understanding is that when URLs appear, they can be removed without removing the rest of the content. In my case, the entire entry was pulled.

I have reactivated my Personal Space and I assume this will fix the problem. However, a less educated Researcher might be confused and/or upset by the moderation. I thought the Italics might want to hunt down and re-educate the moderator responsible for the action.

The site address listed in the email is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A361568

Thanks for your time.

Hi Fragalis

I know what the problem was. The link to subtext simplenet is *very* shaky. I've managed to get it to load once, but now it's coming back as broken again. Can you do something about it, we're encouraged not to have broken links on h2g2 at all.

The mods have been asked to fail entries with broken links, because when they removed them people got ratty. So now we advise you to check the links carefully, and remove or replace them if they don't work. Okay?

Sounds good.

The link is 'shaky' because I am in dispute with my hosting service over a bill. I say I paid it, they say I didn't. It should be worked out within a couple of days.

The error message I received made me thing my Personal Space had been identified as a Conversation Forum. It sounds like there were just link problems. I can handle that. If the link issue isn't resolved in a day or two, I'll remove it until the site is back online.

I'll take a look at the message again, maybe it reads badly. Thanks for pointing it out.

Yes, it might be a good idea to remove the link in the meantime, if you edit it again without removing it, it could well be hidden again, and that would be a pain.

I've gone ahead and removed the link.

Thanks for the helpful information today. I appreciate it.

You're welcome Fragilis.

I also have an issue with overzealous moderation. The purpose of my "Cat in my Pants" account is for the community to help me translate the phrase "I have a big cat in my pants" into as many languages as possible (don't ask why...). This information will be used to make an incredibly cool shirt. The evident problem here is that my page has the aforementioned phrase translated into french, spanish, and german. The translations are directly below the original english, so it's obvious I'm not writing multilingual obscenities; you can see that the phrase is the same, just translated, if you have any knowledge of Latin or a romance language (french, italian, spanish, etc.). In any case, this phrase on the moderation page caught my eye:

If it remains as pending for a number of days, then
please feel free to ask us what is happening, but remember that
anything in a language other than English will have to be translated,
and this may take a considerable amount of time.

Well, it's been pending for a week as of tomorrow, so I'm asking what's happening. Understandably "anything in a language other than English will have to be translated," but since the translation is right there, in plain sight, this shouldn't "take a considerable amount of time."

All I'm asking for is a quick "hey, we're working on it, your page will be back ASAP" or "hey, this isn't cool, drop the translations". Thanks in advance.

Cat/Jimmy.

This is just a reminder to the moderation staff that my page has been hidden for over 3 weeks. I would like to renew my question: "what is happening with my page?" The moderation page led me to believe that my page would be looked at, moderated or whatever, and replaced or deleted within the space of a couple days, a week at the outside. It's been 3 weeks, I'm asking yet again, but this time I'm feeling kinda bitter and cynical. As my previous post to this forum (2 weeks ago) states, the translations listed on my page are easy to find for whomever would be moderating it. The moderator in question could take 5 minutes on the Babel Fish translator on altavista (not a URL link, don't get all crazy about it) and would be satisfied that there is no obscenity. I would like to reiterate that the translation is right there on the page to begin with, so even translating it through a third party site is unnecessary. If this is not resolved within 3 days, I will continue to reedit my page until a moderator leaves it up. I don't like having to resort to such a crude tactic, but I need to get as many translations of "I have a big cat in my pants" in as many languages as I can find before September; having my page hidden is extremely counterproductive. As I see it, there are really only three options. 1) admit the site with the various languages in place and ignore any future variations of the page; 2) delete it in accord with moderation rules (it has non-english languages in it! Kill it!); 3) make me a moderator so I can admit my own pages and avoid a 3+ week moderation period every time someone puts up a new translation. Option 1 is by far preferable, option 2 is more or less what has been happening for the last 3 weeks, and option 3 is a bit frivolous, I know. Can someone please just pass my page on? If it's gonna be 3 weeks every time, instead of telling people "oh, we'll have it done in a couple days" just say "it's gonna be three weeks, do something else while you wait". Lying to us is just BS.
Cat/Jimmy

I can think of another option for out, Cat. Perhaps you could move the translations to another entry, and leave the rest on your personal space. At least that way, people would be able to find out more about you before this issue gets resolved. And nothing would get moderated besides the translations.

Just a thought...

Instead of [url removed by moderator], why not [broken link removed by moderator]?

Hi Cat

Sorry to not come back to you earlier, I'd unsubscribed to this conversation. It's always best to start a new conversation under a specific heading, and then I'm notified and reply straight away.

Translation on h2g2 is going to be a problem. We're not sufficiently resourced to be able to translate foreign postings. We're not prepared to 'guess' translations either. The Russian sentence may well say, 'I have a cat in my pants', but it could quite easily say something quite different.

I suggest that h2g2 isn't the place for this kind of project. Why not start it on a free webspace and put a link to it from h2g2, that way you won't have the problem? You know that you can still edit your personal space, even when it's hidden?

Peta

That's fine, Peta. I suppose I should have started a new conversation, but I saw a heading that perfectly described my problem, and here we are.

I think you're right that H2G2 isn't the best place for this. I am aware that I can edit my space (even when hidden) but then it has to go through moderation again, causing more moderators to have headaches over the translations. Ah, screw it. I'm going to geocities or something. My reason for putting it on here in the first place was that it was handy for Clarke and I, as we both spend lots of time here, but as you said, H2G2 is the wrong forum for a translation project (unfortunately). Thanks for the advice.

Cat/Jimmy.