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

I like Chris' appeal for Klingon translators; given the nature of the Guide, it only seems proper that we give equal weight to off-world languages...!

May the horse be with you!

wonderful! i don't speak German, but this is great for all those that do! besides, it's fun to see something in another language, copy it, and translate it with Babelfish. it's like there's suspense to see what it says; it's an itty-bitty mystery.

It's ironic that the Hitch-Hiker's Guide doesn't offer the free BabelFish translation button...

Powerfully pushes Peet pryor to prominate post MODERATORS
putting their poo cents in.

Nice to see that German will be allowed now. Sad to see that it's only accomplished by adding more moderators of that language. I don't understand why they want to build such an impossible hurdle to global expansion of this website, just because BBC demands to be in control of every piddling word, as if they are still broadcasting or publishing the contents of h2g2.

Wonder if the h2g2 GerMania group will rebound, or if most of the members have already left and won't come back. How many different languages will it ever be worthwhile for h2g2 to support? Other online communities allow all languages, and censor reactively when people report offenses committed in those other languages. BBC tries to catch up to that kind of functionality by setting up a larger bureaucracy of translators/moderators/censors, a new group for each language? How could they possibly handle even a dozen languages this way? How many hundreds of languages are already being used on the web?

Sorry. I should be commending the progress. But it's like h2g2 takes two steps forward and BBC drags us three steps back.

HEY!(exited hey, not outraged hey) i just finally got to see what the ASCII thing looks like(by copy+pasting it into Wordpad and setting the font to an even one and 4-point(has to be small, without the colour it otherwise is hard to tell the "texture."))it looks very

Right, you can bung my name on the list then! I think I'm just about capable of being responsible without BBC intervention.

PinkyBoodles.

Hi Pinky,

I'll try to add your name to the list tonight. You might also want to check out the Petition for Greater Freedom on h2g2 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A544943 and consider signing. It's more seriously worded and rhetorically toned-down compared to this page, so I imagine you'll be okay with it. Actually, they appear to believe that paper signatures mailed to their office are more substantial than signatures online, so please consider whether this matter is worth spending half a buck (US$) postage on.

Later,
Deidzoeb

Subcom, I fully agree with you. In Germany you would call it a 'Beamtenapparat'. This translates as 'machinery of civil servants' but the image conveyed is that of a quixotic bunch of l**nies who have lost any contact with real life and occupy themselves with reviews and official moves which don't have any use at all. The european 'year of languages' obviously doesn't have too much impact on the BBC.

And yes, the GerManiaConnection is only a mere handful of active researchers now

simulpost

Last time I saw the GerMania main page, there had been no activity for months.

The thing I find that is sad with this process is that there are some languages in parts of the world spoken by very few people. Chances are, there will never be enough demand for BBC to have hundreds of different translators for even the most popular languages, let alone the more obscure languages. Under the old system, two people could communicate in their own language here without worrying whether the censors understood them. Even one person could post in any language, no matter how obscure, hoping that another speaker of that language would read it later.

Under the current rules, they know better than to even attempt posting here. They'll simply go elsewhere.

They're totally killing the potential for any major international audience on h2g2. It's like peeling off all your skin to prevent the possibility of someday getting skin cancer.

And if it stays that way I'm afraid I have to recommend to rename the site into either

H2G2 - Commonwealth Edition

or

H2G2 - Earth Edition, seen from the British/US/AUS point of view.

BBC Online's h2g2

As my nickname states, I am a Sympathiser for the Zaphodista cause. Viva Zaphoda!

Personal Space: U175790

furtim, sorry I didn't notice your post here sooner. I'll try to add your name later tonight (after work).

Thanks. Good luck with the move to Boston!

Ah. Thanks, mate.

About the German stuff... What I don't understand is why BBC feels it needs to take all of these ridiculous bureacratic precautions when they've already put in the standard, catch-all legal escape in the form of their bottom-of-every-page disclaimer. If they can get into trouble for hosting and not proactively censoring material which they expressly state is not their own, then jolly old England's legal system is completely and thorougly out to lunch!

Mind you, if they allowed free posting in every language, they'd probably have to repeat the disclaimer in every language too, and that would fill a screen or two with the consequent increase in bandwidth...

While I was typing this, appropos to nothing, it just occurred to me that the disclaimers should be graphics rather than text - that way, once they were in the browser cache they wouldn't be downloaded again, and there'd be more free bandwidth for our bulls**t...

They could make it an animated GIF, cycling through all the supported languages!

Please add me to the list of the supreme

Good call, Peet!