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

I'm well known for only lurking round forums, and now I am making a second posting here! I'll try and avoid reference to anyone that might be identified, but that might be difficult. I'll avoid the direct use of URL's but point you in the right direction. I might mention politics, but not the election. Then I'll see if this posting remains.

I lurk in many other corners of the web too, so let me tell you about the moderation of threads on the Number 10 Downing Street page.

number-10 dot gov dot uk
Until December the site used to have message boards. The vast majority of the postings were bitterly critical of the present Government.

So, instead of allowing free speech on the site, they have been moved off site, although there is still a place to express opinions. It's quite well hidden, heavily moderated, and gives the impression that you need to sign in, but you don't if you just want to lurk.

A personal message from, er, let's call him "the person who lives in that house", says:

"Over the last year, the discussion forums on the No 10 website have proved a fascinating insight into the issues that concern you most.
"The discussions have always been lively and the range of subjects explored extremely wide.
"I hope now that the discussion forums are being moved to a new home on the Citizen Portal, that you'll continue to use the opportunity to make your views known and to enter into debate.
"It isn't possible to transfer the large volume of old postings but my office is investigating depositing the archive in the Public Records Office."

Answers on a postcard please as to which particular bit of the PRO these postings are, and how easy it would be to view them.

The message board are now very well hidden off the site in something they call "Citizen Portal"

[url removed by moderator]

Click on "Say So" then take the "Discussions" option.

Lots to read, but if you want the complaints section, scroll down and read the thread called "ukonline". You will find lots of disgruntled folks getting cross about being removed from the number 10 site and being heavily moderated.
It might sound familiar.

(sits back and waits.....)

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. We have a right to freedom of expression - it's the EU Convention on Human Rights. It also gives us freedom of religion, freedom of education, and freedom of marriage. Thanks for your concern, though.

Incidentally, BT already offers a filtering service as an option in its internet packages. I will call this the "Right to Purchase" to use the bonuses of emotive language - people are free to buy what they like - who are you to tell them they SHOULDN'T use such packages?

Freedom of Expression does not allow Jehovah's Witnesses to break into my house and start converting me over my bowl of cereals. Thank Goddess for that.

*sigh*

No, Lil's atelier was NOT an edited entry, and neither were the entries on Forum & Firkin, Aroma Café, h2g2 Waterworks & Beach, h2g2 Natural Museum, Village de la Vavoom - I could go on for ever and ever...

..but my point is - these are/were societies within the community of h2g2 - places where people liked to meet fellow researchers, and discuss topics of mutual interest...

...and pictures were used to describe these places, or add atmosphere, or illustrate imaginary h2g2 situations or happenings (perhaps Smiley Ben isn't familiar with the h2g2 float parade - I myself signed on after it had taken place, but was nevertheless enjoying the pictures immensely).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say, not very well I'm afraid, is that, just like a country is divided into towns and villages, h2g2 is divided in various entries/forums, and these are now much less entertaining or colourful or interesting without the pictures.

Because a lot of the h2g2 researchers are not returning to this site again and again for the sole pleasure of adding to it by writing entries, but for the company and the exchange of ideas, views and arguments!

Pastey has expressed pretty much how I feel, and much better, in an article in the latest issue of the h2g2 Post:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A530957

Ben,

I haven't been on H2G2 in a long time, and when I came I suddenly discovered the new rules. It was a shocker. you argue, quite rightly, that people should be allowed to make their own rules on their own turf. And yes this is now legally BBC turf. On the other hand, the old h2g2, which I and you both remember fondly, hosted a thriving, fascinating community. the community was what made the site worth anything at all. Italics and corporate sponsorship didn't make the site, you and I did.

So I feel that the owners of the site, whoever they may be, have an obligation to the community. Not a legal one but a moral one. And yes there may be a need for rules - but restricting pictures, restricting political debate (that would be debate, not the dictating of opinions, plus the bbc disclaimer everywhere), restricting nonenglish - all three seem to be extremely unpleasant things to do to the people who give the site its worth.

It also creeps me out to know that every word I write is read by a "moderater" and needs to be approved. Must we all be moderate? H2G2 seems far less rich to me than it did before, and I am indeed considering leaving. Maybe you welcome that - but the site will be worht far less in its new, moderate state - when an entire community, which previously thrived, suddenly finds that it every word must be checked for decency then the new 'watchful eye' is doing the community a great wrong.

oops - shame on me for posting without realising there were another 21 posts to read...

> "how big is the chance that a posting that hasn't been judged as offensive by a Moderator would be found offensive by a user?"

Well, the entry on how to make a Molotov Cocktail was judged as inoffensive by a moderator, and subsequently judged offensive by several researchers - and TPTB removed it as a result. Moderators are human and make mistakes - on *both* sides of the equation.

Perhaps an analogy would help.

Say there is a small company that decides to create a community centre in a suburb somewhere. They provide a mostly empty warehouse building and invite anyone in. People come to the centre and start to voluntarily work on making it a better place. They make rooms in the warehouse where they meet others with similar interests. They decorate the room at their own expense. They put windows in the walls to view the outside world. They settle any disputes themselves. All are very happy.

Then, the Community centre is bought from the small company by a big company, who sees the thriving Community centre and wants to get into the same business. The big company imposes some new rules: no decorations in the rooms (might offend someone), no windows to the outside world (some people might be offended by what they see), and in every room, there will be a Company representative watching everything you do to ensure that you don't do anything offensive.

Now, do you think everyone is happy?

...and another scenario:

Community centre has no way to make money. It closes.

Ben,

"...I think it is the right of any website owner to set the subjects discussed on their website..."

Again, BBC may own the servers, they may own the infrastructure, they may own the staff, but they still do not own the community. This community is not a thing that can be owned by anyone. If h2g2 were shut down today, many members of this community would find other places where they could post (as they did while the site was down), and the community would go on. It would be in a different form, but the people would still be there.

This is where we come back to that stupid analogy that people keep using to justify every new restriction by the BBC, the analogy of h2g2 as a house, Auntie Beeb as hostess, and researchers as "guests." This analogy fails to consider that some of us have been staying in the house for two years, and that we've been filling the walls of this house with content for two years. We've built this house on a voluntary basis, thinking it would shelter us, thinking we were building a commune. Now you want to say that it belongs to the people who paid for the lumber? I think not.

Auntie Beeb acts as though it is all a matter of liability, that she's afraid of the insurance costs for housing all of us builders who continue to stuff insulation inside the walls of h2g2. But we're getting the feeling lately that she doesn't want us bunch of scruffy, hippy carpenters seen in her foyer. At this point, she's too late. We've been squatting here for two years, and we intend to remain in this house we built.

"What would be a worse infringement on your freedom - the state-owned broadcasting company refusing to allow discussion of the election, or the state-owned broadcasting company tell people who they should vote for, and influencing the election?"

The second of these two possibilities is nowhere near in danger of happening, and therefore anyone debating this point with you does not need to defend this straw-man argument.

I hope you are not as confused as the Beeb about whether h2g2 researchers are the same as BBC journalists. I think the bit at the bottom of every page that says, "h2g2 contains content that is generated by visitors to the site, and the contents of this page may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC, unless specifically stated," should make this abundantly clear to even the most daft of readers.

When owned by the small company, the community centre made money from advertisements in the main hall. When the big company bought it, they didn't need the advertising because they were able to garnishee the wages of everyone that lived in the suburb. So, in effect, the money for the warehouse came from the people that went there, and the success of the community centre that it became (and hence its profitability) was due entirely to the people who came there.

Garius, thank you for that excellent analogy. I've been struggling to think of a better one than this crap about the "house" that we're all guests in. Do you mind if I quote your forum posts from this board, as long as I properly attribute the quote to you?

Whoops.
Please note I didn't actually post a URL in #41, just hinted at it.

Heh, I should use all your arguments next time a local shop or pub or club I like gets bought out by new management and gets turned into a coffee bar or (worse) a mobile phone shop. Perhaps I should take them to court for infringing my rights?

There is no "moral obligation" here, and this is not something which is unique to the internet. It's perfectly in order to say that you don't like the changes, it's perfectly in order to say that you are unhappy with them, and that you will probably reduce or stop your use of h2g2 as a result of them. But don't try and pretend that h2g2 *has* to do anything.

oh, Garius, h2g2 was previously making a substantial loss - they were certainly NOT profitable.

I'm confused.

The reason, I'm told, that moderation is terrible is because it sets us on the road towards serfdom, where none of us have voices and by 2010 we'll be living in a dictatorship (see an earlier posting for year-by-year details), yet the BBC taking a bias on a general election /isn't/ a step along the way to the BBC endorsing a party? To be fair, I'm taking the Zaphodistas as speaking with one voice, which clearly they are not.

I, personally, am very glad that the BBC feels they must stay unbiased - it's well known that the Sun plays an enormous part in an election because it's readers tend to vote the way it suggests they ought (and some say they won the election for Labour). I'm not sure that they need to go quite this far, but with all due respect, I think the BBC's lawyers know better than anyone here whether the disclaimer at the bottom protects them from blame, and current indications with recent legal rulings is that it does not.

And Garius - nice idea that advertising ever paid for the site. It didn't, and it was never going to. The BBC *did* save the community centre, as, I think, the vast majority of the researchers realise.

As to taking the community elsewhere, and watching whilst h2g2 collapses without the people that made it, nice idea, but (and don't take this the wrong way), rather absurd. Once the BBC online seriously rolls out h2g2 as its community arm, the number of new members with absolutely dwarf the current community, let alone those that have left in disgust. I seriously, seriously, hope people won't leave over something (as I say, I feel is) trivial - it would be an awful shame - but the end of the community it will not be.

Lucinda: here here!

Though if we do get into moral obligations, I'd like to take a moment to say it's great that BBC did a good thing, and saved h2g2. I wouldn't have liked to have lost it. I can't wait for the new stuff they'll now be able to achieve, and all the new researchers we'll get once they go for a serious launch.

And I know I'll get accused to sucking up, which will be weird, what with how much people used to praise h2g2 towers, and how great they thought *every* rung on the h2g2 ladder was!

...or rather 'hear hear'... ahem...

I am deeply depressed about the new H2G2. But, a small word here from the BBC's perspective. Two recent courtcases in the UK have proved that, legally, an ISP can be sued becuase they are publisher, and >at the same time< be sued because they are NOT a publisher. (Link in my journal to story). Serious rock and hard-place, with the added complication of the BBC charter.

But I don't like it here much anymore.

H&K
Z

Link is http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A523955.

H&K
Z

Originally Posted by Smiley Ben
"I, personally, am very glad that the BBC feels they must stay unbiased - it's well known that the Sun plays an enormous part in an election because it's readers tend to vote the way it suggests they ought (and some say they won the election for Labour). I'm not sure that they need to go quite this far, but with all due respect, I think the BBC's lawyers know better than anyone here whether the disclaimer at the bottom protects them from blame, and current indications with recent legal rulings is that it does not."

News organizations should remain unbiased, since to do otherwise is against the tenants of journalism. However the idea that people on a forum that is only thinly attached to a news organization must remain unbiased is absurd. If you are planning to vote then you must have choosen a candidate, and if you have choosen a candidate then you most likely have a reason. Why should you not be allowed to express that opinion? Are you representing the BBC by having an opinion in the first place? Of course not, you are representing yourself. I don't see how any person in their right mind could possibly take your opinions posted on a hosted forum as a direct endorsement from the BBC.

Now I admit, I am one of the many people who visit this forum from the United States and as such my knowledge of current events in the UK is limited, there is already way too much new information over here to try and digest. It is therefore likely that I would never find myself caught up in a debate on the General Election, but I find it disturbing that one could not occur. It seems to me that the restriction of that constitutes a violation of free speech. Elections being what determine how your country, state, province, city, what have you will be run, to limit discussion on that seems like clamping a hand over your mouth and preventing you from discussing what you believe will be for the greater good. Now I am not saying that the BBC is trying to prevent you from having an opinion, they have provided a seperate forum, which I suppose is an acceptable alternative, but all it woud take would be to have that forum be moderated in a specific way and suddenly freedom of speech no longer exists because if you disagree with the unofficial bias of whoever is doing the moderating your opinions will be deleted. Snd suddenly an opinion/endorsement seems to appear among the people on the forum, a lot of people seem to be speaking one way, and no one is really saying anything the other that holds any value. It would be frighteningly easy to do, just moderate any posting that supports the side you are against and leave any post that supports the party you are for. I honestly do not believe this would happen, but you never know when something is going to happen to tip the balance in the favor of such action, and by being so close to the edge it is rather easy for even the slightest breeze to knock you off.

Ben not having been around I was unaware of the financial difficulty (though I had long wondered how they managed to balance their checkbooks) an I think it's quite wonderful that the BBC, of whose news I am very much a fan, chose to throw a lifeline. On the other hand it seems to me that certain of their rules are really quite mean to the community, which was of course what mdae the site worth saving and having aruondin the first place. Sure they have every right to - but it very much not nice.

On a different note, if hordes of people join, will that improve the site? The community may have tens of thousands (don't know the exact number) but at that there's definitely a core of regulars. The larger that number grows, the less personal it gets, and the less pleasant - and the less communal.

Ioreth - I'd partly agree with you, but I don't think it was just the community, but also the guide (and the idea behind it), that makes this all worth having. There are loads of communities - and what sets this one apart is the fascinating work it is trying to do writing a guide to earth. But that is rather biased, since I see more of that part being a sub-editor.

As to the question of moderating the Great Debate forum - the very point is that they need to be very, very careful about it. Of *course* someone could alter the emphasis of the debate with biased moderation, which is why, no doubt, the beeb will be trying very very hard to make sure this doesn't happen. I believe in their promise to be unbiased, and I think we'll see it triumph again.

But once again, I must deny that if the BBC moderates then 'suddenly freedom of speech no longer exists' - of course freedom of speech still exists since you can still say what you wanted to say anywhere else.