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

Only problem about the Legal argument is that Peta has said until the case in the Euro Courts has been settled their is no way that the rules will be changed, as the Beeb is being ultra cautious - if it is settled in our favour she seems to be saying there is a *reasonable* chance that the restrictions will be lifted....

Or I could be completely misunderstanding her (excuse assumptions...)...

Well, the legal nod could certainly be left out in that case.

Argon,

Sorry, but the "Walking proudly into the enemy camp" thread started by Jimi X has become a personal flame war. I wish I could delete the things I posted yesterday, ignore trolls like Jimi and Smiley Ben, and just get on with the petition. As it turns out, I've been given a "warning" by Peta for my post on the bottom of the Douglas Adams welcome page, in which he *ironically* invites new users to write about "your opinion on current events."

I'm not sure whether to keep fighting, or to go on hiatus for a week or two, if only to cool down and ensure I don't damage the credibility of the Zaphodistas any worse than I already have.

I would recommend doing whatever it takes to calm down. It would be devestating to both h2g2 and the Zaphodistas if you were banned from the service.

But that's just my opinion.

Fragilis,

Wow. Thanks for saying that. I appreciate the things you've said about Zaphodistas in other places too.

I was thinking that if I take a vacation from posting and rabble-rousing for two or three weeks, and if some other more rational individuals might persist, maybe continue work on the petition if they wanted to, hint, then the group or the petition would not be tainted by my leadership.

That might be a good idea. I think the issues have been pretty much thrashed to death, or at least that's what many people seem to think. Maybe a truce for a few weeks? Also, maybe someone could try and assemble the moderation/censorship arguments into some form of article (the petition does this to an extent, but skips over the details, legal arguments etc.) I would volunteer to do this myself, but I have a thesis to write here (which is suffering already because of h2g2). I suspect assembling such a piece will take quite a while (a lot of threads to trawl through).
I have a suspicion that when the general election rules go into effect this will flare up again anyway...

To anyone subscribed to this thread:

I just updated the page above this forum with Lucinda's petition in place of the old one, because hers seems more concise and comprehensive.

Jamie:

For your article suggestion, do you mean just an essay that supports the petition and gives reasons to support it, or do you mean highlights of past conversations about moderation?

This would give me something to work on to keep me out of forums.

How about we invite essays from any h2g2 researchers on why they think the petition is appropriate, and we give some links?

As for the truce, do you think I should make a request, on a few of the prominent Zaphodista pages and on the more active fora, to refrain from bringing up the topic of moderation outside of the Zaphodista fora? Like maybe suggesting that recruiting is acceptable, when it's not spamming an unrelated conversation, but preaching should be discouraged?

Maybe a highlights article would work. Point is, the issue has been pretty well thrashed out, with a lot of fairly lucid and detailed posts. Unfortunately, I think some of these have been buried under some of the more heated posts, and you have to trawl through a dozen different threads and 100s of posts of this stuff. If the main points (arguments and counter-arguments) were presented minus the unfortunate personal remarks, I think it would help the debate, and hopefully prevent the same or similar arguments being repeated ad nauseum.
I do appreciate this would be a lot of work, though.
As for a truce, what I really should have said is a truce with the italics. Maybe you could put something on the communique page to set out the Zaphodista position on the italics, to make it clear we are not attacking them. Again, this point has been made but is probably worth emphasising. Yes, they have misinterpreted some comments as attacks, but I gather they are rather touchy at the moment (which is understandable, all things consdered).
Come to that, this could be said of a lot of people at the moment.
As for your last suggestion, sounds good to me. A thought occurs, maybe the volunteers (esp. the ACEs) could be asked to steer any moderation rants from new people to the Zaphodista forum. Might be worth putting to Peta - carefully, of course
I do appreciate the work you are putting into this. Okay, mistakes have been made, but that's life. I would have contributed to the debate before, but (a) other people were making the points better than I could, and (b) I am not really the argumentitive type. Consider me as the silent majority (I hope).

Subcom. Deidzoeb, you'll have to carefully phrase any requests telling people to stop posting their opinions anywhere in particular. Some may see a conspiracy, where you are being influenced by h2g2.

I *would* recommend asking for assistance from the other Zaphodistas. It would be bad if, for instance, all the Zaphodista pages were removed (or couldn't be updated further) because h2g2 banned you. It would make the remaining Zaphodistas feel picked on, maybe causing bad behavior, followed by poor feelings all around.

Can I just chuck in my twopenneth worth about the political discussions?
As a BBC employee ... though not, I STRESS, on Online projects ... and YES ... I was a H2G2 member before the BBC took over ... I have had to sit through lectures and meetings this week on the subject of the election and fair broadcasting.
All the political parties have tried to hijack BBC Online forums in the past during elections (be they Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, Europe or whatever) ... please believe me when I say that the guidelines these guys have to work under are very difficult!

Hi again deidzoeb.

If I was in your position (and I'm not, praise be) - I'd concentrate on the petition. It's a single, focused activity that is unlikely to get distracted into the wider debate on the issue at hand, which should keep things calmer and more rational. While the italics seem to think it's a pointless idea, they seem reasonably happy for it to happen - provided you make sure it doesn't cause any *harm*.

Similarly, the workaround guide is a constructive, focused activity which is genuinely useful advice to people. People are highly unlikely to flame you for performing such a helpful task. The communiques are similarly useful on the subject.

You may want to delegate to emphasise that you are not the whole of the Zaphs. For example, ask if someone else wants to run (say) the Communiques. That might help to keep personalities out of this - similarly, you might want to take votes on certain topics to emphasise your willingness to listen - all up to you.

Best of luck, whatever you decide to do...

Good luck from me too. I agree that the petition seems like the best way forward.
And Subcom. - don't let the italics grind you down. The censorship on the site has relaxed in some ways over the past couple of weeks, and although I'm sure that no-one with an italicised name would admit it, I strongly suspect that we Zaphodistas have helped to shape the way things have gone. As far as I can see, you've done nothing wrong. Don't let them make you feel guilty.
VIVA ZAPHODA!

Mickey Thomas' Right Foot,

Thanks for your input. You might be in a unique position to help us understand this better.

"All the political parties have tried to hijack BBC Online forums in the past during elections (be they Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, Europe or whatever) ... "

I don't suppose there are any articles or descriptions of when this has happened in the past? Not trying to ask for "proof," I have no reason to doubt what you say is true, but I'd like to get a better idea of what happens when they have these overwhelming attacks on message boards.

Mikey the Humming Mouse described some kind of "shrilling" attack on a message board (not a BBC board), in which a board which normally received 50 messages a week started getting 1000 per week, and eventually shut down (not clear whether this was due to technical problems with handling so many extra posts, or whether the decision was made because people felt unable to weed through all the spammish posts).

My response was that this same problem, if it were attempted here, if it really overwhelmed the moderation staff or the system somehow, could still be accomplished with or without the ban on election discussions in place. If one person or two dozen people wrote a text sampling of a porn story or a political spam, and repeatedly posted copies of it on several unrelated fora, wouldn't it overwhelm the moderators just as quickly now, even if the rest of us avoided the topic? If all the political parties are this viscious, won't they try it just the same with the ban on innocent discussion of the election in place.

I'm not trying to attack you with this. I'm genuinely trying to figure if there's a side of this I'm not seeing. I honestly don't understand how a member of the public reading h2g2 messages, or a critic of the BBC trying to claim unbalanced coverage, could see a giant bunch of flaming political rants, or quietly rational political spam, as anything but the fault of some rogue users.

I've seen some wackos on other message boards who haunt the political discussions all day long, every day of the week. (Of course, I could only know this because I have gone through periods of haunting the same boards all day long, every day.) Some of them are just enthusiastic participants. I'm not sure if I've really seen posts by people who were paid by certain political parties to constantly repeat their views. But I've seen seemingly genuine wackos who express their opinions frequently and flamingly, and it's hard to see the difference been one who's paid to do it and one motivated by their own beliefs.

When the BBC message boards have been attacked in earlier elections, is it by people ranting, or simply posting the same message dozens of times, or something more like spam?

It would be great if we could read any descriptions of earlier problems BBC has had so we can better understand why it is a problem. It might even convince some of us that BBC and h2g2 are doing the right thing. But I can understand if there are no public descriptions, since it is probably more of an internal matter that BBC doesn't want to exhibit for the public.

Jamie,

highlights article: I like the idea of putting out a call for guide entry essays on why people feel the petition is necessary. (This would work nicely in three ways, because it delegates some work out, helps get other Zaphodistas more involved, and the articles won't have the taint of Deidzoeb on them. ) Since the idea of a highlights article sounds tricky, I'll mention it as a good idea and hope somebody else might like to try assembling it.

Actually Gin Tonyx was starting to write a page of comprehensive links to the different groups who are discussing or wishing to change moderation policies (Zaphodistas, Brainstorming board, n2g2?). What we really need is an index of links that would point to different topics in existing fora and guide entries -- lots of legal discussion in for under the Brainstorming board, general debates about moderation scattered here and there and in the community soapbox, etc. But it would take quite a while to put something like that together. We need an electric librarian.

Truce with Italics. I'm working on another page right now (got sidetracked while I was writing this one, too many ideas I needed to jot down before I forget) to request that Zaphodistas not "preach" outside of guide entries written by Zaphodistas, and that they consider whether "protests" will have any real effect at this point, when everybody already knows about us. There's also a personal apology to the Italics, plus request that Zaphodistas not follow the bad example I've set in the past.

"A thought occurs, maybe the volunteers (esp. the ACEs) could be asked to steer any moderation rants from new people to the Zaphodista forum. Might be worth putting to Peta - carefully, of course"

Do you realize what you're saying there? How could I ask Peta "do you mind recruiting people for me, sending any disgruntled researchers my way?" Or do you mean that they could move "protest" rants from the moderation board over to the Zaphodista page? That might be an interesting idea, but wouldn't that be like giving us more ammunition for our cause? I don't know how on earth we could phrase this kind of request to Peta or the ACEs without getting ... let's just say "rebuked," to put it mildly.

"I would have contributed to the debate before, but (a) other people were making the points better than I could..."

Exactly right, I wish I had just kept out of those darn flamewars with Jimi X. I saw it coming, I saw myself descending into it, I knew that I should let other people respond who would do a better job than I could. (Fragilis refuted Jimi X perfectly well before I even joined that discussion, there was no need for extra comment from me, getting into the personal beefs from the past between me and JX.) Should have followed my first mind and left it alone.

Subcom, this may be a bad time to bring this up - but...
We've had a bad press this week in the "h2g2 Post", which has reprinted Mark and Peta's Journal entries along with more anti-Zaphodista rhetoric from others. I've already had a blazing row with Shazz, the editor, over this - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/thepost . Yep, it was me who accused her of turning the "Post" into a kind of pro-BBC "Pravda"!
I was thinking of adding some comments after the articles there, particularly about the outrageous suggestion that we 140 or so Zaphodistas represent "a small minority". But as you're keen to make peace, I guess that's probably not what you want.

Lucinda,

delegating tasks: excellent idea. I just asked Wumbee if he wants to take over Workaround Guide and/or Guerrilla Tactics. I really want to keep the Communiques, but I'm going to invite others to contribute articles or columns if they want. Zaphodista gardening tips, make yours the most Revolting flowerbed in the neighborhood! "Dear Generalisimo," advice for the lovelorn?

Maybe my grip on the Zaphodistas has been too dictatorial, but I've been reluctant to bring a vote (try to round up the 125-150 people who signed on, wait for some of them to log on only once a month) on things so far. I figure the petition itself would be the way members use their votes or express their opinions, but reaching a consensus on wording is not as easy as I thought.

Do you have any suggestions for things that the membership should vote on right now? We haven't really taken any actions as a group, except for this petition and me running my mouth every few days in a new communique.

Don't get shazz to quit too!!!!!

I'm about to put up an APOLOGY to the Italics. Just check the communiques page a little later on for the topic DAMAGE CONTROL. I'm trying to atone for the flamewars I fueled with Jimi X & Smiley Ben, and asking other Zaphodistas to concentrate on the petition, don't bother with arguing outside anymore because it just alienates people, and we're big enough that we don't really need the publicity. Anyhow, you'll see it with in an hour or so, hopefully.

It's okay if we get bad press this week. Maybe the DAMAGE CONTROL & apology will get attention next week.

gone to finish damage control

Sorry, I don't have specific examples, but what we have been told is that party activists would bombard certain threads on certain message boards with pro-Labour/Conservative etc. etc. views and influencing the direction of the thread.
It doesn't sound like spam or multi-postings, but a host of individuals posting messages.
Sorry - I don't have any more info, I just thought that my input might help ...

You're probably right about formal votes, thinking about it - it's all a bit formal and difficult to arrange for h2g2. Oh well...

Lucinda,

The petitions are mechanisms for taking votes in themselves. That's part of why I want to offer any other petitions or alternatives linked from the same page, anything Mikey or the Brainstormers come up with, even a petition to affirm the status quo if anyone were worried enough to create one. In that way, researchers will be able to vote along the lines of what Zaphodistas have been working, or vote for other options, or vote against us.

So we're not excluding the system of voting entirely from the Zaphodistas, just channeling votes into the petition.