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

When exactly will the h2g2 General Election policy cease to apply? Logic would suggest that it should be 10pm on June 7, when the polling stations close.
I hope that is the case, and I ask because I definitely plan to stay up well into the small hours that night and watch the results coming in on TV. The BBC message boards will be closed for the night then, and it'd be nice to be able to come on here and post a few s, s, s or s, depending on how things are going!

Good point, Ormy! 10pm sounds like a good time to remove them, and I'll amend the election page accordingly.

Mark

Thanks, Mark! That is much appreciated. BTW, I think you left an "in" out of the opening line of the new first paragraph!

Oops. "In" out? Shake it all about - it's fixed.

Thanks Ormy...

This was suggested elsewhere (by Deidzoeb) and I'm going to shamelesly repeat his idea here and try to claim the credit...

Any chance of the h2g2 "Great Debate" threads being moved to h2g2 once the election is over, and we are once more allowed to do heavy politics? Since people will probably want to discuss the result anyway, it'd be nice to have some background to that. It'd be a shame if they all got vaped - though my suspicion is that this'd be too much work because it'd have to be done manually...

My gut feeling is that this would be really difficult, and totally manual. And would take a long time, unfortunately.

Also there are people in the debate who aren't on h2g2, so we couldn't carry their comments over...

If we had loads of resources it'd be a good idea, but it's not terribly easy, I'm afraid. Mind if we pass on this one?

Hi Ormy.

Just as an update to what will happen on polling day re election coverage on the BBC, this is the score.

The principle of pollling day coverage is that nothing in the BBC's output should be construed as influencing the ballot - of course. With this in mind the Election 2001 board will be closed during polling on Thursday, and all other boards will maintain their political-barracking free policies (including h2g2).

However, as soon as the polling finishes at 10pm BST, this is what will happen:

* The h2g2 election policy will cease to be applied, so you will be able to talk about politics to your heart's content on h2g2.

* The Election 2001 board will re-open, and will stay open until 2am so users of the board can talk about the results as they come in.

* A special Election chatroom will be set up to run alongside the Election 2001 board (with the same opening times), for real-time chat with other BBC users.

Although it's obviously a shame that you won't be able to talk politics on the BBC during the actual polling, hopefully the sudden glasnost at 10pm will make up for it.

Thanks, Mark! Good to know all that. I am a little surprised that the BBC election boards are closing at 2am, given that they are re-opening at all. In my experience, you normally know for sure who's won a General Election somewhere around 3am. Could it be that for some unfathomable reason, the BBC think that this one will be settled before then?
Not to worry. I'll have my virtual feet up in the former Forum & Firkin, watching the scores come in with a real-life can and a virtual !

I think it's 2am because the poor moderators will be falling asleep at their desks by then - apart from h2g2, no BBC message boards are 24 hours. We're mould-breakers, us!

Good job h2g2's open all night, eh.

I'll drink to that!

Can I point you all towards the new guidelines for Polling Day that can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/HouseRules-Election ?

Thanks.

Just kidding - I guess if I want to influence the outcome I'll actually have to vote...

Good point - I should have put that in!

(Except then I'd no doubt get complaints from those not able to vote... oops!)

All election rules have been lifted. Enjoy talking politics!

Woohoo!

I voted Lib-Dem and Lib-Dem. I can't remember who the candidates were, but at least I cast my vote! That means I don't feel so guilty for not voting in the euro-elections!

Now to find an area of h2g2 to discuss such things...