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

I am not in here on awols behalf,I want to put my views across ...recently in MIDNIGHTS page a post was removed,but not by herself.....so some1 MUST have been watching !!....

So to me who ever removed the post can they plz explain ??...errrm,I mean,as it was M A's page,who else has the right to complain ?????????,cos MA stated she didnt !!!

BIRIYANI

I agree! As i believe the same happened to Intern!
Maybe the person responsible for removing the thread wants to think before they do it again?
Why not leave the thread & use it in the case against him, if they have such a problem with him the more "evidence" the better surely!

I'm not entering into the "awol" debate it just seems like common sense thats all



lynsey

Hello there,

As I stated earlier, h2g2 is reactively moderated - if a post was removed it is because at least one Researcher found it offensive and so it proceeded to the moderation queue where the decision was upheld by the moderators. We can't discuss the details behind moderation decisions on-site.

SEF - as someone who works in here I can assure you that it actually IS less time-consuming to be impartial. Keeping track of each and every personal dispute on the site would be impossible - and applying rules in a deliberately distorted way causes complications that are ultimately time-consuming. It's much more efficient to try and deal with each post impartially. 'Spying' on people (as others have suggested in this thread) would take resources that we simply don't have. So we always endeavour to concentrate purely on the question of whether a Researcher is breaking the rules or not. Quite often these decisions are not black-and-white and so some disagreement is inevitable. Hence really lengthy discussions like this one!

Natalie

Natalie

But i don't understand why the thread was removed altogeter? why not just yikes the appropriate posts, i have a few threads, that are deemed to be offensive that weren't removed completely, just simply yikes'd!

What is it that decides whether a thread is completely removed or just the offensive posts yikes'd or the offensive words starred*****???
Or was is because the "researcher" that was thought to have posted the said threads was the unspeakable "banned reasearcher?"


Thankyou



lynsey

Hello Lynsey,

I'm not sure which thread you mean so I'll have to check. We can't discuss the reasons behind moderation decisions on-site. If anyone wants to ask questions about a decision then they should reply to the email they receive.

Thanks,

Natalie

Sorry Lynsey - I've just read that again and you asked about a banned Researcher - if a banned Researcher returns then the new account will be banned - and where posts reach the moderation queue they will be failed.

It's Friday...

Hi Natalie

I didn't witness the threads but i believe the "unspeakable one" posted "offensive" threads to both MIDNIGHT ANGEL's & Interns spaces!

I didn't want the exact reasons that thoses specific threads were removed, just a rough idea on "what" that is posted, in general, that decides that a whole thread is removed as apposed to only the "offensive" posts being yikes'd?

Thankyou



lynsey

Natalie

Thankyou, & YIPPPPPEEEEE, indeed it IS Friday



lynsey

Natalie. I'm not sure that you have explained excatly the right question these people are asking, I believe they want to know why a thread on some-ones page is completly removed, And some threats remain.
Let me try explain this in terms a dummie can understand. Say i posted a n abusive post to erm lets say lyndsey,Some-one then yikes that post before she had replied. This thread would vanish. If i posted an abusive message to lets say Biryiani,
And he replied before my abusive post was yiksed then only my post would be hidden and the reply would stay,This keeping the thread visable. The question you really want to know then is who yikesed the posts.this is as it should be PRIVATE. Any-one has the right to yikes a post they feel is against the house rules. If say briyiani posted a message to for arguments sake lets say natalie. if i was to read that message and i conciderd it to break the house rules then i could yikes it, Even if natalie didnt feel it broke the house rules or didnt even get to read it.so it's not the sole right of the person it was aimed at to have the post yikes.
hope this was understandable and answerd the point raised.


Now i must go and pack as my daughter is coming for me to stay with her for the holiday period. she is coming to collect me after her work. So i will wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a happy new year. I will return the first week of jan 2004.

Time Traveller

I'm not a dummy

No, Natalie you are wrong. It is much harder to be impartial than it is to be biased. That is one of the reasons not many people are good at science. In this case it is a question of psychology. The human mind thinks along tribal lines as a result of evolution. You will be predisposed to believe the members of your tribe regardless of the truth of the situation. Your failure to recognise this and your lack of time to check things out properly actually adds to this inherent bias. You will fail to realise that people will be imposing their own double-standards in reacting to a situation differently according to their own tribal boundaries and you will fail to look around any issue properly.

So many complaints will already be biased - since they wouldn't have been made about someone else doing the same thing. Your procedures predispose you to ignore this. You then add to this bias subconsciously by preferentially taking the part of those in your own tribe over outsiders - even when the evidence shows the reverse would be the correct/fair course of action (assuming you even took the time to look at the rest of the evidence instead of making a quick decision on the selective part presented to you).

Hello SEF,

Much as I love the psychological analysis I don't believe I said at any point that it was easier to be impartial - I said it was less time-consuming in the practice of running h2g2. But please bear in mind I'm only speaking as someone who works on the site.

As I said - we can't possibly keep track of every single dispute on the site or take the trouble to be preferential to the 'tribe.' The bulk of h2g2 moderation decisions are dealt with via a system that doesn't identify the person who posted them, or the history of the thread. Sorry if you don't like this, but that's the way it is.

Thanks,

Natalie

I included why it was not less time consuming to be impartial since it requires checking into the facts around a case and whether or not the complaint has been made impartially in the first place. Impartiality does take more time. Your failure to understand this is further proof that you take no such steps to be impartial. The moderation system as a process is also inherently biased for the reasons I gave.

While the first level of the moderation system probably does not show the history of the thread (part of the bias therefore) it is not the case that the person complaining isn't identified nor that posts/pages don't have their owners named. Even if this data is concealed from the first level moderators (who might not even care) it is available to the staff when they are acting as moderators or at the referral stage.

Hello SEF,

You may have included why it wasn't more time-consuming to be impartial but you said that I said it was easier to be impartial. There is a difference.

To reiterate - in running h2g2 we find it less time-consuming to be as impartial and fair as possible as far as the system allows. (As I said earlier, we are human beings, not computers, dealing with issues that are not black-and-white - and so regrettably we can't always resolve these matters to the satisfaction of all). You might not percieve it this way, but we, the people who run the site, offer our humble opinion that this is actually the case.

Thanks,

Natalie

No, Natalie you are wrong again. I stated you were wrong before but I did not say that you had said it was easier to be impartial. I followed up my statement that you were wrong with an explanation of why you were wrong. That explanation included refuting your assertion that it took less time to be impartial.

Note however that you did imply it was easier to be impartial by incorrectly asserting that it could be done at all without keeping track of personal relationships (not just disputes). It may indeed be superficially more efficient to look narrowly at each complaint but it is not more impartial to do so and you create or store up trouble where many other people can see you being wrong. It is the context which matters and this isn't just about yikesing but about all situations where the staff weigh in on the wrong side because of their own partiality and that of those people doing the complaining.

In PR it can occur when people don't dare to criticise the bad work of some people even constructively because they routinely object and have effectively been given a protected status by all those in the know - leading to someone who doesn't know this specific, unfair, counter-productive and unwritten rule being attacked instead. Also in PR you have people over-reacting to something because of their own religious bias (or equivalent) - even when that may not be what they are ostensibly complaining about at all. More examples are of people reacting differently to different people putting the same sort of thing into PR depending on whether they already know and like the person, dislike the person or are simply in a bad mood themselves that day.

In the case of banning people or pre-moderating them, the process seems very partial indeed. Some people can be banned on no evidence at all. Others are banned or put on pre-moderation for offences committed much more by other people who are not treated that way and even by the staff. The volunteer groups are just another place where this bias is manifest.

Baboon...
It wont work mate you didnt close it


I unsubscribed to it last night just subscribeing again

Hello SEF,

However much pleasure you get from telling others that they are wrong, you may just have to accept that on our evidence you will never be able to scientifically prove whether it's less time-consuming to be biased or impartial when dealing with moderation on h2g2.

I did stress that my conclusion was my 'humble opinion' - and you are more than welcome to conclude the exact opposite. My experience working on h2g2 tells me that not to endeavour to be as impartial as possible would be counter-productive. But, as I emphasised, we are human beings and there is no empirical measurement of 'fairness,' either. We have taken your points on board though. While we're on the subject though, other Researchers might reasonably conclude that it isn't 'fair' that a member of staff (er...me!) is posting so regularly to one, possibly unrepresentative, individual in this thread.

The reasons for this are that we really do care and that this site, largely because of the continued efforts of the staff to keep it that way, is unusually transparent. I can't think of many sites where users have so much input in the processes and how they are run, or which actually have procedures that give 'offending' users a chance to mend their ways rather than just banning them outright and without explanation. We have far too many Researchers and postings on h2g2 to ever get complete context - even if we could then our judgements would (at the risk of encouraging yet another philosophical/semantic diversion in this thread) be subjective - but we do the best we can to treat everyone fairly.

Thanks,

Natalie