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

Hi, Lucinda!
I know that you are still working on this, but I just wanted to say that I think it is a great idea. When I arrived here first I found your Peer Review submission guidelines really helpful, and it looks as if this project will be even more so. Someone may lurk and read all around trying to get a 'feel' for the right approach, and never come across half the things that you cover here. I was quite surprised by the moderation of the Freedom from Faith post you cite, for example, and disappointed to see that the Homophobe blacklist hadn't made it back again since the posts you cite.

Anyway, you give plenty of food for thought, and a lot of help to those of us who like to have clearly defined rules.

Azara

It's very much intended in the same spirit as my submission guidelines, and I do hope it is useful. What I really need is help of course - going through the backlog of the moderation helpdesk is going to be time-consuming, and it'll still miss out on a bunch of useful stuff. Oh well.

Thanks for the encouragement

Good Lord, Lu, you've become the first lawyer of h2g2. I think what you've started here is a virtual law journal of moderation precedents. I took some notes as I read it, but not sure how helpful it will be.

[Before I forget, you mentioned something about reading through old moderation helpdesk postings. Do you have a link to that? I'm not sure how to find it now. But I imagine the discussions are still available even though the helpdesk page is gone, just like the discussions that live on after a guide entry page is censored.]

First note: wow, you really put some time into this.

The only practical suggestion I could think of would be to add "arse" to the list of seemingly naughty words that have not been starred on h2g2. (If the word in quotation marks above appears as a**e, then it will have to go on the other list of naughty words.)

And lastly, just a general suggestion that you mention some of the workarounds for the major problems (like keeping a separate guide entry for URLs when you want to refer to them in conversations). Or you could give a link to another h2g2 page that describes workarounds (*looking away and whistling, deliberately inconspicuous like Spanky in a Little Rascals/Our Gang cartoon*).

Overall, it looks like this page might be helpful to some people. (I see a few examples that I hadn't known about before now.) I love the way you have exact links to related discussion threads. This will make future moderation decisions embarassing if/when they don't match past precedents. Discussions on this page may turn into an unofficial Moderation Helpdesk.

It seems like you've set a high goal, clarifying a set of written rules that will always be open to interpretation. There will always be judges and lawyers to argue laws, and there will always be (from the viewpoint of researchers) questionable judgments on h2g2 based on the Italics' interpretations of the rules. But what you've got here looks like a great job so far.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A519446 - mod help desk (closed)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A516845 - old mod guidelines
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A528103 - more old mod guidelines

Thanks for the advice - I'll deal with it this evening, probably...

Hey, Lucinda! You may not feel like sharing, but I'd definitely be interested in hearing why this one was moderated.


Mikey

Luc, didn't we warn you not to use that long, graphic description of how to perform the Venus Butterfly erotic position, especially that whole inter-species thing. (Seriously, let us know what the transgression was this time.)

It's been referred, so I've heard nothing yet. Of course, this may just be because I recentled fiddled with my email prefs, so it might have dropped down the gap, sadly. If I've not heard anything by COB today, then I'll check what seems to be the problem.

Ho hum. And I didn't want to bring this to the attention of the towers before it was ready - so much for the stealth approach...

Peta came of her own accord to tell me - apparently it's generally fine, but they're checking the links in the footnotes. Peta even said that it was a good entry, which is good news.

Anywho, I'll hold off on making updates till they've checked through it. We apologise for the inconvenience - normal service will be resumed shortly

Lucinda - "We've lost cloaking, captain, we've got to get out of here!"

*bookmark*

Hi, Lucinda!
I'm glad to see that this entry is back up. Keep up the good work!
Azara

There has to be a better way to deal with broken links than hiding the whole page. Why don't they see this as a functionality issue? There's a web section of the company I work for, and they brag about 98% and 99% availability. (I can't remember the exact term they use, but they're talking about less than 1-2% unscheduled downtime.)

If we treated these unnecessary interruptions to service similarly, it would be a shameful percentage of time for h2g2. I know it's hard to complain about free webhosting, but when there are thousands of other sites offering free service that's more reliable, it's not unreasonable to question this crap.

Anyhow, didn't mean to rant again, just stopped in to ask what that word before "asshole" is supposed to be? Good to see the page back up.

> "There has to be a better way to deal with broken links than hiding the whole page"

It's not clear that it was hidden to test the brokenness of the links, Peta just said that they 'needed to be checked'. I asked her what she meant, but sadly the moon was waning, so my powers to force italics to talk to me were weak...

It's the word for 'rectum' - I searched and found a few uses, so assumed it was ok - not true, it seems - and the places it was used have been starred out too. Consistency is a good thing...

You're going to have to give me some better hints. The word for rectum other than "asshole?" I assume it can't be that, because when I read it on your page, it showed

...a**hole, asshole...

Plus on post number 11 of this thread, the word "asshole" is still visible.

axehole?

a******e?

This is too confusing.

Would that be the newly coined 'ace***e,' used to describe ACEs being less than friendly?

it's the UK spelling of asshole, just as 'arse' is the UK spelling of 'ass', refering to an excretory orifice of the homo sapiens species.

Nothing to do with Holy ACEs, who have their own section under 'sticks and stones', along with any Morons who may be Marked out for special treatment...

{am I being obscure yet? }

*sigh* and it's hidden again. I should learn to do updates on monday mornings...

Wow, all this time, I never knew there was a special UK spelling of asshole that fit in the same number of letters. I always understood "arse" as a corruption and euphemism for "ass," like "darn" or "heck" or "Jeez" (=Jesus). It would be ironic if a euphemistic word like "arse" were censored, but the original more potent word was approved. Is this the case with the censored word in question? (It really ought to be moved out of that category on your list, by the way.)

I still don't know what that word could possibly be. Could you workaround the censorship by spelling out only the two letters that are missing from "a**hole"?

"with any Morons who may be Marked out for special treatment..."

No, you're not being too obscure. You're hinting at the Official Petname for Mark on yahoo n2g2 message boards. Some of the names they come up with there, it's like a refreshing visit back to your old elementary school playground. Some of the conversations there should be held in as much esteem as the conversations heard in an elementary schoolyard. Maybe lower esteem.

Actually, Mark has renamed himself "Max Moron", so it seems it's now legit to call him by such a name. It's a good thing - I'd been getting worried with all the 'indispensable' nonsense that they were going to have trouble getting their heads past BBC security - that bit of self-deprecation is nicely reassuring...

The missing letters are 'rse'. That help?

That finally makes sense. Because it doesn't fit into the number of asterisks you left in a**hole.

Let me see if I can test this and figure it out. I'm going to write the words in full and see which ones get censored.

You're saying we can write

1. ass

and

2. asshole

and even

3. arse

but not

4. A******E?

It would be odd if "arse" and "asshole" were acceptable, but the combination was not. If that fourth line is censored, could someone please remove the jar of Marmite being passed around the censors (at whichever level censors decide these things) and let some fresh air into the room?