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

It would be worth noting for people who come to the Alt House Rules looking precedents on h2g2. This week shows the clear precedent: never mention the h2g2 editors or staff by name. Debatably some conditions could be added to that rule of thumb, but realistically, the safest thing to do from now on is to never mention h2g2 staff by name.

Ahh, but now the Editors have announced that they will simply ignore personal criticism, it's all cleared up...

clear as mist

I guess it's not really this bad, but it looked like it for awhile. Hell, I remember cracking up a few months back when Mark used that juvenile name that people call him on n2g2, involving an "x" and transposing the "r" from first name to last. If a researcher had written that last week during the zero tolerance special, the researcher would have been suspended.

Oh I agree. At one stage I was going to conclude that criticism of any sort, even of the site, was entirely unwelcome, and never go near it again.

Well, to some extent, any criticism of the site could be called "anti-social." A lot of behavior could be classed "anti-social," but it's not usually a punishable offense until it becomes something heavier like trolling or flaming. But the word "anti-social" came up after Hoovooloo was warned for his XXXX parody post. Not only was it seen as potentially encoded non-English, but the idea of parodying LeKZ's insulting XXXX post was supposedly "anti-social."

I guess we're getting away with stuff here, so things have returned to acceptable tolerances. (Or else they'll boot us when they discover these postings 3-6 months from now. In case I get booted without saying goodbye, it was nice knowing you!)

nice to know you too deidzoeb...

Actually, first use of 'anti-social' was someone who changed their entry to look like it had been removed by the moderators. Quite soon after the BBC takeover, I believe.

But was that person suspended or given a warning due to "anti-social" impersonation of a moderated page? There have been a lot of questionable decisions on moderation, but usually you have to do something serious before getting an Official warning.